2010.09.13 - The Boston Herald - Forward Slash

Forward Slash

Former GN’R guitarist going great Guns with new singer

By Jed Gottlieb

Slash has lousy luck with lead singers.

When it comes to keeping a top hat precariously balanced on a curly black mop, fortune smiles on Slash, who plays the House of Blues Wednesday. But put the Gibson maestro in a band, and the frontman is bound to go Captain Ahab on the other guys.

After going global with Guns N’ Roses, Slash clashed with Axl Rose over his ego and erratic behavior. Eventually Slash and the rest of the guys quit or were fired (depending on who’s asked).

Slash and fellow GN’R alums Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum regrouped with Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland in Velvet Revolver and the same thing happened. Equally toxic personality conflicts - aided, of course, by addiction and egos - got Weiland fired or he quit (depending on who’s asked).Now Slash, 45, is hoping the third time (not counting the two ex-frontman of Slash’s Snakepit) is a charm with the new singer of his solo project, Myles Kennedy.

“I’m having a really great time with Myles and it’s reconstituted my faith in lead singers,” Slash said with a rattling smoker’s laugh from a tour stop in Chicago. “Making my solo album, I worked with 18 singers who were all fantastic, so I’m not as bitter about the concept of lead singers as I once was.”

On “Slash,” his first post-Snakepit release under his own name, the guitarist teamed with Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, Fergie and others. But it was Alter Bridge’s Kennedy who wound up on tour.

The singer’s name wasn’t new to the top-hatted rocker. Sorum nominated Kennedy to be Velvet Revolver’s frontman before Weiland came into the picture.

“After Scott got, um, after we parted ways with Scott, we gave Myles a call, but he turned down the offer to be in Velvet Revolver because of Alter Bridge, which is very commendable all things considered,” Slash said. “Then, when I was finishing my solo record and had just two songs left that I needed a lead singer for, his name just popped into my head. We’d still never met, but I knew he was approached by Led Zeppelin to fill in for Robert Plant, which is pretty prestigious.”

The two met and recorded the final two tracks for the album. Kennedy’s vocals blew Slash out of the water. Plus, he was on a break from Alter Bridge.

Now they’re on the road together doing songs from “Slash,” Velvet Revolver, Alter Bridge and, yes, GN’R.

“Myles is (expletive) amazing,” Slash said. “It’s very surreal how he handles the stuff he sings. I’m doing GN’R songs I’ve never done solo before, and Myles manages to own them without changing the style or trajectory of the song. Which is a fantastic (expletive) ability.”

So if Kennedy’s so great, why not pull him in for another Velvet Revolver record?

Slash said Velvet Revolver will be looking for a new frontman come October, but it won’t be Kennedy.

“Velvet Revolver will be a 24-hour-a-day project and Kennedy is still committed to Alter Bridge,” he said. “I don’t want to be the guy responsible for breaking up a band. But we’ll find someone. Maybe not somebody known, but some kind of local hero.”