SHINEDOWN may not be the biggest name on the UK rock scene – but if they’ve got anything to do with it they soon will be.

The Floridian four piece have already created rock history after every single one of the 10 singles they released in the US made it into the top five of the rock tracks chart – a feat never done before.

Now with American domination complete they’re out to convert the rest of the world to their hard rock ways, starting with Manchester.

Talking to Fresh from Pensacola, Florida, frontman Brent Smith said he couldn’t wait to get back to the UK following an emotional debut at Download Festival last June.

He said: “We’re coming back to bigger venues which is a beautiful sight to see.

“It’s overwhelming actually. We waited for an enormous amount of time to get opportunity to come to the UK. It’s a big deal to us, we want it more than anything in the world and now we’ve finally got the chance on this record.

“Download was probably in the top five shows of my career. I remember walking on stage and seeing a giant British flag and in the centre in big bold writing it said Shinedown. I was really honoured to see that.”

Smith said the love shown to Shinedown by UK fans this year had been incredible.

“To see ticket sales are going up and venues are being upgraded is amazing.

“I think Glasgow has been changed four times and Manchester twice.

“We love it in the UK and we always knew we would.”

Seeing Shinedown live and hearing Smith’s powerful voice and intense crowd interaction makes you realise that despite all the success at home they’re taking nothing for granted.

At their Birmingham Barfly gig earlier this year Smith told the crowd it had taken too long for them to get their own headline tour overseas.

And speaking to Fresh he admitted he was driven by the apathy of the American music press and had been determined to break Europe with their latest record, The Sound of Madness.

He said: “I think there was some politics involved and the label wanted to focus solely in our own country for the first two albums, but on this record we definitely said to them ‘we really worked hard on this one because we wanted the rest of the world to know who we were, can we please have a shot at going over there?’ and they didn’t hesitate.

“It was very much a conscious effort.

“It’s great because when we were first starting out some people in the music industry here said we’d be lucky to sell 10,000 records, because quite frankly we don’t think you’re very good.

“Five million records later those people don’t work in the industry anymore.

“We don’t like to be bullied and we’re the type of band that fights back.

“The really great thing about the UK is you actually care about what this band does and what we’re about and the history of the band.

“I always say, we only have one boss and it happens to be everybody in the audience.”

Shinedown play Manchester Academy on November 4 and Sheffield Leadmill on November 9.