Vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Myles Kennedy (Alter Bridge and Slash and the Conspirators) released his third, and heaviest, solo album, “The Art Of Letting Go” in October 2024. Before release, we sat down with Myles for a chat about the new record, learning to roll with the punches, and how he wouldn’t be here talking to Norway Rock Magazine if it wasn’t for Jeff Buckley.
Text and live photo: Anne-Marie Forker
Photo: Chuck Brueckmann
Hi Myles! I heard your new album today for the first time. I really like the heavier sound. Why the change from your previous two solo records?
It’s a good question. I think a lot of it was born out of necessity. We discovered when we would tour as a three-piece, because I wasn’t able to bring out a massive band in the way I would like to track things, with various layers and whatnot, so we had to reinvent the arrangements which inevitably meant they would become more rock tracks. I was talking with our drum tech and said he really liked the arrangements when you rock them out. I never thought about recording them that way, and I said “Well, what if I just wrote a bunch of songs that would be recorded as they were going to be played live” and that’s really where it came from. I was just thinking about how it worked live and how it would translate.
Where did the inspiration come for the title?
“The Art of Letting Go” is just where I’m at, at this point in life. Just learning how to be. Less reactive and learning to go with the flow and and let go of things that I feel have to be in place in order for me to be happy. I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself for the last six years just to try and evolve and it’s really been profound in as far as how much has helped me in my level of happiness, and also creatively it’s helped me, to get out of my own way, and I feel like this is a new philosophy. It’s not actually a new philosophy, it’s a philosophy that’s been around for thousands of years, but it’s something that I have applied my own life and it’s been very beneficial.
Are you rolling with the punches more? The kind of philosophy to just take it as it comes, but still do your best?
Yeah, I’m just learning and rolling with the punches, because they’re going to come, it’s going to happen and it’s really a question of how do you want to deal with that. I mean, do you want to sit there and obsess about something that happened a minute ago or a day ago. There’s just no point. I call them sticky thoughts. You replay them over and over and all that does is keep you from sleeping and keep you from being present. Life’s too short.
That’s something I’ve tried to do more of myself and wish I had discovered years ago.
Me, too. The time that would have been saved.
One of the songs “Say What You Will” has a video that looked like a lot of fun to make. Was it?
It was the most fun video I’ve ever been a part of. Everybody did a great job and I finally got to play the schoolteacher! The lyrics are pretty intense, so when we were talking about what the video was going to be, we didn’t want it to be super serious, but light-hearted and with a theme that everybody can relate to. You see this young kid who doesn’t fit in trying to find her place, and through her love of music she’s able to find her purpose and I’m a firm believer in that sort of thing.
Yeah, you have that charity work you do with your wife, the Future Song Foundation.
I appreciate you bringing that up. It’s been nine years now and helping kids get instruments and instruction and exposed to music. That’s a passion.
How did you meet and discover your bandmates Zia and Tim?
So Zia (Uddin – drums, percussion) is the person I’ve had the longest relationship with. We actually met when we were kids playing in junior high symphonic band. He was a percussion player. A few years later, in about 1986, we started playing in with a band called Bittersweet. We were just playing hard rock covers. That relationship continued off and on for decades and we were in the Mayfield Four together and got our first major label deal together. He’s like a brother. Tim Tournier has been managing Alter Bridge now for several years and he’s also a fantastic musician. So, when I was trying to figure out who’s going to play bass on the first solo record, I said said, “hey, let’s see what you can see what you can do here”, and he’s done a great job, and he’s a super hard worker. Both of them are showing up today, so I’m excited to get them here and get to work.
Which song came together the fastest, and which took the longest to put together?
That’s a good question. “Eternal Lullaby” came together pretty quick because it was just inspired one afternoon, so that didn’t take too long. I think I might have refined the lyrics here and there. The one that took the longest technically was probably “Miss You When You’re Gone” because I started that one back when I was writing “Year of the Tiger”. I really liked it. I had that intro and the melody, but I needed the right chorus for it. That came about two years later. Finally, the lyric was the issue because I just couldn’t find something that resonated with me that I felt would be appropriate for that song and then it finally happened in June 2022. So I think, all in all, that song took about five years before all the pieces fell into place.
But you did a hell of a lot in between. “How The Story Ends” has a haunting melody. Why did you end the album with that track?
That was the last song completed for the record. It almost didn’t make the record because when we got into the studio, everything else was done. I had a few other songs that I wasn’t as excited about, so I played a few ideas that I had on my laptop for our producer and he really liked the chorus, but it had totally different verse and everything. So then I switched that around and found the appropriate parts and made it more haunting. It has a certain vibe to it and the lyric was inspired by a film I’d recently seen that was called “Speak No Evil”, a Danish film in. It’s a horror film and very disturbing, but it’s about the idea of how you could be civil to the point where you sell yourself short, and you allow yourself to be taken advantage of and that’s something that I need to work on. It’s one of those things I need to let go of, trying to always please people. So I felt like it was appropriate, given the title of the record.
I know that feeling. The guitar solo in that song is beautiful. Which guitar did you use?
