Myles Kennedy

MYLES KENNEDY IS BEST KNOWN AS A SINGER, FOR BOTH ALTER BRIDGE AND GUNS N’ ROSES LEGEND SLASH. BUT ON HIS NEW SOLO ALBUM, HE’S TAKING THE SPOTLIGHT AS A GUITARIST.

He’s one of the great rock voices of this generation, but Myles Kennedy sees himself primarily as a guitarist. With Slash and the Conspirators, he rarely picks up a guitar, leaving those duties to the Cat in the Hat himself, and to rhythm guitarist Frank Sidoris. Meanwhile, in Alter Bridge, Myles takes a decidedly secondary guitar role to Mark Tremonti.

But on his new solo album, The Ides Of March, Myles shows himself to be a gifted and versatile lead guitarist, firing off aggressive solos and memorable slide parts – as well as nods to his guitar hero, country legend Danny Gatton. He tells us about the crossover between playing guitar and singing, and his enviable vintage gear collection.

How was making this record different from working with Alter Bridge or Slash?

When I make a solo record I want it to truly be a solo record. I don’t really collaborate with other songwriters or anything. You come up with a part and think, “Okay, is this any good? Should I spend hours and days or even months trying to watch it grow?” There were a few songs that definitely didn’t make the record, where I listened to the demo like, “Well, that was a waste of time!” Which is the worst feeling in the world.

Was this one a challenge to make during the pandemic?

Well, with [2018’s] Year Of The Tiger, the demos were essentially the acoustic guitar part and the vocal to give you all an idea of what the song is, and then we’ll build the arrangement when we get in the studio together. With this, there wasn’t any way we could get together, so I’d program the drums and play all the instruments, then present it to Elvis [producer Michael ‘Elvis’ Baskette] and Zia [Uddin, drums] and Tim [Tournier, bass]. It was extremely time consuming. Instead of making demos in a few days, it was six months of refining this stuff. That was great though because then when by the time we were in the studio we were just essentially trying to up the demos from a sonic standpoint.

What gear did you use?

The main guitars were a were my 1958 Gibson 335 which has those early PAFs, and then a Telecaster I call The Imposter, which has parts from a ‘52 Tele. When I bought it, I thought it was kind of a hodgepodge. The neck looks like it’s from the ‘60s, but it sounds really good. We think the pickup is original. There’s something about it that almost doesn’t sound like a regular Fender single coil, it’s almost like a P-90. Apparently Doug Fieger, the singer from The Knack, used to own it, so that’s a little bit of history. It’s a great guitar.

And what else did you use?

A lot of acoustic was done with a ‘65 Gibson J-50, my 1945 Martin 000-21, and my Gibson Banner J-45 from 1944. The slide parts were done on a ‘54 Fender lap steel. As far as amps go, a 1958 Fender Deluxe with the 5E3 circuit sound, that was very important. Then we used one of Elvis’, I think it was a Marshall 1974 combo which really complemented the Fender. Amplified Nation makes a really great head that we used for the lap steel, that just has Dumble qualities. I think we used the Diezel Schmidt here and there, which is like an AC30 on steroids.

So most of the gear was older than anyone making the record.

Yeah, absolutely! With Alter Bridge it’s all contemporary stuff, but this kind of record just needed those vintage tones.

Did you consciously try to make it sound different from your other bands?

I try to be aware of that. There were times, especially with the song “Ides Of March” where that could fit in in an Alter Bridge context if you treated the guitars a certain way. I remember Elvis saying, “What do you think if I turn the gain up a little bit?” I was like, “Let’s hold off on that.” Because if we keep it more organic, I feel like we’re staying out of the Alter Bridge lane a little more.

Were you plugging the guitars straight into the amps?

We did use some pedals. The 5E3 circuits on those old Fender amps don’t take pedals very well. I committed an absolute cardinal sin and I had my amp tech friend actually change one of the capacitors to allow it to take pedals. I’ve still got the cap, so we’ll put it back, but I really felt like there were certain pedals that would work well and just push it just enough to create the sound I was hearing in my head. There was a Klon [Centaur] clone, a Fulltone Fulldrive we used on a lot of the record. I had never used one before but I just fell in love with it. The midrange did exactly what I needed it to do, especially with the leads.

You’re known as the second best guitarist in two bands. How do you feel about that?

That’s funny! I grew up on that on that tradition where you had the singer and then the attention shifted to a guitar player, so I’m cool with that. It got to the point where people who knew me as a guitar player kept saying, “When are you going to stop screwing around? You have a whole skill set that most people don’t even know.” Even Tremonti said to me once, “It’s a shame, because I see all the time you’ve put into developing something and it just sits dormant.” Solo records are just a chance to let that out and enjoy it, because there’s very little that I enjoy as much as playing lead guitar. Singing is wonderful, but there’s something very cathartic and zen about playing lead guitar.

Does being a singer influence how you approach your lead playing?

It definitely does. I come from more of the David Gilmour school of guitar playing, where it’s all about the melody. It’s about being able to sing it. I’m not into just cramming as many ideas into a 16-bar middle section as possible. There’s a reason why in “Comfortably Numb” the guitar solo is every bit as important as the actual melody of the vocal, because it’s so melodic it just transcends.

And do you vocalise what you’re gonna play on the guitar?

If you had a mic on me when I’m tracking solos you would probably hear me singing what I’m playing as I’m going. I think that was from watching George Benson as a kid, and a piano player named Oscar Peterson. He’s a jazz piano player, kind of a shredder. He was just so technical and so fast in that realm, but he would sing it all, which I thought was cool. It wasn’t just like running a scale. That guy is hearing every single note he’s playing. I always thought that was really badass.