For the past quarter century, Todd Kerns has been one of the busiest guys in the music business. After spending the 90s in one of Canada’s most popular heavy/alternative bands, he started his solo career in Vancouver early in the millennium, next moving to Las Vegas where he helped put together the Sin City Sinners - one of the most popular rock and roll acts in town; and then went on to become Slash’s bassist in one of the biggest bands on the planet - Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators. During a very rare bit of downtime, Todd sat down to talk with Punk Globe about life, love, and music; and the crazy world of a true rock and roll conspirator!@#

Mr. Todd Dammit Kerns…

How you doing brother?

Good man, how's everything with you?

Not bad. Just back home in Vegas.. Kickin' it here on a Saturday, taking it easy. We played last night with the ’Sinners.

Yeah, I think I saw some footage of the show up already. Blas Elias was onstage jamming ‘Fly to the Angels’. It sounded great…

Yeah we always end up doing that song when he comes up. He's a really great drummer.

We really appreciate you taking some time to talk to us. You're a busy guy. How’s everything going? You just finished recording the bed tracks for the next Slash album last week right?

Everything's great. We've been doing the record, and I've been home for a week. It's such a blur, man. And I think we go back out next week to do my vocals, just to finish my portion of the record, and we should be done by the end of the month. All the vocals and guitars are supposed to be done by the time I start singing, so I'm assuming it'll be in the can by April. It doesn't even come out until September, but that's what we're looking at right now.

So people around the world know you from playing bass with Slash, but you're really all over the place. In the last year, in addition to doing the new album with Slash and the Conspirators, you're playing in Las Vegas with the Sin City Sinners. You’ve released a solo acoustic album, done benefit shows all over North America; and it sounds like you're also getting your next solo album ready. How do you fit all that in? Do you ever have downtime just to sit around for a week and relax?

It's funny because just the other day we played for Vinnie Paul's birthday party and someone said to me: “Do you play every single night?”… And I love that that's sort of the perception, you know, that Todd Dammit is some sort of, I'm pretty sure he's cloned himself! (laughs)... Like there's three or four of me floating around. It actually isn't quite as insane as it ends up looking like. I mean, being on the road and being in a band and all that sort of stuff, you actually do have quite a bit of time to yourself. And I'm pretty hard on myself about the time I'm not productive and I'm not creative. You know this yourself as a creative person. Just kind of recently, I've come to grips with the idea that it's really just about a lot of hard work You know what I mean? There was a time where it would be like, I’m not really feeling motivated to write so you just don’t, you know. You just kind of wait for this lightning in a bottle, for those moments to come along… but the more work you put in, the more those moments do come.

How do you get motivated when you’re not really feeling it?

I read this thing where Steven King said that he wakes up every morning, makes a cup of coffee, and sits down and just writes for like eight hours. And some days are going to be like, well that sucked or that didn’t quite work out. But you’re keeping those muscles moving. And I found that kind of inspiring. There was a time in my life when if I wasn’t writing music, I’d be trying to write scripts, and write fictional types of things, and things like that just to kind of keep the brain moving. But you’ve got to have a balance between doing the work and living your life. As creative person, you really have to have these kind of experiences to have something to fucking write about. Like how can you write about heartbreak unless you’ve had your heart broken?

You’re definitely out there having some crazy experiences and packing a lot into a really short amount of time…

I did actually kind of do the math at one point, and it is pretty crazy. Just in the span of the last few years, we did ‘Exile On Fremont Street’ with the Sin City Sinners. I was touring on Slash’s first solo album. We put out an acoustic EP with the ’Sinners called ‘Broken Record’. Then we did Apocalyptic Love. We put out a Christmas CD with the ’Sinners and then an acoustic CD, and I just kept kind of barreling through and by the end of the thing I thought, I've done about five or six years worth of work in just a couple years.

There was a live album with Slash in there too…

Yeah, there was a live album and DVD in there, and now the new album. It's kind of mental, but if you're fortunate enough to do what you love and that's what you do for your life, to me it really isn't work.


Todd with Slash doing Dr. Alibi & Welcome To The Jungle at House Of Blues in Las Vegas

You document a lot of this stuff in your online blogs. In the beginning, the blogs were more like Todd Dammit news updates, just kind of letting people know what was going on out on tour; but over time, they’ve gotten more and more in-depth about a lot of pretty deep subjects too…

Yeah, we’re actually kind of shopping this series of blogs and trying to get some sort of release as a book now, which is a whole different conversation… I just recently went through a lot of these blogs just trying to kind of re-edit myself, like: “Did I say anything really stupid in here?” (laughs)… And I kind of start to see connections between things. Like pretty early on, a couple years before I even started recording the acoustic CD, I had done a one-off acoustic show, and kind of started talking about how I'd always wanted to do an acoustic album, kind of like the Johnny Cash ‘American Recordings’ records and stuff like that. So when I'm coming home off the legs of a tour... Well to be honest, I'd come home and be in complete convalescence and triage just trying to put myself back together. I might be home for a week, and I’d just think to myself I can do something productive. I'd go over to my friend's studio and just record an acoustic song. I wasn't even really sure what that meant to be honest. I probably started about five years ago recording some of those things, but without any sort of idea of what it would be or where it would go.

Before we get into life on Planet Slash as you call it, I want to go over a bit of what led up to where you are now… You know the first time we met was way back. You were probably about 17. I think our bands had both stopped at a gas station somewhere in the middle of nowhere on the prairies. Then, just a bit later, I saw you onstage for the first time in Saskatoon. This band of older rock n roll veterans were coming through town, and they asked you to come up and jam with them. You got up and played bass and sang this crazy stuff, and you know, you made it look completely effortless… like you were reading the paper and having a coffee. And I remember people just being blown away - even the band; like they’d never seen something like that before! How long had you been playing before you started to realize that you had something that was pretty powerful onstage, and like, this is what I’m doing with my life?

