"Speak" is a single by the heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band Godsmack

Godsmack

Godsmack is an American heavy metal band from Lawrence, Massachusetts, formed in 1995. The band is composed of founder, frontman and songwriter Sully Erna, guitarist Tony Rombola, bassist Robbie Merrill, and drummer Shannon Larkin...

 from their fourth album IV

IV (Godsmack album)

-Track listing:-Godsmack:* Sully Erna - rhythm guitar, vocals, producer* Tony Rombola - lead guitar, backing vocals* Robbie Merrill - bass guitar* Shannon Larkin - drums, percussion-Others:*P. R...

. It reached number one on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart and number ten on the Modern Rock chart.

Song origin

Tony Rombola

Tony Rombola

Tony Rombola is an American musician who has been the lead guitarist for the Boston-based heavy metal band Godsmack since the mid-1990s...

 wrote the music for "Speak". Tony recalls, "While on tour with Metallica

Metallica

Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...

, Robbie, Shannon and I were jamming in the dressing room. Sully Erna

Sully Erna

Salvatore Paul "Sully" Erna , is an American vocalist and primary songwriter for the American heavy metal band, Godsmack. Erna is also a guitarist and drummer, performing these both on albums and during live shows. He has a daughter named Skylar Brooke Erna and an older sister named Maria.-Early...

 popped his head in the room 'cause he really liked the riff we were playin’ and he pretty much wrote the melody and finished the song right then and there.""
"The chorus opened up in a way that I would never have thought to write," says Erna."

Music video

The music video for the song shows people performing stunts on cars, motorcycles, etc. with clips of the band playing.

Erna told MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

.com that he wanted to keep things simple when it came to the video for "Speak":

"No bank-breaking special-effects wizardry — not even a single explosion. We didn't want the clip to correlate in any way with the song's lyrics. We just wanted it to "emphasize power, because we feel it's a powerful song"

The end result, according to Erna, is "basically the white, rock and roll version of the 'bling' video," but instead of using Escalades and pimped-out Mercedes Benzes, "we brought in some awesome muscle cars and a bunch of my buddies from New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

that do these amazing stunts on motorcycles, and it just became about fast cars, hot rods, burnouts, wheelies and rock and roll."

"We hung out for the day, nothing was choreographed. It was really cool. We just got to light up the tires all day long. And as a band, the first half of the day, we got to hang around and watch these people go off on these killer machines and do the most insane stunts we've ever seen live." Erna says.

Speak [Maxi Single]

Speak [Hit Pack]

Chart positions

Chart (2006)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks	1
U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks	10
U.S. Billboard Pop 100	93
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	85

• "Speak" had a six-week run at number one on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.