Zach Myers was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 7, 1983. On “Dead Don’t Die,” from Shinedown’s 2022 album Planet Zero, Brent Smith sings about what it takes to get back up after the kind of blow that ought to finish you. Myers wrote it with his friend in mind. He let Smith hear the song before he told him who it was about.
Myers grew up around the blues players on Beale Street. He signed a record deal as a blues guitarist at 14 and went on the road with his parents along for the ride. By his late teens, he’d already had to decide what to do when a band wasn’t working out. He broke his up and found work as a guitar tech. When Shinedown needed somebody to cover a run of shows on bass, a job where he could turn up and play while somebody else handled the business had real appeal.
The arrangement had an end date. Shinedown’s bass player was coming back, and Myers was due to finish the run in Tampa. As he recalled in a guitarguitar interview, he and Smith were walking to lunch before that last show when the singer told him he wanted him to stay. Myers wondered what job was left for him. Smith had one in mind. Myers could play rhythm guitar, and he could sing. He took the spot while the band was touring Leave a Whisper.
By the time Shinedown made Amaryllis, Smith knew to keep an ear on what Myers played between ideas. Myers told Loudwire that the two were talking about what they might write while his hands wandered over the guitar. Smith interrupted when he heard a phrase he liked. That was the riff they built “Bully” around, and in 2012 it became the first single from the album.
Working as Smith & Myers gave the two a chance to follow those impulses with just a voice and a guitar. The duo released two acoustic EPs of fan-requested covers in 2014. One night on tour, Myers was playing “Losing My Religion” in a dressing room with a capo high on the guitar neck. Smith started singing along, and they found a darker arrangement they kept for their 2020 double album. Myers told Guitar World they’d planned to fill some of that record with unused Shinedown songs. Then they wrote “Bad at Love” on their first day in the studio and decided to keep writing.
Myers held onto one of his own songs well into the sessions for Planet Zero. Smith recalled in Glide Magazine that the band had worked through roughly 25 songs when he mentioned wanting something with a midtempo stomp. Myers pulled out his iPhone and played the demo for “Dead Don’t Die.” Smith and bassist Eric Bass came up with a bridge, and Smith changed a few words.
What stayed was the part that made Smith want to ask where the song came from. Myers had been beside him through his struggles with addiction and had seen what it took for him to keep going. When Smith finally asked, he remembered Myers looking at him and saying, “I wrote it about you.”