You know I don't think it was really being aware of anything other than the fact that this is all I want to fucking do. I was never a trained musician, but I just loved it. I just loved doing it. I guess it's the same with anyone who's lucky enough when they're young to find something they love doing. Like learning martial arts or something. For me, I didn't really just sit down to learn martial arts metaphorically speaking, I just started fighting…

When did it go from being something that other people did to something you thought you could do?

Well when I was a kid I’d be looking at a band like the Beatles; and you just thought it's like looking at Zeus and Apollo; like some sort of intangible, magical thing to think I could pick up a guitar and do that. Then Kiss came along, and now you've got these superheroes playing music. Where I grew up was so remote and removed, everything came in really weird pieces of information. There's no Internet. There’s no anything. You hear a record and just go “What is that?” Then some guy like Pete Townsend comes along and he's this skinny, gawky guy with a big nose, and he's just so angry and I can feel that... Just the way he played and the way he bashed the guitar... You knew he was saying: “Chicks ain't fucking flocking to me, but they're going to pay attention to this!” And you just go WHOA! And after that I started looking for and finding things like The Ramones, and the ’Pistols, and Iggy Pop, and that whole world is the world that makes you sort of go “I can fucking do this.” And I don't mean that in a derogatory sort of way towards that music, but it wasn't all about skill anymore...

You picked up the guitar around 11 right?

Yeah... My father taught me my first few chords on this old F hole Harmony guitar that he had. I'd bang away on it, and finally in his classic, angry 70s dad kind of way, he'd go... “No it goes like this... that's a C cord, that's a G chord, that's a D chord, now get out of here!” So I would go off and work on it, and eventually I started to get pretty good.

Anybody else in that small town inspiring you besides your dad?

Yeah, I was really fortunate that my grade 7 teacher was this cool guy in his 20s, and he had a Gibson Les Paul. We lived in the middle of nowhere so he might as well have had the Excalibur, you know the mighty sword of King Arthur. He showed us a few more things and all of a sudden we're playing in bands just making a racket. A lot of people get discouraged right away playing music. They pick up a guitar and think “I don't sound like Eddie Van Halen“, so they say fuck it, and put it in the closet. Well I never wanted to be Eddie Van Halen. I was happy to be Johnny Ramone..

Yeah, you hear that stuff and you realize you don't have to be a virtuoso to get your point across and do something cool...

That's the beauty of punk rock!

So around then you’re 13 or 14, and you’re already playing in bands?

Yeah I actually started by playing bass with some older guys. I'd been playing acoustic guitar, and one day my dad just said well you got a guitar, now you need a bass.. So I kind of got around the bass of little bit. No one ever wants to play the bass. I guess this is one of the beautiful pieces of wisdom I could pass all the way down the line... if you can get comfortable on the bass, you will always have a gig. Everyone wants to be the Superhero, but the bass will get you a job (laughs)…

Did you start singing around then too?

Yeah I'm playing with these older guys, which is really good, because you’re always playing catch-up to guys who were more musical and more professional… and they just start saying to me: “You sing this one…Try that one”. I never really cared what I was doing. I was just happy to be on a stage playing. I have kids that come up to me and ask what to do about stage fright; and I really have no idea. It’s not because I’m overly confident.. It’s just like you sit down at a table and someone asks you to eat this delicious banana split... That’s what being on stage was for me.

Before we get into life with Slash, let’s talk a little about Age Of Electric, the band that really got you on the map. The biggest thing I remember about those guys was that they were real good lookin’!

Yeah, they were hot chicks, those guys (laughs)...

Age of Electric was you and your brother John, and another set of brothers - Ryan and Kurt Dahle. You guys were together from about 1989 to 1998 and became, really, a Canadian institution. Really loved by your fans all over the country… You released 4 records, eventually did some work with Bob Rock, and had a gold record with your last album ‘Make A Pest A Pet’. What do you think it was about the chemistry between the four of you that kept the band together for that long and that people connected with so much?

You know it's funny because it's one of those things that over the years I've become so much more conscious of... It's like almost any band, where I guess we were never really stronger than when we were still trying to prove ourselves. That’s such a huge motivator in rock and roll… To show the world… Whether it's a girl that broke your heart, and maybe now she's back at your door because you're "successful”; or your parents have finally kind of gone: "Well, it looks like you've finally turned this into something rather than being just a guy on the road.” Finally, after years of them just basically saying: “My son is a homeless person, like a hobo riding the rails”…


Age Of Electric - Untitled

You guys had a really interesting dynamic.

The thing about Age Of Electric is we were, and still are brothers and a family. I mean, that band hasn't been together for so long, but it's still probably the most defining thing in my life; and probably bigger personally for me than something like Slash only because it was such a giant part of my life. I mean Ryan Dahle is this super talented guy who really really pushed himself and had a lot of things he wanted to prove. I think we all did. And it worked for a long time.

The band really kind of transformed during it’s time together…

Yeah, when we started we were all leather pants and long hair; and playing pretty heavy stuff, and over time, I guess we went in some different directions that, by the time we got signed, people really thought of us as more of an alternative band.

Watching the band live was really cool. There was almost a sixth sense between the four of you. You’d be playing an original, and in the middle somewhere, The Beatles would pop up, then some weird jazz, then Black Sabbath… You could go for 45 minutes like that, just getting into different grooves, and someone would throw in some small change, and everyone would go off in that direction…

That was a very unique thing. When you say it like that, I remember those nights where it would just go on and off in tangents. And when you say it, there's a part of you that goes “That sounds awesome”. And there's part of you that says “That sounds like a fucking train wreck!” (laughs)... It probably wasn't always successful, but we were like-minded that way. With the Age Of Electric we never even wrote up a set list. It was kind of a bizarre thing. I remember people asking are you going to play this song tonight and I'd say: “Maybe, I really don’t know…”

The band broke up at a time when your last album had just gone ‘gold’. You were touring with bands like Our Lady Peace, The Tea Party, playing Edgefest; had a top ten single… What was it that caused the band to breakup at the height of its’ popularity?

