So far, Myles Kennedy’s solo albums have not just been different from what he does with Alter Bridge and Slash; they have also been significantly different from each other. His new album ‘The Art of Letting Go’ is no different. Kennedy explains the reasons behind those differences.

“Where ‘The Ides of March’ (2021) had more of the acoustic side of things at times, and there were also tinges of country and southern rock and whatnot, this record is just a full-on rock ‘n’ roll record. It was definitely informed by classic rock, but with a modern slant. Classic rock recorded with Diezel Pauls instead of old Marshalls and Oranges. So I think that is kind of what ushers it into more of a contemporary sound.

Other than a handful of moments – ‘Eternal Lullaby’ is a ballad that’s more acoustic – it’s all about the riff. You kind of live and die by the riff. That was the main difference between that and ‘Ides’. On ‘Ides’, I was still afraid to commit to riffs. And if I was going to do anything, it was going to be a repetitive bluesy thing, and I would use the upper register more.

Like ‘Get Along’, the opening track on ‘The Ides of March’, it’s almost more Gary Clark Jr. than whatever some of these riffs on ‘The Art of Letting Go’ are, where they’re more bombastic, in a lower register, and they’ve got that thump to them. I think ‘Ides’ was a nice bridge between where ‘Year of the Tiger’ (2018) started and where this is right now.”

Like an Appendage

“Other than the acoustic number, all songs were conceived on electric guitars. That was when I got my signature guitar from PRS. We spent roughly two years designing that thing, and once that was finished, I just didn’t want to put it down. It’s like an appendage at this point. I would just sit there with my little practice amp, in hotel rooms, and just write riffs all day.

There is something about those pick-ups, because they have such a single-coil sound, that made me want to play in a more classic rock sense. I was intentionally trying to keep it more blues-based than Alter Bridge. The notes that I’m choosing are from the pentatonic scale, from the blues scale, mixolydian at times. And with Alter Bridge, it’s more modal, right? Fifth degree of harmonic minor, Phrygian, and all that. But I’m not doing that so much here. It’s good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll with a blues scale.

Surprisingly, on the last Alter Bridge record (‘Pawns & Kings’, 2022), this is also what I use. And it worked really well, because it’s got a hum-cancelling pick-up. It’s got the sonic characteristics of a single-coil. All my tracks were done with that. It works. I just turned up the gain a little more.

I know it sounds like a sales pitch, but I swear: all my stuff was in different parts of the country, and a new PRS showed up – and they’re not custom shop, they’re right off the line – and there’s this black one I pulled out of the box, plugged it in, put my D’Addario strings on there, and I was like: well, this is what we’re recording the whole record with. I didn’t really have any interest in playing anything else.”

Only a Three-Piece

This simple set-up also makes the translation from the studio to live a little easier. “Yeah, it’s great”, Kennedy smiles. “Because what I used, including the amp, which was just my Diezel Paul, is just such an easy chain to recreate live. Whereas what I did with ‘Ides’; I’m not going to take out a ’58 Fender Deluxe amp. That’s just not going to happen. This is very simple: it’s just the guitar into a few pedals, into the Paul, through a Diezel cabinet with some Creambacks, and that’s going to be easy to take out on the road.”

In terms of songwriting and arrangements, ‘The Art of Letting Go’ is also geared towards the live performances. “That was intentional”, Kennedy nods. “I didn’t want to go into the studio and start adding all these textures and other instruments. I wanted it to be recorded as it was going to be performed. As opposed to the other records, where we got together and it was: ah man, it’s only a three-piece, and I tracked this lap steel here, I played this banjo there, how are we going to do this?

We would just make it louder, and have a little more oomph to the way I was playing guitar. And what I mean by that: oomph is synonymous with turning up the gain, haha! I just wanted to make a record where we didn’t have to do that. What you hear documented now is pretty close to how it will be live.”

Messing with Things

The temptation to add textures was still there, though. “Absolutely!”, he laughs. “You know how it is. You get into the studio, and you’re like: I hear this other part, and that would sound really great. There were a few moments like that. We have the song ‘Miss You When You’re Gone’. In the chorus, Elvis (producer Michael ‘Elvis’ Baskette) said: you know, to lift the chorus up a little bit, you should maybe put an Edge-style guitar part in, let’s tuck that in.

