I got a chance to catch Godsmack a couple years back when they were doing the acoustic tours. The venue held less than 500 so you could hear them talk all the way in the back so they took the opportunity to answer questions. One of the things they did was explain each song before playing it. "Voodoo" and "Serenity" were the only two songs he wrote that had no personal meaning whatsoever. Somebody yelled "Voodoo is about heroin addiction isn't it?" and Sully laughed and said "No, no, no, no, f*** no. It's about the movie 'The Serpent and The Rainbow' 100%. We all love that movie and I wrote the song while watching it so if you do the whole Pink Floyd-Wizard of Oz thing with Voodoo and that movie, the song explains its self to what is going on with the film.". He then explained outside of a drinking problem years ago, he never used heroin so he would have no idea how to write a song of its powerful addiction (even his recent autobiography confirms he has never used heroin).
The bands name, according to Sully, was a story about making fun of a friend years ago with a cold sore or something on their lip. The next day, he woke up with one and somebody commented "It looks like God smacked you in the face for making fun of the other guy". But Robbie Merrill said he liked the name because of the Alice in Chains song "God Smack". But they both agreed the bands name wasn't about drugs, Satan, or anything else.
I got a chance to catch Godsmack a couple years back when they were doing the acoustic tours. The venue held less than 500 so you could hear them talk all the way in the back so they took the opportunity to answer questions. One of the things they did was explain each song before playing it. "Voodoo" and "Serenity" were the only two songs he wrote that had no personal meaning whatsoever. Somebody yelled "Voodoo is about heroin addiction isn't it?" and Sully laughed and said "No, no, no, no, f*** no. It's about the movie 'The Serpent and The Rainbow' 100%. We all love that movie and I wrote the song while watching it so if you do the whole Pink Floyd-Wizard of Oz thing with Voodoo and that movie, the song explains its self to what is going on with the film.". He then explained outside of a drinking problem years ago, he never used heroin so he would have no idea how to write a song of its powerful addiction (even his recent autobiography confirms he has never used heroin). The bands name, according to Sully, was a story about making fun of a friend years ago with a cold sore or something on their lip. The next day, he woke up with one and somebody commented "It looks like God smacked you in the face for making fun of the other guy". But Robbie Merrill said he liked the name because of the Alice in Chains song "God Smack". But they both agreed the bands name wasn't about drugs, Satan, or anything else.