I guess eventually Ryan and I were going in these kind of different creative directions and we started to have our own sort of rifts. Admittedly, in retrospect when I look back on a lot of that, I think I should have done this or I should have done that and I probably should have handled this better. But I think that's a lot of clarity that comes from distance and time. There's still so much great love there; and I think the conduit of those four people playing together could never happen with anyone else. I've always respected the fact that the four of us knew we couldn't do this without each other. There's never been an Age Of Electric pop up with two fake guys or some sort of version that wouldn't have been the same. There's those kind of bonds that were built that will never be broken. Ryan is the most bizarrely unique musician I know. He takes a fragment of an idea and runs with it in some direction that I would never have run with it. And I learned to just let him do what he's going to do because he always manages to go in some crazy magical place that no one would have thought of going; and I think that's a big part of what Age Of Electric was really - being fueled by the idea of people going “No, No, No… You’re doing it all wrong! It has to be like this.” Well, who the fuck are you to tell us what to do?

After Age, you guys have each gone in your own directions, and everyone has been really successful (like - maybe even more successful) in their own right. You with Slash; your brother John touring the world with Robin Black and Sound And Fury; Ryan (who’s now an award winning producer and engineer) putting out great stuff with Limblifter and now The Mounties; and Kurt drumming for the New Pornographers, who I think are really one of the greatest, most prolific bands on the planet. That doesn’t really happen with a lot of bands after they break up.

You got four guys who came from a place where it was too cold to do anything else, so that’s probably a big part of it (laughs)… You know Kurt Dahle is really one of the most musical guys I know. He can pick up a guitar and he's just naturally almost a savant-ish musical type of guy. When he plugged himself into Carl's world with the New Pornographers… Carl Newman is such a talented songwriter, and with Neko Case involved, that thing just went on to be legendary. And Ryan was always such a talented and unique musical mind. It was never really about him being just a guitar player. He had this unquantifiable thing about him that was almost a little bit of insanity that goes around with a lot of great musicians. Sometimes it's hard to balance your checkbook but you can sure write a fucking song. And John falls into his own category as well. He's also extremely capable; and he's one of the most unique players you'll ever see play from a visual standpoint. I don't think I really understood how unique we were as a group until I could really look back at it later and go: "Yeah, that thing was pretty fucking bizarre." (laughs)... I think it was just a really unique blend of people and frequencies, and it just felt like a magical thing.

You guys were all in the same city not too long ago and actually banged out a few new songs. What did they sound like?

Strangely enough they sound exactly like Age Of Electric.. Isn’t that weird? As far as I’ve gone away from it… But as soon as we put those four guys together, it kind of turned back into that thing, which is really fascinating. It’s really quirky, and I think really great. And it’s really unquantifiable as anything other than the Age Of Electric.

After AOE, you started a band called Static In Stereo in Vancouver with your brother John, and also added your youngest brother Ryan to the mix. What was this period like?

It was an interesting time. We did the Static In Stereo record, and in some ways it was really great and other ways it was really tough. It was a wonderful experience because now I had both of my brothers in the band which was something we had always wanted to try. My brother Ryan was a really strong writer and we had great chemistry; being able to bounce ideas off of each other and come up with great songs.

Yeah I’d known Ryan since way back I guess in the early 90s, and I didn’t even know he played guitar; and he turned out to be this really cool writer. Didn’t he co-write ‘Blow Up Doll’ on that record?

Yeah that’s right.

That’s one of my favorite songs on that album.

I've always been really proud of that album, even though at the time it was deemed a bit of a failure which was weird because we had a lot of support from Universal. But it took us a long time to get the record together. Our producer had a heart attack, which derailed the whole thing when we were already into it for X amount of dollars. We finished it with Steven Drake from The Odds. It took us a long time to get it out, and when we did it was really the height of that whole free downloading time. It was a tough market all over North America. We would go out and play shows, and they would be great sold out shows with people singing along to the songs, and I'm thinking to myself “Why isn't this translating into sales?” So from the time we started the Static In Stereo record to the time it was out, the entire music industry had changed. And that was really tough to swallow. We really put a lot of heart and soul into that thing. And it's weird because now people are finding that record years later and some people come up to me and say that's their favorite thing I’ve ever done. And it's really nice to hear because I really did pour my heart and soul into that record. So after that, I sort of got into producing bands. My partner was Jay at Juice Mix Productions. He's still up there in Vancouver. We were recording bands and having a blast, but the record industry was all upside down, and there were really just no record companies to get bands signed to at the time in Canada.

Did you like being off the road during that time in Vancouver?

Well now I'm home, but I'm at the studio 18 hours a day and I'm thinking to myself, I may as well be on the road because I'm never home. So that's when I really started to piece together the idea of doing a solo album.

It was around 2004 when you released ‘Go Time!’. What was it like making an album and now being in control of pretty much everything? Was it a bit intimidating at the time? Did you have a specific plan in mind when you started recording the record?

There was no real plan in mind. We had our own studio and just started working on the record. It was just fun. I started getting together with Reed (Shimozawa) - my friend from Calgary - and we recorded a bunch of songs which eventually turned into the record. We also did a bunch more songs that we're working to release in their entirety as a TKO thing. We just had a really good time putting it together. I had my friend Jenny Galt who came in and sang on some stuff.

That’s her in the ‘Indian Summer’ video right?

Yeah, that’s her. She’s really amazing.


Todd Kerns - Indian Summer

Did Reed come in and lay down some of his magical, mysterious guitar tones?

