Alter Bridge is back! The hard-rockin’ quartet has exploded back into the consciousness of rock music fans with the impending release of their incendiary and compelling sixth studio album, Walk the Sky, through Napalm Records, on Oct. 18.
Comprised of ¾ of the former members of Creed, bassist Brian Marshall, drummer Scott Phillips and guitarist extraordinaire, alongside one of the most recognizable and lauded hard rock vocalists of our era, Myles Kennedy, Alter Bridge has carved out a well-deserved reputation for exceptional musicianship and compositional skills, and for creating songs that are as hard driving as they are eminently memorable. Walk the Sky is an epic addition to their already impressive repertoire, as evidenced by the rabidly positive reaction to the debut single/video for Wouldn’t You Rather.
Most people know that Kennedy has a second pretty important and popular gig, working with Guns ‘N Roses axe slinger Slash on his solo project, dubbed Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. For his part, Mark Tremonti is an in demand guitar clinician and collaborator, and also has his own power metal band, Tremonti, while Phillips and Marshall also have their irons in other musical fires.
Kennedy believes that leaving the Alter Bridge mantle behind for a period of time refreshes him and his bandmates, meaning there is usually an overflowing of energy and cool new ideas when they do decide to get back together to make new music.
“The term I would use is it’s a sonic palate cleanser. For me, even more than the Slash thing was doing my solo record [in 2018] Year of the Tiger, because it was so acoustic based. I was Jonesing to get back in and start playing riffs again and turn up the overdrive and rock out. So, it was a really good palate cleanser for me, especially as a guitar player. With Slash, my function is coming up with melodies and the lyrics and being the frontman without a guitar. That’s a totally different thing from a live standpoint I just have to focus on the vocals primarily. But with Alter Bridge I step back into playing guitar as well, which I really love,” he said, adding that he and Tremonti, as the primary songwriters for the band, began talking about getting back into the studio in the summer of 2018.
“I remember I started writing myself around August. So, once we got our marching orders, Mark and I started trying to create something. We’ve got it kind of down to a science now in terms of figuring out how to do stuff in and around our other projects. Our managers and agents and stuff like that know how to make it work and understand how to make it work, so really, it’s hats off to those guys because they’re the ones that have to juggle everything from a calendar perspective. We’ve usually got things planned out a year or so in advance, so that certainly helps having people who are good with those sorts of logistics.
“Mark and I generally, when we know we’ve got a record coming up we will write for months and months and months to make sure that we’ve got material ready to go when we step back in as a band and with our producer Elvis [Baskette] which is generally in the pre-production stage, about a week or so before we start recording. Mark and I do our best to make sure we’ve got plenty of songs to choose from, or ideas at least, something that is going to trigger the process. The notion of showing up with nothing and just jamming it out doesn’t work for us. With the kind of music we make that’s a difficult endeavour, so we try to be prepared.”
Kennedy is of the view that the concept of the album is definitely just as creatively vital as it’s always been and can’t ever foresee a day when Alter Bridge would not choose to release a collection of songs. In fact, they are one of the few bands that believes the more music the merrier, as they consistently approach 60 minutes of recorded material on albums, including for Walk the Sky.
“I think one of the reasons is just that it’s a tried and true method. But it’s also a sonic snapshot of who you are at that point in time. I think if we were to just release a single every month, I don’t know if it would do that well. And I also don’t know if it would end up having any significance for the audience. ‘Well, this artist is putting out another song’ and it becomes expected, like this drip, drip, drip of material. And it loses, I won’t say relevance, but it becomes expected,” he said.
“So, if you put out 10 to 14 songs or whatever every two years or so, here it is, this is a sonic snapshot of where we are, and then you disappear for a while and put something out a couple years later. I feel like that gives the music more importance at that time. Making albums is something we grew up with and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. That’s the way I feel.
“When I find a record that I love, I just want to sit and listen to it. When it’s just singles, there are songs that come out and I am like, ’oh yeah, that’s cool’ and then I play it a few times and burn out on it because that’s all there is at the time from that artist. But when you have an album, a body of work you can just sit with, not only is it capturing a moment in the band’s time but becomes something significant in your own life. There are albums that I listen to to this day and it takes me back to when I was however many years old and I spun that record over and over. It helps kind of establish where you were in you own life.”
The collection concept of an album allows there to be an overarching theme or message for an album. Not necessarily a concept album as in The Who’s Tommy or 2112 by Rush, but most albums by bands such as Alter Bridge do have some sort of thematic or emotional thread running through them.
