SLASH Says 'Flying Blind' Album Title Is 'A Great Metaphor' For SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS

In a new interview with LA Lloyd, the nationally syndicated radio host for the "LA Lloyd Rock 30", GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Slash spoke about the upcoming fifth album from SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS, " ", which will arrive worldwide on February 26, 2027 via Gibson Records. Recorded largely live with longtime producer Michael "Elvis" Baskette at Studio Barbarosa in Florida, the 12-track LP captures Slash on guitar and pedal steel, Myles Kennedy on vocals, Todd Kerns on bass, Brent Fitz on drums, and Frank Sidoris on rhythm guitar.

Asked if his songwriting process had changed for "Flying Blind" compared to previous SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS records, Slash said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think what happens is I just write all the time. I'm always making up stuff, and if something catches my ear and it becomes something I think is good enough to share with anybody, let alone Myles, it has to be something that I really dig. And it's not a conscious effort to try and progress in any particular direction or do something specific to the sound or whatever. There's no conscious thing; it's just whatever you come up with. But I think that as you grow as a musician, as the days and months and years go by, you just naturally gravitate towards something that you didn't necessarily do before. So every album is sort of just a step in that journey, that ongoing journey. So I feel pretty confident in saying that THE CONSPIRATORS records don't sound repetitive. They all sound sort of like they're sort of progressing in some way. And especially this one that we're coming out with now is definitely its own entity, compared to the last one and the ones before that. So I feel pretty good about it having a natural forward motion."

Slash also talked about the challenges of making an album with SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS when the bandmembers all involved in various other projects, including GUNS N' ROSES, ALTER BRIDGE, TRIUMPH and MAMMOTH. He said: "Listen… You have to get way out in front of it. We have to definitely plan ahead. So, you're hearing about, okay, the single comes out, 'Oh, these guys are back together,' but this has all been sort of mapped out way beforehand. Because what happens is I've got GUNS N' ROSES, Myles has ALTER BRIDGE. Todd has a myriad of things going on — Todd and Brent both. And then Frank has MAMMOTH. So we have to juggle all that shit around and figure out exactly how we're gonna do stuff. So the way the record was actually made was, 'Here's a window. Can everybody be available from this date to this date?' And then you just take advantage of that time. And one of the reasons this record sounds the way it does is because all the material was sort of written in that window. And then, 'Okay, so the next window where everybody's in town is we're gonna go to record it.' And so we all shacked up over at Elvis's studio for a couple weeks and recorded all the [instrumental] tracks — not the vocals. So then there was another window: 'We'll do all the vocals and the overdubs.' All right, now we have an idea. Well, the record's done. When are we gonna release it? And I had to go to GUNS N' ROSES [and say], 'Listen, for 2027, I need to carve out this time,' and everybody sort of did that, and we all agreed on it. And so that's how this upcoming tour was managed. So, yeah, there's a lot going on."

On the topic of the album's first single, the "Flying Blind" title track, Slash said: "It was just a singular piece of music I made up on the spot and jammed with Todd and Brent on initially, and then put together sort of a loose arrangement and sent it to Myles. And the lyrical content's all his, and it was whatever was going on in his mind at the time. So there you have it. But it's funny because the song, when it was all said and done and we'd written the whole record, I came back to that song saying that that would make a great album title because it is about a specific thing, but it could be about a great many things. And it's actually a great sort of metaphor for this band."

Going into the sessions, Slash gave Baskette two clear instructions: keep the recording as live as possible, and do not overwork the performances afterward.

"Well, Elvis was great," Slash told LA Lloyd. "When the album was mastered, I had to listen to it through the mastering process, and then I didn't listen to it again for a while. But I just listened to it for the first time a couple of days ago, and it sounds really good, and Elvis did an awesome job. A lot of people do like to polish the shit out of their records, and I just don't. And so I said that to him because I wanted him to make sure not to take out sort of the... And we recorded everything live in his living room. So it's something that I wanna keep the imperfections in there. And he did a great job."

During an appearance on the October 12 episode of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", Slash confirmed that SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS' cover of "Feel Like Makin' Love", which originally appeared on the 2025 tribute album "Can't Get Enough: A Tribute To Bad Company", will be included on "Flying Blind".

"Well, we recorded it at the same time, and it's completed, so we figured might as well just put it on there," Slash explained.

"['Feel Like Makin' Love'] is something that we used to — somehow it got improvved into the set at some point. We were playing something, and it was in D, and it was wide open, and I started playing the [main riff], and then we all started jamming it, 'cause everybody knows that song, and it's sort of been around for a while. And then we got asked to contribute to the BAD COMPANY record, and we thought, 'Oh, we'll just do 'Feel Like Makin' Love'.' So it's nice that we actually recorded a version of it that we can play in its entirety live now."

SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS' "Flying Blind" world tour 2027, an extensive international run, will launch in Latin America in April before reaching North America on April 23 and continuing through the United Kingdom and Europe. The North American tour includes two nights at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, as well as performances at New York City's Beacon Theatre, Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, Boston's Citizens House of Blues, Denver's Fillmore Auditorium, and other landmark venues.

Baskette previously produced SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS' "World On Fire" album in 2014 and "Living The Dream" in 2018.

The roots of SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS stretch back to Slash's star-studded, self-titled 2010 solo album, on which Kennedy appeared as one of several guest vocalists. The musical and personal connection that followed quickly developed into a permanent band.