ALTER BRIDGE's MYLES KENNEDY: 'We've Managed To Carve Out A Really Awesome Life Musically For Ourselves'

Impericon recently conducted an interview with ALTER BRIDGE frontman Myles Kennedy. You can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On whether ALTER BRIDGE is a metal band:

Myles: "We have a side to our sound, I guess, that kind of touches on it. It's certainly there in small doses. Are we a full-on metal band? No. I consider us a hard rock band with heavy riffs but with an emphasis on melody. Hopefully, that answers that question."

On the various projects the members of ALTER BRIDGE partake in:

Myles: "We have so many different projects. I think that oftentimes when you see an artist go off and do a different musical project, you might think the other one is gone, but we've managed to carve out a really awesome life musically for ourselves where we can go out and play with different entities and do solo projects, and really, I guess, stretch ourselves creatively, then come back as this band, hopefully having learned something or got something from the previous experience, somehow create something where we've evolved to some degree because of those prior experiences. Yeah, that's an important aspect of this band for sure. We aren't just doing ALTER BRIDGE; we're very busy. I got my solo record; Mark's [Tremonti, guitar] got his solo record. I play with Slash and THE CONSPIRATORS. It's pretty awesome to do it all."

On the meaning behind the ALTER BRIDGE name:

Myles: "'Alter Bridge' is or was, I don't know if it's still there or not, there's a bridge in the Detroit area that is Alter Bridge. That's where Tremonti grew up. It basically was a bridge that separated kind of the dangerous part of town from, I don't really know specifically, but apparently, there was definitely a divide there that this bridge separated. I think it applied to this band when we first started out. Those guys were coming from this well-established band, CREED, selling bazillions of records, into the unknown, which was this little band called ALTER BRIDGE. None of us had any idea 15 years later we'd still be doing it and have a good fortune and having a fanbase and being able to make music. So, it was a big gamble for them. I think that was what it meant."

On whether ALTER BRIDGE is a religious band:

Myles: "No. Those diehard fans know that our third record, 'AB III', definitely questioned a lot of things that kind of pertained to religion and certain doctrines that definitely, I think, answer that question. I could understand why people might think that. If you spelled A-L-T-A-R, like 'ALTAR BRIDGE,' which someone did once, but I know certain guys have their beliefs and I'm sure attend church with their family, but it's not an agenda that we have by any means."

ALTER BRIDGE's new album "Walk The Sky" will be released on October 18 via Napalm Records.

ALTER BRIDGE and SKILLET will embark on a co-headline tour this fall. The "Victorious Sky" trek kicks off on September 22 in Baltimore and runs through October 25 in Orlando. DIRTY HONEY will also appear.