ALTER BRIDGE frontman Myles Kennedy spoke to Germany’s Radio Bob! about his recently completed second solo album. The LP was tracked at Studio Barbarosa in Gotha, Florida with the same team that worked on 2018’s “Year Of The Tiger”, including producer Michael “Elvis” Baskette, engineer Jef Moll, as well as drummer Zia Uddin and bassist Tim Tournier.
Speaking about how the new LP compares to “Year Of The Tiger”, Myles said (see video below): “There’s still the acoustic element there, but there’s a lot more electric guitar, and there’s a lot more solos. I wanted this to be a guitar record.
“My first love, people are discovering, is guitar. I genuinely love the instrument, I love improvising, I love playing leads, and I wanted to have a record that showcased that and allowed me the ability to do more of that.
“The first record, ‘Year Of The Tiger’, was more acoustic-based, and it was more about the narrative of the songs,” Myles added. “Not to say that the narrative is not crucial on this next batch of tunes, but a lot of it is about the guitar, and I wanted to define that on this.”
According to Kennedy, the lyrical themes on his new solo album were inspired by some of the pandemic, civil unrest and charged political rhetoric that the American public has been subjected to in recent months.
“Yeah, it was definitely informed by the world as we know it right now — though not every single song,” he said. “It’s gonna depend on what makes the cut. I recorded 14 songs for it, so depending on what ends up being on the record, a lot of this is touching on the crazy times we’re living in.”
Last month, Kennedy told Terrie Carr of the Morristown, New Jersey radio station 105.5 WDHA that it was a joy to reconnect with Uddin, Tournier and Baskette for the making of the new LP.
“Oh, yeah, it was great,” he said. “It was great, because we actually drove [to the studio in Florida]. So Zia, my drummer, who, we’ve played together for the last 30 years, off and on, since we were in high school. He’s, in my opinion, one of the greatest rock and roll drummers alive; he’s so good, it’s mind-boggling. So we started driving. We left Spokane, with the gear in tow. And then we met Tim about halfway. I think we met somewhere in Tennessee, maybe. Then we after driving to Orlando, we all quarantined. Zia did his drums and then he went home, and then Tim finished up. He hung around for a little while. And then I was there for, I think, seven weeks with Elvis.”
He continued: “It’s a fun environment. We all love each other dearly. I’m serious when I say this: we’re a bunch of middle-aged children. I mean, it’s as if we’ve taken a time machine and we’re in the seventh grade. And the humor is ridiculously silly. I don’t even know how to articulate how ridiculous it gets when you put all of us in a studio together. [Laughs]”
Myles‘s tour in support of “Year Of The Tiger” featured music from the album as well as selections from Myles‘s work with ALTER BRIDGE, THE MAYFIELD FOUR and SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS.