“Much like our previous album, The Last Hero, it has moments that touched on a theme, but then you had these offshoots, and it’s the same with this record. I think if there is a theme that runs more often than not on this record it would be the idea of really finding where you fit, from a philosophical standpoint. And I will be speaking for myself, but there was a sense for me that the questions that I had for a long time, I feel like a lot of those questions have been answered. I found my piece of mind in a lot of ways. The term ‘enlightenment’ has come up here and there, but to me that carries a lot of weight. I think it’s just a better understanding of how to navigate life, and the freedom that comes from that,” Kennedy explained.
“And that’s why the title Walk the Sky seemed to fit really well. Even though the title track itself is about a tightrope walker, if you extract that phrase out of the song, it can also reflect this healthy state of mind, this elation that you feel when you’re not constantly burdened by your ego and all the things that tend to be a hindrance as a human. We are at an interesting point. I talk to a lot of people who seem to be at the same point in their journey and it fascinates me. Maybe because of social media and the constant stream of information, a lot of which can kind of be a bummer, people are just throwing their hands up and going, ‘you know what, there’s gotta be something else out there that helps me live a life that is not mired by all this.’ I think there’s something happening, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s a positive thing in that respect.”
The powerful and evocative single Wouldn’t You Rather came late in the writing and recording process and came about at the urging of producer Baskette.
“It was actually born when I was on the road with Slash. I got a call from Elvis our producer and he said, ‘I feel like we have a lot of the boxes ticked, but there’s one box that we still don’t have checked and we need this kind of song, this kind of vibe.’ And I agreed, but I do remember being crestfallen in a way because we had everything ready to go for the album. So, I went back to my laptop and started demoing again and that song just evolved, and it was pretty exciting actually. It was one of those moments as a writer where you can’t wait to play it for the band because it just had an amazing energy to it. I know that it was going to be fun to play live and fun for the fans,” said Kennedy.
“Weirdly, that one was inspired by Joseph Campbell, one of my favourite thinkers. He had a phrase that was kind of his mantra which was follow your bliss. So, that song definitely dives into that concept from a lyrical standpoint.”
Walk the Sky sees Alter Bridge continuing to evolve as musicians and songwriters, but there is little doubt that it is definitively an Alter Bridge album. From the unmistakably soaring, powerhouse vocals of Kennedy to the crunching riffs and uber-catchy melodic hooks, and the intricate rhythms and full-on, high energy and fulsome production, it continues the band’s reputation of seamlessly bridging multiple hard rock and metal genres, thus appealing to a wide and dynamic music loving demographic.
“I don’t know whether it’s a case of getting better or not, I feel like it’s evolving and keeps going in different directions while retaining the hallmarks of what we’re known for as a band. I think that what this record proved to me was that we can continue to tweak things just enough and explore some new sounds, while still ensuring that its Alter Bridge and that we’re not going to alienate our fan base,” he said.
“You want to have those qualities that people know you for. The analogy that I always use is that in the 1980s Coca Cola changed their formula and it was a massive deal and so controversial. I always look at that with any sort of branding or reputation that you’ve established where you don’t want to change the formula too much because you’re going to end up ticking off your fans. Especially if you have been lucky enough to have been in the game, like Alter Bridge has for 15 years, the last thing I want to do personally, after spending all that time building this thing, is come out with a record that alienates people.
“Mark and I are really passionate about the balance between the riffs and the melodies, especially the vocal melodies. I think that’s something we were on the same page about early on – the idea that making sure there was this big sonic quality, a big foundation from a riff standpoint, from a musical standpoint, and then you set the vocal on top of that. But not just the vocal, you have to be very cognizant of the overall melody and I think that has always been a big part of it, in conjunction with having a lyric that is universal, that people can find meaning in their own life, that they can relate to. I think those are kind of the big three for us in terms of our sound. And I don’t know that we’ve intentionally gone out to try and bridge any gaps. I will speak for myself in that I love so many different genres and listen to so many different genres and maybe that comes out on the creative side.”
Alter Bridge is in the midst of a North American tour in support of Walk the Sky, which comes out Oct. 18, including recent dates in Toronto on Sept. 30 and Montreal on Oct. 1, before moving on to shows in Worcester, Massachusetts, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, Chicago and more.
For more information on tour dates and the new album, visit www.alterbridge.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
SHARE THIS POST:
