Ten years after their first album, Slash, Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators have lost none of their splendor. Thunderous album, rock to perfection, 4 is one of those events full of riffs as we love them so much… And who better than the best-trained guitarist to talk about it?
Find Slash, feat. Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators in concert at the Zénith de Paris on April 29, 2024. Places are available.
This is the first album that you have recorded live with Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, what motivated this decision?
No matter what bands I work with, it’s always seemed crucial to me to record at least the rhythm live. And since I always hated playing with headphones, I would then go into the control room and turn the monitors up to full blast. But I’ve always been itching to play the drums! I quickly understood that sound engineers didn’t like it because it’s a nightmare to mix… But it worked like that in the 60s, so why not anymore? When I first spoke with Dave Cobb, he told me that he also wanted to record live. And I immediately knew he was the right producer for this album!
Is this an experience you will repeat?
Oh, very clearly!
And how much did Dave Cobb and his production style influence 4?
I would say Dave’s style is pretty raw. Just look at his discography! It’s one of the best country albums of the last five years, and what do they have in common? They are all stripped down, raw and deeply human. That’s why I called on him. And when we went into the studio, he didn’t fawn on us. He was just with us while we played, and he helped us a lot, but never intrusive. He just gave us ideas that we hadn’t thought of, to help us solve the problems we might encounter. And we really enjoyed working with him!
How would you define your collaboration with Myles Kennedy?
How can I put it… Myles is someone who is fundamentally musical and his voice releases such a quantity of emotions! No matter what demos I send him, he always manages to find something that sounds really good. And it’s been like that since we started working together in 2010, with Starlight.
In this album, your guitar solos are colossal! How did you design them and integrate them into the songs?
It’s not easy to explain… Usually, I come up with a few ideas and submit them to the group to put some semblance of structure in place. But because of the pandemic, I recorded a lot of demos alone. And the solos always come after the fact. From an arrangement point of view, it’s the simplest, to be honest!
Find this full interview with Slash in the weekly WECB n°71
4, Slash’s new album is available on all streaming platforms. Buy/Listen