Reed's all over that thing. And he has his own fucking magic himself. It was just a lot of fun. I ended up putting it out through my friend Bif Naked's label. She had a cool deal with A&M. We did a lot of touring for that record and just had a lot of fun. To answer your question, it was really rewarding but it was also a really daunting thing. When you're in a band, you get to live and die together. But when someone says you suck as a solo artist, there's no one else to point fingers at except you. I never really let that kind of stuff bother me, though. People are born with different taste buds.

When you did this record, it seemed like you went in a different direction lyrically than what you had done in the past. With Age of Electric, lyrically there was a lot of stuff that was really observational - really looking out at the world; with a lot of abstract symbolism and imagery in the songs…

A lot of that was Ryan Dahle’s imagination. Sometimes he’d put things together and I’d be like: “I have no fucking idea what I’m singing!” (laughs)…

With ‘Go Time!’ it felt like you were writing more directly from your own life, from your own experience. There were a lot of lyrics about fighting against things holding you back, and really pushing through and overcoming: “Wake up, I’ll knock you down on your knees”… “Remove the knife from my back”… “I’m breaking under pressure while you turn the screws”… There was a lyric in the song ‘Everything Must Go’ that went: “I want nothing, no possessions, demolition, no connection to who I’ll be”… This seems pretty prophetic for a guy who’s just about to leave his country and everything behind… Were you conscious at the time that these lyrics were really giving a map of where your life was at and where it was going? And was your life as chaotic as it sounded around this time?

At the time, I guess I was kind of kicking and screaming in a way. It was a lot of things… A reaction to the previous experience with Static In Stereo. I was going through a divorce at the time... I was kind of disillusioned with producing bands… And just a little bit unsure of what my next move would be. So I just kept writing. I guess it's part of my personal coping process. You get knocked down 50 times. You get up 51 times. Nowhere in life is there any guarantee of success. To pick a life like this in the first place, you’ve got to be kind of crazy. So I spent all those years playing music... If I had had a job, I'd be President of the company by now (laughs)… There's no retirement plan in rock and roll. It's not a life you're going to choose if you're expecting just to kind of coast through and have barbecues every Sunday.

It sounds like around this time you were really looking for something new to be inspired by…

I’m the kind of guy who likes to be surrounded by people who are as exuberant as I am. And if I don’t really have those kind of people around me, I don’t necessarily get rid of those people; but I do find myself gravitating towards people who are wanting to do the same thing I want to do. I always consider life to be like you’re playing pass, you know. You’re throwing the ball to that guy and he’s throwing the ball to that guy, and it comes back around to you. And sometimes in life you’ll throw the ball and it will just hit somebody in the chest and fall to the ground. And that person just sort of ends up being not part of your little game of catch.

So you were looking for some new guys to play catch with?

You know, I had been in Vancouver, and I just thought maybe I don’t want to be in Vancouver for a little while. So I decided to relocate to Vegas for a short time, got a gig with some friends, applied for a visa, and just sort of told the Universe “If I get the visa I’ll stay, and if I don’t I’ll go home”… I’m thinking I’ll just stay here until this thing dries out and then I’ll go back to Vancouver; but then it never dried up and it just got crazier and crazier. And 7 years later, here I am.

Within a pretty short span of time of moving to Vegas, you joined up with the Underground Rebels, played guitar with Faster Pussycat in Europe, and then joined the Sin City Sinners…

Yeah, I first joined up with the Underground Rebels. Brent Muscat from Faster Pussycat was in that band, and this 20th anniversary Faster Pussycat thing came up. Brent asked me if I wanted to come out and play guitar for it. I always loved Faster Pussycat so I said of course I would. I had never been to Europe in 2006, which seems crazy because now I’m there all the time.

Then when you and Brent got back, was that the real beginning of the Sin City Sinners?

We’d been talking about how when you’re in L.A., there would be a ‘night’, like a Tuesday at The Cathouse or Club Lingerie where a band would play and everybody would know that’s kind of a special night. So we thought let’s just create a night where we can have a band and we’ll play all our favorite songs; just kind of a jam band doing the stuff we loved. So we got D from the Underground Rebels, and then Rob Cournoyer came in on drums, and it just became this cool thing that caught on really quickly. A lot of guys from bigger bands would just start dropping in to jam…

And now you’re like the house band for Las Vegas…

Yeah exactly (laughs)... And we actually started to get a budget to bring people in because we eventually got picked up by show rooms - which was never the original intent. It was just meant to be a bunch of guys getting together every Tuesday to make a bunch of racket and have a blast.

It’s probably a good thing you’re not on drugs, because the stuff you do with the ’Sinners gets pretty surreal sometimes… Just a few weeks ago at a benefit you did in Vegas for MSA, in one night you were onstage jamming with Alice Cooper, Todd Rundgren, Vince Neil, Sammy Hagar… Slash came out for it. Bill Murray was there too, right?

It was fucking nuts!!

When you were a kid, did you ever think someday you would be on a stage singing a Beatles song with Alice Cooper and the guy from Ghostbusters?

(Laughs)… Yeah the guy from Ghostbusters was the real wildcard. I mean, I have been fortunate enough to play with Alice several times within the Slash world, and a nicer guy you would never meet. And being with the ’Sinners, we get to play with a lot of guys like Sylvain Sylvain from the New York Dolls and Cheetah Chrome from the Dead Boys. And guys like that to me are massive reasons that I play music. These nights are just the craziest fucking thing I can imagine, and Bill Murray’s involvement was just so random. Before we went on he just walks up to me and says: “How you doing?” I say “Good”, and I asked him if he was going to sing tonight. He says: “I’m warming up, I’m warming up” - and just walks off. And I’m like, that’s Bill Murray…

Did you have a chance to ask him if the reason he created the world in only six days was so on the seventh day he could have a few drinks and write awesome jokes?