We tucked it in far enough as to where it’s not like a main feature. I’m cool with that. I just don’t want it to be so that people are going to hear it and go: man, this just sounds empty without that guitar part.

There is one song I’m really concerned about how I’m going to recreate it though, which is the second single we released, ‘Nothing More to Gain’. There is a melody that was clearly an overdub in the studio. It needed that melody. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to pull that off just being one guitar player. Maybe I’ll sing the melody that I played on guitar instead. That’s going to take some practice, to say the least.

I do enjoy messing with things a little bit. Given my jazz background in improvisation, that’s one thing I really look forward to in some of these songs. There’s a song called ‘Behind the Veil’, and I look forward to stretching that solo out. I’m happy with how the solo turned out, and I’ll definitely play it live, but who’s to say I won’t extend it for five minutes? Just kind of go with the flow, and see what happens. I love that.”

Guitar Jollies

“For me, the feel is paramount, versus having everything be set a certain way. I just like to fly by the seat of my pants. It’s just kind of in my DNA at this point. It keeps it exciting for me. It makes me look forward to playing when I know that that’s coming. Even if there’s just a little bit of it. On the most recent run with Alter Bridge, instead of me singing ‘Burn It Down’, a song off our first record, Mark (Tremonti, guitarist) would sing it. And then instead of him playing the solo at the end, I would play it.

Every night, I would just improvise a solo. I’ve never played the same solo twice. And to be totally honest with you, it’s like the highlight of the night for me, because it gives me something to look forward to where I know I’m going to be flying by the seat of my pants. And I may land on my feet some nights, and other nights won’t be as good. My guitar tech and our monitor engineer told me after the fact that they would judge each solo, so it even makes it fun for the crew, haha!

I really do love the guitar. But I understand that if you play in a band with guys like Slash and Mark, there’s going to be that thing where people are just used to seeing kind of the traditional thing: you’ve got the singer, and you’ve got the lead guitar player. What I appreciate about Mark is that he sees how much time I put into playing the guitar throughout my career, and he’s always nurtured the idea of: play more! That’s how I feel about his vocals: sing more! You don’t want to be in a situation where you can’t express yourself.

Recently, I did an interview, and the person asked me who played the solos on my record. To this day, there are still people who don’t know I play guitar on Alter Bridge records. But do I want to be the exclusive lead guitar player in Alter Bridge? No! That’s just not what the people want. But part of the reason why I want to make these solo record is to get all my guitar jollies out of my system.”

A Delicate Dance

So Kennedy doesn’t get nervous when he doesn’t know what to expect. That does not mean he doesn’t get nervous at all: “When I really was most nervous was a few years ago, when we played in Paris, and we had a friend there who had Jeff Buckley’s Telecaster, before he ended up selling it. It was at the Olympia, where Jeff Buckley recorded a really great live record.

I wasn’t going to do it, but last-minute, they kind of convinced me to sing and play ‘Hallelujah’ with that guitar. If you want to talk about nerves… Being in that room, holding his guitar, playing that song… But you know, I’ve got to say, I’m glad I did it. It ended up being something that I won’t forget. But there definitely was a bit of gravity to that set of circumstances. Clearly.

You’re trying to pay tribute to somebody. But it’s a delicate dance. You don’t want to screw up, but also, you want to tread lightly. His legacy is so important to so many of us. And that’s why I didn’t really feel comfortable doing that initially. It was literally like half an hour before we were supposed to play when somebody said something, and it changed my mind.”

Holding Down the Fort

Despite having only one guitar to battle against in the sonic spectrum, Kennedy emphasizes that singing his solo material is in fact more difficult. “It’s easier to cut, in that it’s not as loud”, he says. “But where it’s challenging when you’re the only guitar player and the only singer is that you really have to be cognizant of both parts. My problem is that sometimes I end up focusing on my vocals so much that I’ll forget what my right hand and left hand are doing.

