Page 10 - RockRevoltMagazine-Fall2016

By Brett Tully

Since their inception in 2004 Alter Bridge have progressively climbed the ladder with both critics and fans alike. Already
exploding in Europe the market is prime for a major breakout in North America with their soon to be released fifth album
The Last Hero on October 7th. Lead by guitarist/vocalist Mark Tremonti and Myles Kennedy, the duo that produced Guitarist
Magazine’s greatest solo of all time with their single Blackbird, along with Scott Phillips on drums and bassist Brian
Marshall Alter Bridge has steadily built an audience through relentless touring giving fans one of the best
live experiences today. RockRevolt sat down with lead vocalist Myles Kennedy prior to taking
the stage at Heavy Montreal to discuss their soon to be released record, the impact of the
terrorist attacks on the Bataclan in Paris and progress on his solo record.

Currently on tour with Disturbed, Breaking Benjamin and Saint Asonia
how’s that going?

It’s been really great. Everybody’s cool, there’s been no weirdness
(laughs). You never know sometimes when you do these package tours
but everybody is super cool. Turnouts have been surprising, I think it’s a
testament that people still care about hard rock which is great.

I think these package tours are important because you get different
flavors, possibly giving you exposure to new fans?

Correct. We’ve noticed a little bit. It’s never easy you’ve got to go out
there and work extra hard. You definitely can’t phone it in.

You have a new album, The Last Hero, coming out in October.
October 7th.

Can you take us through the writing process with this album. Being you That’s not your decision I take it?
5th record with Alter Bridge, do you feel that you grow from record to That one wasn’t.
record and if so what would that growth be on The Last Hero?

Yeah, I think the amount of time we’ve been together, we’ve been
together twelve years now, what it’s aloud us is to develop a certain
amount of trust as far as writing goes. There’s a filter process, if Mark
brings something in or if I bring something in I think you learn to trust
each other’s instincts and opinions because you’ve seen whether or not
it works over the past decade. There’s definitely an evolution there and
I think that it shows musically, hopefully it does. I think in some ways
it was an interesting record because when we first started putting the
record together I don’t think I personally had any clue of where it was
going to end up. I think the producer felt the same way, I think Elvis
was like I’m not sure where you guys are going with this. We would go
in and do the arrangement sessions with the band and Elvis then Mark
and I would back later that night and pull out our ideas and put things
together. By the end of the process it really came together nicely. I
would say about two weeks in is when we started firing on all cylinders.
Mark and I hadn’t been working together, I don’t know, two or three
years at that point so it kind of took a while to dust off the cob webs.
Once they were dusted off we were rolling.

So is that typical, you and Mark starting things off then you bring Scott Takes us back to the history of the band and how you hooked up with
and Brian in after? them.

Mark and I actually started the process via Skype in December. He 2003, about Thanksgiving time I got a call from Mark and he asked if
would play me some of the ideas he had and I would say I’ve got these I would be interested in working together and from there we arranged
ideas. That’s how we write, it’s not like someone brings in an entire to meet in about a month in Orlando, I think January 2nd was the first
completed song, it’s I have a riff or a bridge or a chorus, does this go with official day of rehearsal. Initially we didn’t have a lot of time with the
your verse. It’s kind of like making a puzzle, a musical puzzle. first record, he had most of that record written. There were certain songs
I came in and helped fill things out vocally, I didn’t play any guitar. That
The first single, “Show Me A Leader,” you recently released it to radio and was a very quick process. We toured that for quite a while. Then by
you cut out the intro and with it it’s only five minutes long. It’s a killer Blackbird (their second album) we started to find our sound and that
intro, why cut it out and who decides that? was really kind of the beginning in a lot of ways for the Alter Bridge we
know today. You know it’s funny I tell that story, I don’t want it to sound
You know the powers that be say it’s a little long for the radio and we’re like I’m taking away from that first record because Mark did a great job,
like it sets up and really builds the song. It’s funny we put out the edited clearly the guy is brilliant when it comes to writing riffs and he’s great
version first and the fans weren’t having it. They were like this is with melodies. It was just in terms of encapsulating what Alter Bridge is
weird, what’s this all about. The next day we made sure we got the about. Blackbird captures that.
intro out there.