“When it comes to music, Slash is a serious cat. He’s not going to fuck around. He’s not going to phone in the Guns N’ Roses gig; he’s going to be the best he can be. That’s the reality of it,” says Slash’s bassist Todd Kerns (The Age Of Electric, Static In Stereo) speaking exclusively to BraveWords scribe Aaron Small.

“Duff McKagan and Slash are the only two I can speak for personally,” continues Todd. “They are at the top of their game musically, at the top of their game health-wise. Mentally, those guys are 110%. They’re going to go out there and kill this. The rest is on everybody else; they’re going to have to keep up with those guys. Duff is a constant inspiration and it’s been nothing but an honour to stand in his shoes on several songs a night that I play. He knows what a fan I am. A lot of people are trying to put a spin on it (the GN’R reunion) like, ‘Isn’t it fucking bullshit? Isn’t it lame?’ I’m excited! I’m excited for my friends to be doing something like this; that for them is probably one of the most important moments in their life. I don’t know what it means in the big picture. I don’t know what it means in a year from now, or six months from now? But in the meantime, it’s a hell of a moment. ”

Prior to the announcement that a semi-reunited Guns N’ Roses - featuring Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan - would headline the Coachella Festival in California in April, work had begun on the third studio album from Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy And The Conspirators. In his latest blog titled, The Worst Kept Secret In Rock N Roll, Todd wrote about the new music slated for SMKC III commenting, ‘The new material is insane.’

Elaborating upon that statement, Kerns says, “The last one, World On Fire, as you know was 17 songs. The previous album, Apocalyptic Love, we ended up doing ‘Carolina’ and ‘Crazy Life’ as two extras. There was a version released without and a version released with; I don’t think anybody bothered with the one without. Slash is very maverick that way. The way it’s usually done is you have extra songs available for this and that. I like the idea that he goes, ‘Fuck it. I can’t feel any less excited about song 15 than I do about song 7. So guess what, we’re releasing the whole fucking thing.’ That made for a very sweeping and epic album, all the way from ‘World On Fire’ to ‘The Unholy’; it’s a hell of a ride. He was absolutely correct in that. This time he’s sort of said, ‘Maybe we should do more of a succinct rock ‘n roll record, like most of us grew up on.’ Like Van Halen II, or all those KISS records; they’re really short. But it’s pretty early days to talk about what’s actually going to be on it.”  

The new album from Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy And The Conspirators likely won’t be released until 2017. “I don’t think so,” agrees Todd. “There’s an Alter Bridge record to contend with there too.” For those unaware, Myles Kennedy is also the vocalist for Alter Bridge. “When the Alter Bridge conversation happened, we knew immediately… we’ll pick away at SMKC III – or whatever the hell it’s going to be called. When it’s ready, the time is right, and everything lines up; then we’ll put it out. The crazy thing about Slash, he goes ‘Here’s the riff,’ and every time it’s like an exercise, but it’s a classic, history of rock moment happening in front of me. You can’t help but go, ‘damn dude, that thing is going to be huge!’ But this one has a lot more… it’s really hard to say actually cause it’s classic riff after classic riff. Myles even said to me the other day that he felt he had so much more completed and ready on this than he even did last time. But the fact that we’ve got a scheduling situation that puts it in a different stage is the only thing slowing us down. Otherwise, it’s very ready to go.”  

“But you know how much shit is going to come up between now and then. Slash will come up with ten other epic riffs. We’re talking that it would be nice to have a ten song album; it’ll probably end up being 20, who knows? ” It sounds like the album will definitely come out at some point though. A lot of fans were worried, given the Guns N’ Roses reunion and the next Alter Bridge album, that this third Slash album with Myles Kennedy And The Conspirators would disappear and never see the light of day. “I haven’t been to the future yet, so I can’t really say if whatever turn of events occurs, but I still believe that… we played the New Year’s Eve show (in Vegas) and it was kind of interesting. I wouldn’t say it was bitter-sweet because there was nothing sad about the end of a – I’m one of those people that, we’re not really saying goodbye, nothing really changes. It’s like the end of Return Of The Jedi… The Force Awakens is coming. It’s going to happen. I don’t believe for a second that this won’t happen in one fashion or another.  Sure there’s an Alter Bridge record, and Alter Bridge has an amazing career for themselves; man, those guys do great work. Then this thing with Guns N’ Roses is fucking bigger than all of us, I really feel that way. It’s like Led Zeppelin or something.”   

Todd’s final comment on the forthcoming SMKC III album, “I don’t really know. There’s tentative schedules in place, and the thing about tentative schedules is, they’re tentative. At any minute they can change, but I know Slash pretty well, and I know that he does not do well with down time. That’s why one day I joined his band, and six years later, here we are. What in the hell happened? Slash is Slash, and there’s really no seatbelt in that vehicle; there’s not even a roll bar. We just get in that thing and hammer.”