He was born on November 27, 1969, he is a fan favorite and a phenomenal talent not only as a vocalist, so say congratulations to Myles Kennedy
(Photo: Will Ireland)
Here are some facts about one of our favorite musicians:
= His full name is Myles Richard Bass
= He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in northern Idaho.
= At the age of 10, he learned to play the trumpet but very quickly he switched to the guitar. He was heavily influenced by bands like Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder and he would even imitate Jimmy Page's playing style (a surprise awaits him later).
= At the age of 15, Myles worked cleaning horse stables for 9 months to save money and purchase the Ibanez DT250 guitar he so longed for. The story took a painful but also exciting turn when three years later when he was in David Lee Roth show the guitar was stolen from his car. The painful blow was softened by the amazing experience of the show in which Myles managed to catch the pick-up of Steve Vai's guitar which he threw to the audience.
(Photo: Myles Kennedy)
= He attended Spokane Falls Community College and specialized in music theory.
= He began his musical career in 1990 as a lead guitarist in the jazz band Cosmic Dust which released their first (and only with Myles) album "Journey" in 1991. During this time he acquired very high musical skills when he combined complex techniques from jazz and rock, thanks to which he acquired a reputation as a talented guitarist in the local scene.
= Myles left the band right after the release of the album and went on to become a singer and guitarist in the fusion jazz band Citizen Swing. They released two albums, "Cure Me With the Groove" which came out in 1993, and "Deep Down" which came out in 1996 (when on this album Myles wrote, composed, and produced the entire album), that same year they broke up.
= In the same year, the childhood friends, Myles and guitarist Craig Johnson (who played with him on Citizen Swing) decided to form a band with their other childhood friends to fulfill their rock 'n' roll dream. They teamed up with bassist Marty Meisner and drummer Zia Uddin and formed their dream band "The Mayfield Four".
(Photo: ultimate-guitar.com)
= "The Mayfield Four" signed a contract with Epic Records and in May 1998 they released their debut album "Fallout". They went on a tour to promote the album (among others with a band called Creed) and although the reviews praised the album it did not succeed at all at the box office and charts.
= A year later, in June 2001 they released their second album "Second Skin". This album gained greater popularity and also revived the first album but the band failed to rise to the great success it was expecting and it discontinued in 2002.
= In 2001 Myles won a starring role in the movie "Rock Star" with Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston.
= After the failure of his dream band, Myles felt he could no longer deal with music and decided he was leaving the industry and no longer creating. He went back to teaching guitar lessons in order to sustain himself and began to sink into depression. He said it was a very difficult time in his life, he could not create anything and did not want to engage in music anymore. But in 2002 he received an offer from Matt Sorum to be the singer of the supergroup crystallizing into "Velvet Revolver", even though he refused the supergroup's seductive offer, it was probably what released his "lockdown" and desire to create music got back into his life.
(Photo: Javier Bragado)
= In 2003 Mark Tremonti invited Myles to record vocals for several songs he had written and immediately an electric spark was initiated which together with the other members of the band Creed (less singer Scott Stapp) formed together the band Alter Bridge. The band released their seventh album "Pawns & Kings" in 2022.
= Remember point number 3? So it turns out that in 2008 Led Zepplin band member, Jimmy Page
and John Paul Jones along with Jason Bonham (the son of...) entered a rehearsal room and began writing new material. Since Robert Plant was not interested, they looked for a singer and after being at an Alter Bridge show they invited Myles to a rehearsal session. A new band did not come out of this session but Myles said it was a very exciting and special experience and that they wrote and played new material together. So there is a chance that maybe in the future we will discover all sorts of hidden recordings.
= In 2009 Myles also began to develop a solo career, he released one album in 2017 called "Year of the Tiger" created under the influence of country music, and in 2021 he released his second album "The Ides of March" which was more influenced by hard rock.
= Concurrently that year Myles also began collaborating with Slash. Initially, he recorded a number of songs with him but in 2012 the first album was released with the permanent lineup that will accompany Slash later and it is "Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators".
= Slash, Myles, and The Conspirators have released three albums together, "Apocalyptic Love" released in 2012, "World on Fire" released in 2014 and "Living the Dream" released in 2018. In 2022 they release the fourth album bearing the number "4". We can't describe these two talents on one stage, we experienced this in our flesh and it was wonderful !! Myles is a phenomenal talent, he is a talented guitarist, a talented writer, and a great singer !! He is involved in many other musical projects and he works almost non-stop.
Listen to Myles's latest album "The Ides of March" on Spotify, Apple Music