Slash won’t give Myles a break

Guitarist tells Rock Radio his singer will work all year round in 2011 as he discusses his lost decade, not listening to his solo album and not caring about Axl’s GnR

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Singer Myles Kennedy won’t get a break until the end of 2011, says ex-Guns n’Roses guitarist Slash in an exclusive interview with RockAAA’s partner in noise, Rock Radio.

The frontman will split the year between working with Alter Bridge, and recording then touring the guitar icon’s second solo album.

Slash tells Rock DJ Tom Russell: “We toured for eight months and now Alter Bridge are out. They’ll stop in January then we’ll go from January until April. Then Alter Bridge go from April to July, then we’ll go through August to September or October.

“The only one who doesn’t get a break is Myles – but he seems to be fine with it. And Alter Bridge is a different style from what I do; it’s more laid-back and my stuff is more aggressive. So he seems comfortable doing both.”

Slash pays tribute to Kennedy, who was originally called in to guest on a couple of tracks on the guitarist’s solo album, but stayed on to front the touring band – and will now perform all vocals on next year’s release.

“I never plan ahead; I do everything in the moment,” the guitarist says. “Myles came along at the tail-end of the record. I’d heard his name around, looked him up on YouTube and recognised he had an amazing voice. I gave him one of the pieces of music and he wrote this amazing song, Starlight.

“Around the time we were recording Back from Cali I asked him if he wanted to do a tour. When you do a throw-together band like that, you never know what you’re going to get. But I put together the right guys and I’ve been having a blast.”

Slash admits he’s only listened to half of his well-received album: “As soon as something’s finished and I put it out there, I never listen to it again. But at Halloween I was in the car with a bunch of people and they insisted on listening to it. I heard about half of it – it’s pretty good…”

Despite having to deal with questions he knows will never stop being asked, Slash goes into detail about how little he’s bothered by the antics of Axl Rose’s current version of Guns n’Roses.

He explains: “It doesn’t have too negative an effect on the original Guns, so it doesn’t bother me. If everybody was looking at the old Guns and lumping the two together and the history got blurred, then I might have a different opinion.

“In the 90s when Axl presented the band with his desire to have the name, we let it happen in order to keep going. It was an ultimatum – give me the name or we’re not going to finish the tour. So I accepted back then he was going to have the name. It’s no skin off my back.”

In the full interview he discusses Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie, his lost decade, conceiving his son in Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood’s house, Santana, Nazareth and being nominated for two awards at this year’s Classic Rock Roll of Honour event.

An Hour with Slash is broadcast on Rock Radio on Friday, 26 November at 2300GMT and repeated on Sunday, 28 November at 1700GMT. You can listen on FM and DAB in the UK, online at RockRadio.co.uk and via the free Rock Radio smartphone app.