Sometimes I kind of need to rein it in, and remember: you’re holding down the fort with your rhythm guitar parts here. You’ve got to think about that as well. And that’s where I think practice comes in, where it’s very repetitive. Just do it over and over.

When I finish this press run in a few days, I’ll go home, and for the next four weeks, I’ll be in my studio, just going over the set every single day. Just so that when I get on stage, I don’t have to think about it. Because when I have to think about it, there’s going to be some trainwrecks, haha!”

True to the Melody

As a form of vocal preservation, Kennedy switched to a slightly different tone than on the recordings. “The way I sing in the studio, I’ll sing from the throat and from the chest more, because it’s more pleasing to the ear”, he explains. “If I were to do that approach playing live night after night, my voice just wouldn’t hold up. And then I would start getting pitchy.

So I basically learned these vocal tricks from my old vocal coach, which is to get a little more nasal in your balance. He said: this is going to make it so that you can survive out there. You can still hit the notes, and you’ll still have a voice in your mid-fifties. But if you try and gun it every night like you do in the studio, odds are you’re going to have a really tough time out there. Especially as you get older.

So yeah, it’s a way of adapting, but still be able to be true to the melody. It’s basically using my head voice more. I talked with Elvis about this: why don’t we just track it that way? But he’s really adamant: he just likes the way the chest voice sits in the mix. And I get that. That’s why he’s a producer, haha!

Also, I trust him. I’ve been in situations where the guy behind the glass is someone you’re just getting to know, and then you find out: oh man, this is going to be tough! This person doesn’t understand how my voice works. Elvis knows how to get the best out of me. He doesn’t work my voice too hard to the point where my voice is shot and I can’t be effective. He knows when to stop and take a break. I’m super grateful we found that guy.”

Streamlined and Simple

“For this record, I had a J. Rockett Chicken Soup pedal. I used that on ‘The Ides of March’ all over the place. It’s an overdrive that’s great for T-style guitars. It has a really nice thing going on in the upper mids that helps it cut. For this record, I’d occasionally use it on solos.

The sound on the beginning of ‘Say What You Will’, the main riff part on ‘The Art of Letting Go’, and a few other songs, that’s the Mythos Pedals Argo. It’s just amazing. And it’s not expensive. My friends at Chicago Music Exchange turned me on to it. I went in there a few years ago, I told them the sound I wanted, and they said: this is what you want. That’s been really important in the chain.

I’m going to have to add a few pedals for live. I’ll probably use one of those MXR Carbon Copy delay pedals, just to give it a little bit of vibe, to not feel so naked. And then we’ll see. I’ve still got to kind of tinker around with my live set.

But I’m only using one amp. I don’t really want to take a bunch of amps with me. I really want this to be very streamlined, very simple. The less stuff I can break, the better. I’m still using old school vacuum tubes. For this classic rock thing we’re doing here, you need that natural tube compression. Whatever the analog is bringing to the party seems to work a little better.

The Diezel Paul is just the right size, and it expresses what I need it to. It works really well with the signature guitar. Some guitars and some amps work really well together, other combinations just don’t. That’s the beauty of it.”

Expensive Chords

Kennedy alluded to his background in jazz and improvisation earlier. “I got into jazz toward the end of my teens”, he explains. “And then I studied jazz. I taught jazz and played jazz, though it was more fusion, to be honest. I was big into Frank Gambale and Mike Stern. I love that stuff. So yeah, I spent a lot of time in that world, and it has been great.

It really helped inform me for the rock stuff. There are things I’d pull from that, and bring it into the rock idiom. Some of those harmonic things, some of the expensive chords… I don’t do that as much in Alter Bridge, but on my solo stuff, I occasionally go: I’m going to put some expensive chords here that I learned from jazz.

Jazz is an amazing artform. All the rock guys I grew up with, once we discovered jazz, we were impressed at how advanced an artform it was. A lot of times, people just don’t know. They think it’s for old people, or they think it’s kind of stuffy. But to me, it just unlocked so many options where I could mix the jazz language with the rock language.”