Few embody the rock n’ roll spirit like Todd Kerns does. When he isn’t holding down the low end for Slash, he keeps busy with a number of other bands and projects. The latest of these bands is Blackbird Angels: A collaboration between he and L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns that pays tribute to the glory days of ’70s hard rock. While there’s been no shortage of acts filling this niche in the past decade (those Greta kids, anyone?), Blackbird Angels does so with an authentic finesse that could only come from true fans raised in the heart of the era. We sat down with Kerns to discuss the magic of old school hard rock, his nonstop work ethic, and getting chased into Chinese restaurants.
Greetings Todd and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Todd Kerns: I’m great! It’s so good to see you.
Also, I hope I’m pronouncing the new album title correctly. “Sol-sor-tay”?
TK: Sounds right to me. It’s so funny because the name of that album…it’s Danish for “blackbird”. That’s the word. I never quite confirmed how it was pronounced, so now I’ve been going out doing press like, “I should probably check that out.” Every single time someone asks me, I go, “Sol-sort? Sol-sor-tay? Sol-sor-tee?” I don’t know. Something! I should probably google it and find out.
Yeah, when we got the press release, I saw the “e” at the end and I thought, “Is it silent? Is it not?” Either way, the album is far from silent. It’s a hard rockin’ ass-kicker of an album. When did you first meet Tracii Guns and what events led to the formation of Blackbird Angels?
TK: It’s such a funny thing because when you get to know somebody, the events all sort of melt together. I’m pretty sure he came to jam with…I had a band. Well, we still do stuff on occasion. We just recently did a show. Brent Muscat and I had a thing called the Sin City Sinners here in Las Vegas. We would have guys come jam all the time. Tracii came and jammed. Tracii was always complimentary and seemed to like what I do. That’s always nice to hear from guys you admire. We’ve always remained friendly. During lockdown and all that, things became a lot more elastic. Schedules were permitting basically everything. When Tracii reached out and said, “Hey, you wanna make a ’70s rock record?” I was like, “Hellyeah! Let’s do that! That sounds like fun.”
It was a bizarre time when you think back on it because I don’t know about you, but there was a lot of paranoia around the idea of, “Are we ever gonna be able to do this again? Are we ever gonna be able to tour again? Are we ever gonna do anything again?” We all landed on this feeling of, “Well, I can write and record. I’ll just keep doing that so when people like Tracii Guns reach out, you go, “Hellyeah, let’s do that!”” Without any idea of what the hell will happen to it or where it could go. It was like, “Yeah, let’s make some music!” We pointed our ship towards ’70s Led Zeppelin, Bad Company rock n’ roll. We may have diverted off the path on several occasions, because that’s just the nature of what you do when you have roots as deep as we do. I think that was the intention. I think we were pretty accurate in our aim.
Not to deviate too off course, but you mentioned you’re in Vegas. Did you attend Psycho Las Vegas last year?
TK: I did not. I was away. I miss all the fun stuff *laughs*. When you play and tour as much as I do, it’s like, “There’s something cool happening in Vegas.” “Ah, I’m gonna be away!” Yeah, that’s the story of my life. I missed that one entirely. Were you there?
Yes, I flew out from Chicago for it. Mercyful Fate was my number one bucket list band to catch live, so I had to. Their set was such a trip, because besides being musically brilliant, as I was watching them, on one side of me is your buddy Chuck (Garric) from Alice Cooper’s band. On the other is one of the dudes from Wu-Tang Clan. And up onstage is King Diamond and the gang playing all those classic songs. It was like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas come to life.
TK: 100%. When somebody like King Diamond does his thing, especially when he’s gonna throwback to Mercyful Fate, everyone’s gonna show up to watch that. I was really bummed to miss that because I never saw them or King Diamond. I got to know Mikkey Dee in his Motörhead chapter. I guess Scorpions now, but there’s always that, “It’s Mikkey Dee from King Diamond!” *laughs* That’s what we all think! Yeah, I’m really bummed I missed that. One of these days I hope I get the opportunity to see them because that must’ve been epic.
Easily one of the top 3 shows I’ve ever seen. On top of that, it was my first time in Vegas and I loved it. I stayed a week.