(Laughs)… You know we’re all there for this charity thing for (celebrity chef) Kerry Simon doing a benefit for MSA - this terrible disease he’s got, and Bill has known him since way back in the day apparently. I think Kerry had a pizza place that Bill would go to. So they’ve known each other forever, since back before Bill was anybody... So Bill gets up on stage and starts telling this really heartfelt speech, you know how it’s really heartbreaking when someone is at the peak of their career, and they’ve got everything going for them and can do no wrong; and then bad things happen to them. Then he says: “That happened to me today when I checked into my hotel room”… (laughs)… it was just so… perfectly… Bill Murray executed. You’ve got this really sad occasion, but Bill puts so much love and humor into it that you just think, that’s how it’s done.

You‘ve got to be meeting a lot of interesting characters living in Slash World...

Yeah, I guess it’s not that uncommon. Lindsey Lohan comes to a show. We play with acts like Motley Crue and you just kind of get accustomed to that stuff. Rick Nielsen on stage, that was mind blowing! Steven Tyler… even though you get used to it, it’s really never lost on me. I mean, Slash still lives within 20 minutes of where he grew up in Los Angeles, so even as a kid he’s so far ahead of the game already. For me, growing up in Lanigan, Saskatchewan with no street lights, no 7 ELEVEN, and no McDonald’s, Los Angeles was like Mars… London, England was like Krypton… Like things I never thought I would see in this life. It’s never lost on me and I’m always thankful. To be sitting in a room just talking one-on-one with Alice Cooper or Michael Monroe, I mean that’s just crazy.

As well as being on stage beside Slash every night…

Talking with Slash, he’s like my bro now, but at the same time there’s times where I’m standing on stage and we’re playing Sweet Child Of Mine, and I’ve been playing that song since high school. Once in a while I’ll be playing that song in front of eight gazillion people and I look up and Slash is standing right in front of me playing THAT guitar solo and you just have these moments like, this is fucking nuts!

So in 2010, you got a call from your friend Brent Fitz, who was already out jamming with Slash in L.A., and he asked you to come out to jam with them. So it sounds like you hopped in your car, drove across the desert, and just plugged in and started playing?


Slash - By The Sword (with Andrew Stockdale)

Yeah, it was really that casual basically. My father was actually in town. I was looking to buy a house in Vegas, so he’s gonna come down and help me look for a house. I say okay great. So we’re just sitting at Chili’s eating and I get a phone call from Fitz asking if I want to come to L.A. and jam with Slash tomorrow around noon. I just looked at my dad and said: “You want to go to L.A. tomorrow?” And he says, “Yeah sure, I’ve never been.” So the funny thing is, that was kind of the deciding factor for me. My dad’s never been to L.A., let’s do it! (laughs)…

So you and your dad drive across the desert to go hang out with the guy from Guns ’n Roses… Not a lot of people can say that you know.

(laughs)… Probably not!

What did you play first when you got there?

We played Nightrain, a few songs off ‘Appetite’, and the next thing I know he was offering me this gig, like next week we’re playing Leno, then Craig Ferguson, and then this and that… and I’m like, well, what are you talking about… I mean, The ’Sinners were a really successful thing in Vegas, and we were making good money, and I’m just like… I don’t know, I had to have this big talk with myself. My father said something about, like playing in the farm league and then playing in the NHL, which I guess is a great Canadian analogy (laughs)… And I was like…Alright, let’s do it. It was a real heartbreak for me because I’m a real loyal, home team kind of guy, so it was a really tough position. I ended up getting people to temporarily sub for me. Part of me thought this is good for me and it will be good for the ’Sinners too, you know. These are good things that will benefit all of us if I go and do this. Initially, I thought it was going to just be this quick promotional run for Slash’s first solo album, but then it turned into…

Slash fell in love…

(laughs)… That’s the weirdest thing. It just started and then it ballooned into this crazy animal. I can’t speak for Slash, but I think he’s been in so many chaotic situations where it’s really hard to make music in that sort of environment. So suddenly he’s on the road with a bunch of guys who have been through all the bullshit, and who are sober, and I think that’s an environment that he really likes being around because he can just concentrate on making music and nothing else, which is really what he loves to do.

How long were you on the road together before you actually knew you were going to be playing on the next album - ‘Apocalyptic Love’?

I don’t really remember. Probably near the end of the tour. Slash is funny that way. He’s never really like “Let’s go have a meeting and sit down and make a plan”… It’s just kind of casual. Like we’re hanging out in the dressing room, and he says: “I think we’re going to do the next record soon with the band.” And I go: “With us?” And he says: “Yeah.” (laughs)… And it was really just that simple. So we get ready to do the album and he wants to name the band and wants us in the photos. So now it’s like, I guess it’s a band. Then we do the live DVD thing. I really didn’t expect to be in any of the photos, but there we were, and it was really cool. I think Slash really likes being in a band. He likes being on the team. Even though he’s obviously the figurehead of it and very much in control of it, he likes being in a band.

You can really feel that chemistry of a band now. You guys are getting filmed all the time… Slash in the Studio, Real to Reel episodes on Youtube, and all that stuff, and you guys are like a fucking comedy team. You really look like a band that is all on the same wavelength.

You know, Slash is a really serious cat and a really thoughtful guy. He can actually be really funny when he wants to be. Fitz is like that too, you know, a really thoughtful guy, really serious about what he’s doing. Whereas I’m the kind of guy who’s just talking and doing stuff and being stupid; and luckily now I have Frank - our new guitar player - and he’s as silly as I am.


Real To Reel: Slash In The Studio

On ‘Apocalyptic Love’, you could really feel an intense focus in the songwriting. When ‘Appetite’ came out, it felt like Zeppelin ‘4’ where everybody’s on the same ride, with one purpose. And then the ‘Illusion’ albums came out, and it was like the ‘White Album’. There was some great stuff on it, but you could feel this tension… like you’ve got Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, and Elton John all in the same band together. It’s really cool to hear Slash’s stuff now, and know that there’s no compromises. Does it feel like that to you?

