Godsmack frontman Sully Erna discussed his new documentary during a recent podcast appearance. I Stand Alone: The Sully Erna Story was released last month. It's currently available to stream on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.
"It's been six years in the making," Erna said during an interview for the Mistress Carrie Podcast transcribed by Blabbermouth.
"I think it's a story about perseverance," the frontman said of the film that covers the first 30 years of his life.
The singer helped to write and produce the film about the early years of his life in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a deindustrialized former mill town about an hour north of Boston. It's based on his 2007 memoir The Paths We Choose. The movie ends when Erna and Godsmack get signed to a record label.
"I think it's a story about perseverance," the frontman said. "It's about one boy's journey growing up in some very challenging times in a very challenging city and going off through those obstacles to try to survive and then make something of yourself, and music really became the thread that saved my life so many times and got me to where I needed to be in life and with my career."
Erna was intent on reenacting several specific scenes from his life, which is part of why the film took so long to make.
"We didn't have cameras on our cell phones and accessibility to cameras in general (back then)," he said. "A lot of those years just don't have footage to support the stories. So we had to really be careful about how we re-enacted these stories and whether you just find stuff online – generic scenes that match the theory of the story – or whether we actually had to shoot that content and make it believable enough so it wasn't cheesy."
Erna grew up in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a deindustrialized former mill town outside of Boston.
The young actors hired for the film were shocked by some of the scenes they had to recreate.
"They couldn't even believe some of the stories when I was directing them: 'Okay, here's the deal. I pulled out a shotgun. I pointed it to this kid's face. This dude came down with me on a knife," Erna said.
The film ends with Godsmack getting signed to a record label.
The actor who played the frontman had zero acting experience before he was hired for the production.
"I liked his look a lot. His hair looked just like mine when I was younger. It was all frizzy and curly and crazy," Erna said. "But he had never acted. So I was, like, 'Ah, man. This is gonna be tough.' But he really stepped up and he just kind of followed great direction and he did a good job."
The documentary was not Erna's first experience with the film industry. Godsmack's biggest track "I Stand Alone" was the lead single off the soundtrack for the 2002 film Scorpion King. The song's music video with clips from the fantasy adventure film has been viewed more than 200 million times on YouTube.