Thank you. That’s my PRS signature guitar. All the solos were played with this guitar that I did 80-90 per cent of the record with, just right out of the box, you know? I love that guitar. And then there was a slide solo I played on the song “Dead to Rights”, which was a different PRS with higher action so I could play the slide.
What makes your signature guitar distinctive? What kind of features does it have?
I love T style guitars. I always have. I wanted something that would have those hallmarks of a T style, the aesthetic of it, like the neck dimensions from the way they were made back in the early 50s. It’s just something that feels right. Any one of those guitars that I would pick up, there’s just something about the way the neck would sit in my hand that always felt perfect. I wanted to emulate that. The pickup was the perfect combination of all those characteristics that those old T styles had but with a modern element to remove the hum so they’re not as noisy, so they work in high gain situations but still have that character of a single coil. Having that guitar in the arsenal and having those to use as a tool has really inspired me to want to play all the time and also inspired this record. I think that’s another reason this record is a little more aggressive, a little heavier and more riff based just because it’s hard not to write riffs on that guitar. It’s foundational.
What was your first guitar?
My very first guitar was acoustic. It was just this cheap classical nylon string guitar. That was my biological father’s before he passed away. I found that in a closet and started noodling on that, but I really wanted an electric. So, I saved up for about nine months and I had to clean horse manure. My stepdad would give me a dollar for every stall I cleaned. I cleaned a lot of stalls and saved up for this Ibanez. It’s called a DT250 and it was very metal looking guitar. That ended up getting stolen. Someone stole it because I left it at the high school and went to the David Lee Roth concert with my buddy, and then came back to school the next day and it was gone.
You really earned that guitar!
To this day when I think of that guitar, I smell horse manure.
[laughs] I can imagine! I know a big vocal influence on you was Jeff Buckley, and the album “Grace” turned 30 only last month. I wondered if you would like to say what Jeff and that album meant to you?
I think Bono called him a “pure drop”, which I think is very appropriate, especially given what was happening at the time in the mid-90s. There was an incredible musical movement going on. It was great, everything that happened in Seattle. Not to take anything away from it, but there were also a lot of things going on where it was almost not cool to be musically proficient. I think that what Jeff reminded everybody was that it still works if you infuse musicality with a certain honesty and a certain fire. It still works and it will always work. That record was life-changing for me. I remember getting it. I didn’t really know a whole lot about him and I was working at a music store at the time. If you sold this brand of strings and sold enough of them, you could get these little stickers. Once you had enough of them, you could get a free record, so “Grace” was the record I got and I remember it showed up in December of 1994 and I remember putting the CD in my desk player and just being completely mesmerised. I didn’t know what I was hearing. When it got to “Hallelujah”, I was just like “Holy mackerel, what?! This guy’s from another planet!” So fast forward, five months later, he came to Seattle to a small 500 seat venue and I drove five hours to see him, and he totally changed my life. Still to this day, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything quite so spiritual, musically. It was outstanding.
Wow. I saw your performance online of “Hallelujah”. It was stunning. I think you’re very brave to cover that.
Well, you know, I really struggled, I’ve got to be totally honest with you. We had his guitar, we had a friend who had that guitar and showed up in Paris and we were playing the Olympia, and him and my manager were like, “You should play it. You should play “Hallelujah”, tonight”. I’m like “No, absolutely, not! I’m not Jeff. That’s sacred ground. I’m not. I’m not doing that!” And as the set got close, and I just sat with that guitar and was noodling around, something just spoke to me and I just dove in headfirst to do it. Don’t overthink it, a tribute to this guy who you would not be here if it wasn’t for him and that is an absolute fact. If it was not for Jeff, I would not be talking with you right now. I have no question about that. He was that important to me. I appreciate hearing that, thank you.
Have any guitarists struck a chord with you, more than others?
A ton of guys. Obviously hearing Eddie Van Halen for the first time as a kid, that’s what made me want to play. Jimmy Page also, those were two different phases. A few years later I heard this Whitesnake record and John Sykes’ guitar playing. I love his playing. Gary Moore, because you can hear his influence on Sykes. I tend to lean more towards the blues guys. I also love great jazz players and modern contemporary jazz players. A guy named Julian Lodge, who I love. He’s outstanding.
Now you have three solo albums as well as the material from Alter Bridge, your work with Slash and more. You have a tour coming up. How are you going to balance the setlist between all that?
It’s going to be pulling heavily from the solo stuff. We’ve got plenty to fill up the set, maybe do a cover or something, but we will also be doing one Mayfield Four song, maybe one we haven’t done before. We’ll find out tomorrow when we start rehearsals again. So we’ll see. We will definitely be playing the new single. Being a three piece, I’ve been messing around with singing some melodies instead of having a guitar player. That will be interesting on some of these songs.
Are you going to take a power trio approach to the live set?
Yeah. I love doing it as a power trio because it truly is trial by fire every night. When you’re playing with another guitar player, when you’ve got two guitars, there’s a lot of room for mistakes and you’re not as exposed. With this, I’m out there on a limb every night because I’m singing at the same time so it’s super challenging but I like that.
You’re coming to Oslo and it’s sold out already. See you there!
Oh, wonderful. That’s amazing. We can’t wait to see you there.
(Interview originally published in Norway Rock Magazine 2024 #4)
