According to The Pulse Of Radio, GODSMACK drummer Shannon Larkin gave Loudwire an update on the condition of frontman Sully Erna, whose strained vocal cords forced the band to cancel most of its European tour earlier this summer. Asked how Erna's voice was doing, Larkin replied, "He's doing fine and he only needed two weeks until they said that his voice would be completely back to normal and that was three weeks ago. We did a couple fly-in shows last week, just two shows, and he sang great, and everyone was really excited and ready for this tour."

Explaining what happened on the European trek, Larkin continued, "The problem was, at this point we're not spring chickens anymore. The problem was he would have tried to sing the rest of the tour. We were afraid, and he was afraid that it could permanently damage his vocal cords to where his voice would change or he wouldn't be able to hit notes that he hit before. That was probably the biggest bummer of the decade I've been in this band for all four of us to have to come home from a tour."

GODSMACK will hit the road later this month as part of the Rockstar Energy Uproar Festival. They will share the bill with SHINEDOWN, STAIND, PAPA ROACH and others. The jaunt gets underway on August 17 in Kansas.

GODSMACK will also be one of the headliners on the ShipRocked 2012 cruise this year, taking off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida in late November for five days. Larkin said that GODSMACK will perform two completely different shows on the cruise, but has not decided what each one will be.

The drummer added that Erna needed some convincing to do the cruise, explaining, "Yeah, he kept saying, 'I'm not a boat guy.' I said, 'I'm not a boat guy either' . . . We convinced him basically by saying look man, we had a fantastic time, we've already been there and done that, and there wasn't any kind of weirdness on the seas. On those boats it doesn't even feel like you're moving, it's like you're on land, so there's no seasickness or anything like that."