NEWS: SLASH Ft. Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, Blackberry Smoke & Screaming Eagles Play Belsonic 12 June 2019
The most famous name is rock n roll, singer-songwriter, musician and lead guitarist in the world’s biggest band Guns N Roses, SLASH is pleased to announce his largest Belfast headline show to date at Belsonic (in association with Magners) on Wednesday 12th June 2019 featuring Alter Bridge frontman, Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators and supported on the night by Blackberry Smoke and Screaming Eagles.
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It’s been four years since we last heard new music from SLASH. But the guitarist has hardly spent that time relaxing—far from it, in fact. First, there was an 18-month, 20-country world tour in support of the second SLASH FT MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS album, 2014’s World On Fire, which saw the band play to packed houses everywhere from the U.S. to the U.K., Europe to Australia, South America to Southeast Asia. Then, almost immediately after the tour wrapped in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve, 2015, it was announced to the world that the guitarist, after roughly two decades away, would be rejoining Guns N’ Roses in an historic reunion with Axl Rose and Duff McKagan. Since then, SLASH and his Gn’R band mates have crisscrossed the globe on multiple arena and stadium jaunts, playing to millions of fans the world over on what has been a record-breaking tour.
SLASH Featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators. released their new album ‘Living The Dream’ in September of this year.
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About SLASH
But even with all the reunion activity, SLASH’s band was never far from his mind. “I always planned on getting back together with the Conspirators as soon as possible, and continuing on with what we started,” he says. Which brings us to LIVING THE DREAM, the new full-length offering from the group—which, in addition to SLASH and singer KENNEDY, also includes bassist TODD KERNS, drummer BRENT FITZ and, making his recorded debut after several years of live work with The Conspirators, rhythm guitarist FRANK SIDORIS.
The album, their third overall following World on Fire and 2012’s Apocalyptic Love, is possibly the band’s strongest collective statement to date. From the barnstorming, high-octane riffery of opener “Call of the Wild” to the wah-drenched funk rock of “Read Between the Lines,” the haunting majesty of “Lost Inside the Girl” to the swaggering deep-in-the-pocket Seventies grooves of “Serve You Right,” the stately, quasi-classical melodic themes of “The Great Pretender” to the massive hooks and anthemic, singalong choruses of first single “Driving Rain,” LIVING THE DREAM packs a compendium of sounds and styles into 12 tightly arranged and sharply executed tracks, all of it shot through with SLASH’s trademark electrifying and dynamic riffing and high-wire, lyrical solos.
“It’s a natural progression from World on Fire, for sure,” SLASH says of the new album. “I think it has a little more diversity—some of the ideas are not really what I would consider to be predictable.” At the same time, he adds, “The record is also a bit more structured, with songs that are shorter and more to the point than last time.”
KENNEDY concurs. “I don’t know that there are as many of those sort of ‘epic sonic journeys’ that we took on the last record,” he says. “Although there are songs that take you on a trip, like ‘Lost Inside the Girl.’ But overall a lot of these songs—things like ‘My Antidote,’ ‘Read Between the Lines,’ ‘Slow Grind’–they’re pretty precise statements, and they definitely fall in line with the type of sound we’re known for. There’s a certain type of sonic calling card that we’ve developed over the years, and you can hear it front and center on this record.”
“It’s just a snapshot of where we’re at,” SLASH continues, summing up LIVING THE DREAM. “Which is what we’re going for with each new album—to be present in what we’re doing and come up with something that is representative of and reflects this moment in time.”
For SLASH and the band, this moment in time has been unlike any in their past. The seeds of what would become LIVING THE DREAM were first planted back on the World on Fire tour, when SLASH began bringing in material for the band to work on at soundchecks.
