Since Shinedown came on the national scene in 2003 with the CD “Leave a Whisper” the band’s name and Lynyrd Skynyrd have often been prominently paired together.

A couple of reasons for the connection are obvious. Shinedown guitarist Jasin Todd is married to Melody Van Zant, the daughter of Ronnie Van Zant, the original lead singer of Lynyrd Skynyrd, who died in the 1977 plane crash that also claimed the life of Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines.

Shinedown — appearing Tuesday at The Depot in Salt Lake City — also had a hit with an acoustic cover of the Lynyrd Skynyrd song “Simple Man,” a song that wasn’t on the original version of “Leave a Whisper.”

To read some articles about the band, one would think Lynyrd Skynyrd was responsible for Shinedown becoming the latest band from northern Florida to make an impact on the national scene.

“I’ve done so many interviews where people were like, ‘Oh, they got signed because of Skynyrd,’ ” Shinedown singer Brent Smith said in a recent interview.

The fact is, Smith said, the connections to Skynyrd are far more peripheral than some coverage has suggested.

For one thing, Smith and Todd met at a studio in Jacksonville where Todd was working, and it wasn’t until later on that Smith found out about Todd’s relationship with his future wife, Melody.

The cover of “Simple Man,” was hardly a calculated attempt at getting airplay by covering a popular song. Shinedown was asked to play “Simple Man” by a deejay at a Boston radio station, WAAF. The song got posted on the station’s Web site, where listeners downloaded the song some 500,000 times.

“The Skynyrd cover, it wasn’t a planned thing,” Smith said. “We don’t apologize for it. It really helped the band and brought us to another audience.”

Shinedown certainly doesn’t need to apologize for its success — which has continued unabated with the band’s second CD, “Us and Them.”

In fact, the wheels were in motion for Smith to succeed well before there was a Lynyrd Skynyrd connection.

“What basically happened is I was signed to Atlantic with another band,” Smith said. “It was a band that never, ever saw the light of day. It was signed for nine months and then I was dropped and then I was signed two weeks later to a development deal (with Atlantic). I was really given a one-in-a-million (second) shot.”

At the suggestion of Atlantic A&R representative Steve Robertson, Smith relocated to Jacksonville where one by one he met the other future bandmates — Todd, bassist Brad Stewart and drummer Barry Kerch.

From there, the band’s success was built mainly the old-fashioned way — with a combination of two years of heavy-duty touring behind “Leave a Whisper” and a series of singles that all went top five at rock radio.

When Shinedown finally came off the road in spring 2005 after some 400 shows, “Leave a Whisper” had topped 1 million copies sold.

Smith was candid in admitting that as the band’s chief songwriter, he felt considerable pressure to deliver another hit CD with “Us and Them.”

The effort has paid off, as “Us and Them” has kicked out a string of rock radio hits. Shinedown figures to continue enjoying momentum as the group tours this fall with Godsmack.

Smith said fans can expect to hear the hits from “Leave a Whisper” along with a healthy cross-section of songs from “Us and Them”

“We’re trying to pack them in there as much as we can,” he said.

Shinedown

When: Tuesday at 9 p.m.

Where: The Depot, 13 N. 400 West, Salt Lake City

Support act:

Tickets: $16 advance, $18 day of, available at Smith’s Tix locations (800-888-TIXX, www.smithstix.com)

Info: (801) 456-0000, www.depotslc.com