Slash Ft. Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators have just released their new album Living The Dream and have already announced an Australian tour to go with it. Living The Dream marks Slash’s fourth solo album and third with his band featuring Myles Kennedy (Vocals), Brent Fitz (Drums), Todd Kerns (Bass & Vocals) and Frank Sidoris (Guitar & Vocals).

The Upside News spoke with guitarist and vocalist Frank Sidoris about the new album which was his first official time coming into record rhythm guitar in the studio with the band.

“When I joined the band it was Apocolypic Love and that album had just finished right when I auditioned for the band,” Frank explains. 

“Slash called me up and said he had never recorded the rhythm guitar and the lead guitar before so he took that as his own project, which was cool, I’m not going to stand in the way and argue. This time I felt like it made sense after six years at the time and playing all the soundchecks and being part of the process, Slash was like “I really think you should be on the album” and we are now definitely a complete unit.

“I think it translates, and I think you can hear it on the album. The band definitely has its own voice and it’s not just the ‘Slash project’. He makes it a point to feel that way too, early on I believe he didn’t even want to call it just ‘Slash’ he wanted to call it a band name. Time went on and now it’s ‘Slash Ft. Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators’.”

The band are currently doing the first dates of the American tour for Living The Dream and they’re already fitting in as much new material as possible.

“It’s a lot of fun, anytime you spend a lot of time writing a song with everybody watching it grow, it’s just the best, especially ‘Driving Rain’ that was one of my favourite songs since the early beginning, for that to be the single was pretty exciting for me.

“It’s fun because lately, we’ve been throwing those new songs out there quickly, every tour we’ve done so far from Apocalyptic Love and World On Fire [previous albums] we always play every song on the album at some point. Within the first three weeks of this tour, we’ve already played half the album live which is quite hilarious.”

When Slash originally toured the solo project first hitting Australian shores in 2011 there were many covers from across Slash’s career in the setlist. This included songs from Guns N Roses, Velvet Revolver and Slash’s Snakepit. The live setlist has now changed with the ‘Slash’ project having four albums of original material to choose from. 

“Slash at the time, before any of the Guns stuff, he didn’t want to have to answer too many Guns questions, but who could blame anybody, of course, they would want to talk to Slash about Guns stuff and you would want to hear Guns N Roses songs when he was playing. At the time, since there was no reunion on the horizon, that’s who you went to, you went to Slash to hear Guns N Roses songs and you’d go to see Axel to hear Guns N Roses songs. Once the reunion happened and you could watch them do it, it made all the sense in the world to be like ‘okay, we don’t really have to play these songs anymore’ and we could really focus on the three albums of material that we have.

“Of course, it makes sense to play Velvet Revolver songs because that’s a purely Slash thing, or Snakepit songs. But now you’re seeing the conspirators play and we have a considerable body of work at this point. Of course, we do play one [Guns N Roses] song, we play ‘Rocket Queen’ still. The other night we played ‘Night Train’ and it’s a good time, I still love playing those songs.”

Living The Dream is a packed album from the first track to the last. Like many of the previous albums, it’s hard to pick a stand out song, but Frank currently has a favourite.

“Easily ‘Sugar Cane’. I was always excited to tell some of my guitar playing friends to learn that riff because it’s too fun. That was one of the first riffs that Slash sent me over the phone. We were in Belarus and it was two in the morning and Slash was like, ‘hey check this out’. Over time, it was so fun to watch what it turned into, it is such a good time song and it’s probably my favourite solo of his. He’s got a bunch of amazing solos but that’s probably the one for me…. Currently, it might change, but ‘Sugar Cane’ is my favourite and especially if you’re a guitar player.”

 Slash Ft Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators Australian & New Zealand Tour Dates

Read our full review of Living The Dream