I'm born and raised in south Louisiana. By and large, everyone I know listens to rock. The problem is they only listen to classic rock, which I'm a huge fan of and until Shinedown had only seen classics live.

But seriously, when someone (like me) comes up to you, someone who has never asked you to listen to a "new" band, someone whose taste in music has always mirrored your own - and that someone says "Listen dude, you've gotta listen to Shinedown. I'm telling you, you'll hear the best effin voice in rock history, and I promise I can find at least 5 songs with lyrics you'll think came from your own soul"... then shouldn't you listen??

Everyone into rock closed off from new music when things changed in the late 90's and it split into different labels like alternative, grunge, etc. And for the most part, I shut off the radio and went to CD's too because holy shit, when you turn on the local rock station and hear things like Creed or the whiny ones... 311 or some kind of number like that, well it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Still, here and there I'll catch something when I give the radio a chance or listen to a friend with a new CD, and that something will be really worth listening to.

Things did kinda go to hell for a while, I'll admit that. But it's been years since they picked back up, and so many people are still boycotting the radio or anything "new".

I played Simple Man for my brother and my dad. Hey we're southern, what southerner doesn't have that song memorized already? I remember the first time I heard Shinedown do it, I was driving from New Orleans to the Gulf and actually pulled over and sat there covered in goosebumps on goosebumps I was so blown away.

My dad was impressed. Good for him. The man has brain damage from 14 years ago and hasn't liked anything new since Metallica.

My brother is the one who pissed me off. His response was "Shinedown sucks and I never liked Lynyrd Skynyrd." Hello?? Shock?? My brother is 30 and one of those so-muscular-and-macho-it-gets-him-in-trouble-and-jail types. For instance, in April he put his ex wife's boyfriend in the hospital like an idiot. I punched the dude. Then I put 2 Shinedown CD's in his hands and said "Just get over yourself and LISTEN. If you can honestly tell me you aren't impressed with a single song, then you can punch me back as hard as you want." He knows I mean it, and I saw that old excitement in his eyes at the thought of knocking little sis on her ass for the first time in over a decade. Hopefully by tomorrow, it will be proved at last that I'm the smarter of the two.

Anyway, I'm rambling because I haven't slept in 4 days. My brother Glenn isn't the only one who has been completely unwilling to listen to even ONE Shinedown song. It's enough to make me want to drive around with the windows down and the music cranked up... very very very slowly with a "THIS IS SHINEDOWN YOU MORON" sign on the side of my car.

How do y'all deal with people like that? How do you get through to stubborn people that they're missing out on the greatest band in at LEAST a decade?