I know for me and Fitz, when we started playing with Slash, we already had so much investment in the G ’n R catalogue. It was in our DNA. So I think when Slash starts playing a riff and we start playing something, we’re already speaking the same language. You can be playing with some amazing musicians, but someone like Stuart Copeland playing with Slash would just be weird. He’s an amazing drummer, but would it be the right fit? Probably not… Slash comes in with the riffs he wants to play, and we all just pick up and start charging.

The stuff you came up with on the first album was really cool. I love the bass line on ‘Standing In The Sun’ - just this driving, relentless thing, but with a lot of really cool subtle little slides that come out of nowhere…

I appreciate that. You know when I’m doing those things, I always throw in the kitchen sink and then kind of expect someone to tell me to trim it down; and sometimes when no one says trim it down, you’ve just got to keep doing it (laughs)... I mean, I’m no Billy Sheehan, but I think we put down a really good solid foundation for Slash to do his thing over top of. A lot of people talk down about bass parts on things like AC/DC; and I say dude, there is so much fucking power in the way that those three guys lay it down. You couldn’t put Angus and Brian Johnson in front of anybody except those three guys. They aren’t getting any awards for being flashy, but they are a fucking wall. I think you can feel that, with Slash and Myles and The Conspirators. We really found ourselves as a band playing live, and I think we brought that dynamic into the studio… playing live to tape and just making it sound like a band is supposed to sound. It’s a really unique experience.

After you guys recorded ‘Apocalyptic Love’, Slash said that you’re the one guy in the band that doesn’t make mistakes. Is that true? Do you throw one in once in a while just to be polite?

(laughs) You know when we put a song together, I have a pretty good idea what I want to play right away, and we might fool around with it and try some different things, but by the time we get to the actual record button being pressed, I know what I want to play.

You’ve said that the new album is going to be sleazier, tougher and more dangerous than ‘Apocalyptic Love’. Are we gonna hear some new anthems like Nightrain and Paradise City?

There are definitely riffs on this record that are just really unapologetically rock. There seems to be a fear with a lot of people of sounding too rock or something. Like there has to be some sort of modern alternative twist to things to make it be taken seriously. But with this album you can really hear the Sunset Strip in some of the songs. They just don’t sound like something where you’re going to be singing about your personal problems. It sounds more like “FUCK YEAH!”

It’s got to be a pretty amazing experience finishing off the music, and then hearing what Myles Kennedy comes up with for vocal parts…

Myles comes up with these just amazing things. There are riffs that Slash plays and I think to myself: “I’m glad that Myles is dealing with this because I wouldn’t have a fucking clue what to sing on top of this!”

He’s definitely a master. His melodic range is so fluid, and his imagination just seems to be unlimited. It sounds like he’s really going out and grabbing stuff from another world. Like his voice and his brain are connected by some weird, unknown mercurial kind of element (laughs)…

He’s just got this incredible knack for it. There’s one song in particular on the new record… It’s like a slow, dark epic song. When Slash started playing it I had a hard time wrapping my head around just what we were going to do musically. I thought, I have no idea what Myles is going to sing over this. When he came in and started doing his thing, I was just like… Wow… It just blows you away. This is why Myles Kennedy is who he is.

Slash said that on this project it’s really turned into a band, and as much as he leads the project, it’s rooted in musical and personal camaraderie with you and Brent. He’s said that this record is far and above the last record because of the organic chemistry. How is this one different for you? Is there a lot more jamming going on this time around?

It’s pretty similar to the last one, really. But we were really gung ho this time so everything really happened a lot quicker then we expected.. These songs came together quicker, the ideas came together faster. Even going into the studio happened way faster than we expected.

You finished the bed tracks for 17 songs in less than a week right?

Yeah, we just had a really good flow. And Elvis (producer Michael ‘Elvis’ Baskette) came in and was not really worried about trying to fit something into a box and make a song that was three minutes long. If something is longer and it feels right, let‘s do it. We’re in a different age now where radio is not the main thing you’re looking at.

I heard you and Slash were down in the lab trying to figure out Lemmy’s bass sound from the last Motorhead record…

Yeah, that was definitely the plan! (laughs)... Slash was really big on the last Motorhead album. We both were, really. I mean, you can’t go wrong with Motorhead. It just sounded fucking massive. Elvis is really good at kind of capturing that aggressive big sound. That last Alter Bridge record he did is great.

Myles played a lot of rhythm guitar on the last album. Is he playing again on this one?

Slash is actually playing all the rhythm guitar on this one. Myles just sort of said it would be really cool to have Slash do all the guitar this time. I think that was a really ego-less move on Myles part. Slash is great at figuring out these really cool, complementary guitar parts. Like the stuff he and Izzy used to play together. When you really listen to G ’n R, there’s all kinds of intricate stuff going on between the two guitars that just really makes it so unique.


Slash - No More Heroes (Live)

On some of the footage of you guys in the studio, it really feels like Slash is more excited about this album than he has been about anything in a long time. He says that Brent Fitz is playing the best he’s ever played, and that the stuff that you’re doing is blowing his mind. He said that playing over top of you guys keeps him on his toes and makes him push himself. That’s a pretty great compliment from a guy who’s probably about the best guitarist on the planet.

To me, it’s always a case of you just want to do your best. I mean, Slash ‘ups’ our game you know just by being Slash! (laughs)… The things that Brent is playing on this record are so good. I mean, Brent is not a drummer who overplays. He’s more of a song guy; a really amazing complimentary guy. He’s got his own process and at the end, everything just comes out sounding amazing.

