For MYLES KENNEDY, the title track’s lyric examines the shortcuts people sometimes pursue in their search for fulfillment. “I really enjoyed putting a melody to this song,” KENNEDY adds. “The way the chord progression starts in the beginning had a nice flow to it. The lyric is about how sometimes people try to take shortcuts and try to find the easy way to achieve happiness or enlightenment.”
SMKC have also announced the FLYING BLIND WORLD TOUR 2027, an extensive international run launching 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. Fans can sign up now for early access to tickets at https://laylo.com/slash/m/flyingblindworldtour2027. Tickets go on sale to the general public Oct. 9 at https://www.home.slashonline.com/tour/.
In celebration of the release of FLYING BLIND, SMKC have partnered with Fandiem to launch a special charitable sweepstakes giving fans the chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Wales to meet Slash backstage at Cardiff Castle. Benefiting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the campaign offers one winner and a guest round-trip travel to Cardiff, a three-night hotel stay, tickets on SLASH’s guestlist for his performance at Cardiff Castle, backstage access to meet Slash, front-of-house viewing, access to pre-show soundcheck, a Slash merch pack, a South Wales sightseeing tour, and a pre-show dinner.
Fans can donate now and enter for a chance to win at www.fandiem.com/slash and take part in this exclusive experience while helping raise funds for two organizations dedicated to mental health and suicide prevention.
SMKC continue to work the same way they did at the beginning: get into a room, play, and see what happens. That philosophy drives FLYING BLIND, the band’s first full-length studio album since 2022’s acclaimed 4. Some of its songs developed from SLASH’s demos and musical fragments, while others were created spontaneously with the musicians playing together in a room.
SLASH brought the initial material to KENNEDY, who added vocal melodies and lyrics before the songs were developed into full-band arrangements with bassist TODD KERNS, drummer BRENT FITZ, and rhythm guitarist FRANK SIDORIS.
“He’s an incredible riff writer,” KENNEDY says of SLASH. “He also comes up with simple chord progressions that are very compelling for melodies. It works, and it’s timeless.”
Unlike previous SMKC albums, whose riffs and arrangements sometimes evolved through nightly soundchecks and extended touring, much of FLYING BLIND came together in concentrated bursts between the members’ other projects. SLASH developed the material while touring with Guns N’ Roses, recording his acclaimed blues album Orgy of the Damned, and launching the S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival. KENNEDY began working on the songs during a break from Alter Bridge and while creating his third solo album. “Our schedule is tight, and you have to abide by it or everything else starts to get affected,” he says. “Now it’s just a given that you’re always creating. It’s a muscle thing. The creative part of your brain doesn’t have time to atrophy, and you just keep going.”
The band reconvened with Baskette, who previously produced SMKC’s World on Fire in 2014 and Living the Dream in 2018, at his Studio Barbarosa in Florida. Staying together throughout the sessions allowed the musical and personal chemistry at the center of the band to become an essential part of the recording.
Going into the sessions, SLASH gave Baskette two clear instructions: keep the recording as live as possible, and do not overwork the performances afterward. “He really adhered to that,” SLASH says. “It worked out great.” The arrangements were largely in place before recording began, but remained open enough to accommodate spontaneous ideas in the studio. With the musicians performing simultaneously, the band retained as much of the natural interplay and energy of each complete performance as possible. KENNEDY recorded his vocals several months later and describes the finished album as a high point in SMKC’s recording history. “Out of all the records, the sounds and performances on Flying Blind are my favorite. It’s very present. It’s right there,” he says.
Across its 12 tracks, FLYING BLIND explores a broad range of sounds without abandoning the band’s direct, hard-rock foundation. “Good Time Girl” combines a talk box hook with a pronounced country twang influenced by pioneering guitarist Jimmy Bryant and steel guitarist Speedy West, while “Sweet Kill” delivers brash, riff-driven rock that SLASH calls “probably the most ’80s thing I’ve done in a while.”
“One of Your Kind” moves with a down-tuned churn, while sharp, punk-influenced chords drive “Here in Babylon.” “Thrill Seeker” is built around a dizzying descending riff that remains deep in the pocket, and “Rev My Heart” is a classic rock ’n’ roll rave-up anchored by an unforgettable progression and a lyric inspired by the night Kennedy first met his future wife. The instrumental “Living the Dream” continues an SMKC tradition, giving SLASH room to improvise and placing his unmistakable guitar playing at the forefront. “I’ve done one of these instrumentals on every Conspirators record except Apocalyptic Love,” SLASH says. “It’s fun to have something that I can open up and improvise on, where I don’t have any specific guidelines or guardrails. It’s nice to do a new one every record, so that live you don’t have to do the same one all the time.”
One of the album’s most significant departures is “Looking for a Miracle,” the first song SLASH has written on pedal steel and the first to feature a recorded pedal steel solo from the guitarist. SLASH developed the original musical idea on pedal steel before adapting it for guitar, so the full band could rehearse the song. He then returned to the pedal steel during the recording sessions and worked out the solo at Studio Barbarosa. “I love pedal steel,” SLASH says. “It’s one of these instruments that is so unbelievable in what you can do with it. So it’s become a thing for me. But it is a commitment. It’s a pretty complex instrument.”
KENNEDY and the rest of the band have watched SLASH’s relationship with the instrument develop over time. “For a long time, we would go and rehearse for tours or do pre-production, and then we’d leave, and Slash would stay at his studio and practice to all hours on mastering pedal steel.”
The album concludes with “Stem the Flow,” a sweeping final statement centered on disillusionment with institutions and systems once believed to be unbreakable. Hard-hitting, spontaneous, and wide-ranging, FLYING BLIND captures SMKC sounding as loose, raw, and locked-in as ever.
The roots of SMKC 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. “I got into working with the Conspirators as a happy accident from doing that first solo album,” SLASH says. “I established a relationship with these guys on a musical and personal level that I wasn’t about to give up when Guns restarted.”
What began without a long-term plan has grown into a fifteen-year partnership, five studio albums, and numerous world tours. “It blows my mind that 15 years has moved this fast,” KENNEDY says. “It’s been the blink of an eye. But as they say, time flies when you’re having fun, and we have a lot of fun. It’s a pinch-me kind of thing.”
Fifteen years after forming, SLASH FT. MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS continue to refine their sound while carrying the torch for immediate, unvarnished rock ’n’ roll. For SLASH, the force behind FLYING BLIND and SMKC remains the pure pleasure of playing music. “When we started, we didn’t have anything,” SLASH says. “We weren’t setting out to conquer the world. It was just for the pure pleasure of it. So now, we get together and play, we have a really good time, and then we go out and tour and do it again the next time.” SLASH laughs. “As long as there’s electricity, we’ll keep plugging in.”
