Myles Kennedy became known worldwide as the vocalist of Alter Bridge . Currently with his second solo album recently released and a decade of partnership with Slash and The Conspirators , the musician recalled the beginning of his main band in a recent interview.
The opportunity arose shortly after Creed in 2004. Without Scott Stapp on vocals, Mark Tremonti , Brian Marshall , and Scott "Flip" Phillips were looking for a voice for a new project. When he received the invitation from Tremonti, Kennedy didn't know the guys in the band very well. The only relationship they had was during a tour in 1998, when The Mayfield Four , the singer and musician's first band, opened for Creed for about a month. "But we weren't really that close, I didn't know any of the guys that well. I had a brief interaction with the drummer, 'Flip', and with Mark (...) [when] we bumped into each other at the Hard Rock Hotel diner, and that was it," he told the Long Distance program (via Ultimate Guitar).
The first conversation about the project happened back in 2003, a year before the official announcement of Creed's breakup. “He got in touch and asked if I’d be interested in possibly doing something, and I was really surprised, quite shocked,” Kennedy confesses. “I’m really surprised by our trajectory, and I think they’d probably say the same thing, because it’s the music industry and your chances of establishing a new brand (…) are very small, so it’s been an incredible journey.”
For Kennedy, Alter Bridge's success despite the adverse conditions of the business model lies in the band's work ethic. “I think a lot of it, for us, the reason we have this luxury is that we take songwriting seriously. For us, it's about the songs, we've never had a gimmick, there's nothing [released] where none of us are really involved,” he explained. “We focus on the songs, it's about the songs, and we really love this art of songwriting. And I think maybe that's what helped us find our place, and Mark and I always agreed from the beginning, it was about that balance of melody, a certain concept with riffs, trying to balance that together with a narrative that touches people and is relatable.”
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