This past year, you put out an all acoustic album called ‘Borrowing Trouble’, while at the same time, you’re playing in one of the most successful heavy rock bands in the world. You’ve recorded a live album and now two studio albums with Slash, and probably could have ridden this wave and made a really successful heavy album with a lot of huge names all over it. But instead you chose to do an acoustic album. Why go in this direction?

It’s funny because I never really thought about it like I was making a choice to do something, or is this the right time to do something. I’d just kind of been messing around with the acoustic stuff for a while now. Coming off tours recording little bits and pieces at different times. Like I said before, those Johnny Cash records were really huge for me. You know you listen to those songs and you really feel like the only thing between me and Johnny Cash right now is a microphone. Just such a direct and personal way to experience something.

You had some really cool guest appearances all over this album - Cian Coey (who’s been out touring with Meatloaf) singing with you; and a lot of your good friends from Vegas…

Yeah I’ve been really lucky to have so many great people around me who also happen to be really talented.

I’ve heard you say that Greg Verdusco (the late guitarist/vocalist from the Bloody Villains) was a big part of the inspiration for doing this now…

Yeah, my friend Greg had passed away during the ‘Apocalyptic Love’ tour. He was one of those guys who was a really great songwriter and just a really inspiring guy. I was going away on the last tour run to South America - I think in 2012. He’d been sick and got diagnosed in September, and I was on the road so I was just in Vegas briefly before getting on a plane and going to South America, so I called him. He had been going through chemo. He sounded rough, but he was himself. We’re talking about KISS’s new album coming out; Cheap Trick touring with Aerosmith; just the shit we all talk about. And he asks me what I’m going to do after the tour is over. I remember saying to him, I don’t know - I’ve been thinking about doing this acoustic album. I’ve always thought about doing one. And he just said to me: “Just fucking do it. Coming from me and what I’m going through right now, you’ve just got to do these things. You can’t just sit around and talk about it.” And there’s always going to be a reason not to do something, you know. So I guess for the same reason I played that first acoustic show, and the reason I went to jam with Slash for the first time, the same way I said yes to being in a movie, I just said let’s do it.

We talked about the direction of your first solo album ‘Go Time!’ where a lot of the lyrics were about fighting against stuff that was coming at you, stuff not always in your control, trying to hold you back. On ‘Borrowing Trouble’, the lyrics are a lot more dark and self-examining: “You put your trust in me, I’ll tear your world apart”… “Full of promises we never meant to keep”… “I caused all the pain a man can make, and I take the blame”… Instead of looking at how others are affecting you, like ‘Go Time!’, it seems to be looking at your effect on others; and often in a way where you’re questioning your own motives and actions. What was it that inspired this more dark and personal kind of lyrical direction?

It’s funny to hear you say that because it’s not actually something that I would have been able to quantify. You know, I stayed single for a long time after my split. I had a girlfriend here and there for a while; but I was really going through this sort of period of self-examination, being by myself, really examining things. Sobriety really helps with that too. I mean, I came to Vegas and I got sober - which is really rare for anybody in Las Vegas (laughs)… You dig into yourself and sometimes there’s a lot of things you really don’t want to see. It’s not always pretty. I guess what comes out in some of the songs is that basically I went through a lot; but if I hadn’t gone through those things I wouldn’t be who I am today. You know people say “No regrets”, but I don’t really think that’s a way to live. I don’t like to think of myself as Godzilla stomping around kind of crushing everything in my path. In life, I do have a lot of regrets of things I could have done differently, people I might have hurt; but that’s just part of life and you just have to try to do everything you can so that doesn’t happen again. I’ve been really fortunate that people that I’ve had problems with in the past, we’ve always seemed to come to terms with things. I’ve never been one to wallow in chaos for too long. Sobriety really helps with that.

Have you had a hard time staying on that path over the last few years, especially with all the insanity constantly surrounding you?

I think I know myself now well enough to know what’s going to work and what’s not going to work. Because I did that homework. Conversations about going for a drink come up, and I know myself well enough to know that if I have a drink it will turn into this. And it may not. I might survive myself for that first time and go: “Hey, guess what… I didn’t end up going out and then vanishing for three days and making every possible mistake I could think of”… But I know it would lead to that eventually, and I know that’s not good for anybody who’s important to me in my life; and not good for my career. And it’s not good for anything else.

You did a crowd-funding kind of thing to make this album. Tell us about that…

I had just come off a tour with Ginger Wildheart opening for us, which was a trip because I love the Wildhearts…

He played with Michael Monroe for a while, didn’t he?

Yeah, he co-wrote a lot of the ‘Sensory Overdrive’ record. He’s just been one of those guys who has been a constant inspiration for me. And he had had this massive success with this pledge campaign - which is basically just asking your audience if they want to pre-order your record before it’s made. Your fans are your record company. And I thought - what a fucking awesome idea! It felt really punk rock, really DIY; but at the same time you’re not doing it by yourself. You’re doing it with everybody. And with this ‘Borrowing Trouble’ record, I never really anticipated it being released on a major label or doing a massive tour to support it. In my mind, I was going to do it anyway. I just wanted to be able to do it. I don’t think I’ll ever regret getting songs out there in anyway I can. It’s not going to be a triple platinum record, but I know that the people that connect with it really connect with it, and that’s what’s important to me. It’s not really important to me how many people show up at my party. It’s just important to me that the people that show up to my party had a great time.

I really think this is the deepest, darkest, best stuff you’ve done lyrically. Every song really means something and hits you on a lot of levels. A lot of people come out early in their career… They’re angry. They’re emotional, and have a million things to say. Then they get older and have a little bit of success and for whatever reasons, they don’t have the same angst or emotional range; or maybe they just don’t have the same need to get it all out. With your stuff over the last few years, it really seems like you’re pushing yourself to dig deeper and get into some pretty dark stuff.

I appreciate that.

