"I remember finishing the lyrics and literally feeling sick to my stomach." How Alter Bridge regrouped, faced the dark side, put their foot on the gas and recorded a brilliant album

Alter Bridge publicity photo.

One night in 1998, Myles Kennedy was almost killed in Lordsburg, New Mexico. At the time, he was on tour fronting The Mayfield Four, supporting Creed at the start of their ascent to superstardom. Darkness fell over the bare desert town as they hurtled onwards in their 15-passenger Ford Club Wagon. Suddenly there were flames behind them. It was a dramatic turn for Kennedy, a guitar teacher back home in Spokane until he joined The Mayfield Four in ’96. His thirtieth birthday was still a year or so away.

“Our tour manager, who was driving, you hear him just yell: ‘Hold on boys!’” Kennedy recalls today. “He’s holding the steering wheel for dear life. I turn around, and I see the trailer, and I see sparks and fire in the back. It turns out the whole axle of the trailer fell off going, you know, seventy-five miles an hour. Fortunately it didn’t flip. But yeah, that could have been it.”