So to end off, how about a few random questions about nothing in particular…

Go.

It sounds like you don’t sleep much, how do you stay so good lookin’?

(laughs)… We’ve got the guys from Industrial Light and Magic working on my appearance at all times.

When you’re constantly touring, how do you actually keep yourself healthy?

Only recently did I start to get a lot more serious about that kind of stuff. I’ve never been an athlete and you know the road can beat the shit out of you. The whole physicality of being onstage… It’s nothing I really notice until after - how hard I pushed myself. There’s a lot of keeping active, trying to stretch stuff out as much as possible. I’ve got a friend trying to get me to go to bikram yoga, but I haven’t quite made it to that one yet... (laughs)… I’m not 18 anymore, which I remind myself of every day by eating something stupid, or doing something stupid. I just watched this great interview with comedian Patton Oswalt; and he talked about how he just turned 45 and he goes: “I miss the days when a guy turned 45 and they just let him sit there and drink coffee and read the paper. Now all of a sudden I’m 45 and they’re handing you a mountain bike and Cialis.” It’s funny because now we don’t consider that old. We don’t consider 50 old. What are you supposed to do? Just put your feet up and just kind of start dying… I’m perfectly happy to keep fighting. I went through periods where I became kind of inactive, and started having a knee issue and things like that; and I noticed that if I do a little stretching and moving, and getting active and getting the heart rate up, it starts to turn around a bit. I think when you let yourself slow down, you’ll slow down.

Now that you're playing in this kind of high-profile situation, do you have a lot of kids coming up to you asking: “How do I do this?”…

Yeah, and you know I say… Well there's a certain amount of luck and a certain amount of chance, but it's really just doing it and doing it because you love doing it. I've known so many talented people in my life, more talented than me, who had a good job or something and the idea of let's just get in the van and drive to Winnipeg and back in the freezing fucking cold and make no money and play rock and roll music all the way across... To some people it’s like… “Why would I do this? I'm not taking time off my job with good benefits to go do that.” And the rest of us are like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” (laughs)... And that's the difference between being a lifer and being a hobbyist. And I'm not saying that one is better than the other. The other day a friend of mine who’s a really talented guy called and asked what I was doing and I said you know just doing the deal. How are you doing? And he said just enjoying married life. And I kind of said: “Wow dude you're one of the first people I've ever heard use that sentence. And I'm really envious of that.” And he actually seemed surprised. But success and failure are so subjective. If you're a successful father and husband, man you're better than me in those departments. Well I think I've got my talent as far as fatherhood goes. I never was a very good husband but I’ve still got time to work on that. (laughs)

Yeah sometimes it takes two or three times to figure that one out and get it right..

It's like knocking a drink machine over. You have to rock it back and forth a couple times before you knock it over!

On the Sin City Sinners video for ‘Goin’ To Vegas’, you did some acting with America’s Sweetheart - Ron Jeremy. Were you worried at any time during the shoot that he was going to take his clothes off?

I was actually probably more encouraging it! (laughs)…

What’s your best moment from ‘Breaking Bad’?

I think it‘s when Walt says to Hank: “If that’s true, if you don’t know who I am, then maybe your best course would be… to tread lightly.” Or something like that… The creator Vince Gilligan was saying how he wanted to go from Mr. Rogers to Scarface in the arc of that character, and he really did when you watch it from beginning to end. By the end of that series, he was one dark fucking guy. Things just slowly get out of control and eventually you can’t stop it no matter how hard you try. I think people sometimes fool themselves into believing that they can just push the pause button…

There’s something I just heard about that’s happening next September in Miami… ‘The Motorboat Cruise’.. You go out on the high seas and party with Motorhead, Anthrax, Megadeth... Does this sound like a safe way to let your kids spend Labor day?

Absolutely not!

So what do you see on the horizon for Todd Kerns in the next couple years aside from what you’re doing with Slash?

I plan on definitely someday making an electric record, and doing a full-bore Guns ’n Roses style rock and roll record. And I’d like to involve my friends. Mentally thinking about involving all my favorite people from hopefully people like Slash to maybe Michael Monroe and Ginger Wildheart - all my friends. And just making a straight-up rock record. An Age Of Electric reunion is something I’ve always kind of dreamed of, but I don’t know how that’s going to happen. I’d also like to believe there is a Santa Claus (laughs)… but you never know with these things.

Todd Dammit Kerns, thanks for hanging out with us! Any last words for the PuNks of the world…

You know, I remember John Lydon saying something like: “Punk rock isn’t about a costume or a uniform. It’s about being yourself and being what you want to be”. And that’s really what I’ve always sort of led my life by. If someone doesn’t understand something about you, that’s their problem not yours. That’s the big thing for me. Just do what you want to do. I mean, don’t hurt other people while you’re doing it, but if there’s a book you want to write, a script you want to write, music you want to play… you want to go play baseball... You need to find a way to do that. Just like what I was talking about physically. If you let your brain or your heart or your mind slow down it will die. That’s just the reality of it. If you stop believing or stop dreaming, it all goes away and that’s no way to live. It’s kind of like you climb the mountain, you’re at the top, you take a second, you breathe and go: “Wow”… and then you look off in the distance and go: “Look at THAT mountain!” And I’m only saying this metaphorically because I have no interest in climbing mountains (laughs)…

You can find Todd Kerns solo music, Slash, Sin City Sinners, and Age Of Electric all @ www.itunes.com
For more Todd Kerns online go to:
www.twitter.com/todddammitkerns
Todd Kerns news, blogs, media, and merchandise: www.toddkerns.com
Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators: www.slashonline.com
Sin City Sinners: www.thesincitysinners.com

You can find Ms. Ligaya & The Floydian Device at Punk Globe Magazine and One Finger Films.
Marc Floyd: thefloydiandevice@gmail.com
Ligaya Allmer: lallmer@gmail.com