TK: Was it 1,000 degrees outside? *laughs*
It was, and you really felt it on that pool stage. They had Nuclear Assault playing at like 2 in the morning. Everyone was a total mess. People were diving in and out of the pool, over the barrier, moshing like maniacs, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
TK: Yeah, being outside doesn’t make it any easier. It’s this dead pavement and the sun beating down on it. I was just talking about it yesterday because my wife and I had a day off. We were like, “Let’s go do something!” We were walking around. For all intents and purposes, the first time I came to Vegas was in September. I was coming from Canada and it was becoming Fall. The seasons were changing. I came to Vegas and was like, “This is the hottest day I’ve ever experienced in my life in Autumn. What kind of a crazy place is this?” Even yesterday, as the rest of the world is starting to chill out, we’re walking around Vegas going, “Oh my God! It’s so hot out here!” *laughs* But that’s Vegas. And then on October 1, it’ll be like somebody just goes, “Click!” They just flip a switch and you go, “Oh, wow! It’s time to put a jacket on.” It’s a fascinating place.
Getting back on track, how did you and Tracii approach the songwriting for this album?
TK: Well the really interesting thing was that most of the music, when it was presented to me as, “Do you want to make this kind of record?” I was like, “Absolutely!” Adam (Hamilton) and himself had done some recording and started sending stuff over. It was in fairly completed form. I didn’t play bass on the record, despite being known as a bass player. I basically just sang and wrote the melody and lyrics on the record. They’d send it to me and I’d be here in my studio like, “OK!” *click* Bust out the pen, start jotting down ideas, start coming up with melodies and things. That’s basically how it went down. It went really fast actually.
The cool thing is the chemistry from project to project, working with other people can be so different. You have people who sort of stroke their beards and they want to talk about it and drink a cup of coffee. “Maybe we should go out and look at the sun.” Whatever. I’m more from the school of if it sounds good to me and I like it, there’s a pretty good chance other people are gonna like it too. I would do my thing and I would send it back. Everything feels like a bit of an audition in a sense. You’re kind of like, “Did I just ruin your song?” I don’t know. I would just send it back and they’d be like, “That’s great! Here’s another one!” And you’d be like, “OK!”
That happens 11 times and the next thing you know, this is a record. We’re done and it’s off we go. We did a song called “On and On / Over and Over”. It’s sort of a bluesy tune on the record. That was really the only one we went back and forth on a few times, just really trying to nail the vibe. Every other song came very quickly and felt really good. It came together very organically and quickly.
Usually you’re playing bass or singing and playing bass in a band. On this album, you’re just singing. How did it feel to be purely focused on vocals as opposed to any other musical aspects?
TK: I’m such an anomaly that way. During the course of my career, I’ve done pretty much every position you can imagine onstage. I started as a bass player, became a bass player/vocalist. Then, I started a band with my younger brother who was a bass player, so I said, “OK, I’ll move into the rhythm guitar position and be Tom Petty out here while you play bass.” I’m a big believer in a strong rhythm guitar. Malcolm Young, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards: That’s always my favorite thing. All that other stuff was like, “That’s heavy lifting. Let him do that!” *laughs*
When I got into production and recording bands again, and recording music and stuff like that, I played a lot more bass again. I always recorded my own parts, but I’m the kind of guy that…I picked up a mandolin because I wanted to know how to play it. I picked up a ukulele because I wanted to know how to play it. I always have weird stuff around here that I find interesting. The 12-string bass and the fretless bass and all of these different things that I want to dig into.
There’s a show here in Las Vegas I do when I’m in town called Raiding the Rock Vault. I’m only the singer in that, or one of the singers in that show. I play some acoustic guitar, but mostly my position there is to be the vocalist. Standing there with a microphone is something that’s actually in my weird cast of characters I’ve played in my life. Something like this, although it was never really discussed, it was just that the music was sent to me fairly complete.
In reality, the music itself was complete and it was more a case of slight arrangement things here and there. I just sang on it. To me it became, “Well, I’ll just do this other thing that I do, which is sing.” The most important thing about it was just being able to really tap into that writing and melody and lyrics and all that kind of stuff. That was the real challenge and the real fun of it to me.
This album really comes off as a homage to the ’70s hard rock sound. You mentioned Led Zeppelin and Bad Company. I heard a lot of Humble Pie in there myself. Growing up, who were your favorite bands and was there any one band or artist in particular who inspired you to pursue music?
TK: There’s so many little gateway drugs in that conversation. As a kid, falling in love with my parents’ Beatles records or Elvis…even KISS, to be honest with you. As a kid, I was the perfect age to find KISS, but all 3 of those artists I just mentioned did not feel like something you could actually do *laughs*. Elvis was a god. The Beatles were a four-headed monster. KISS was basically comic book heroes. None of those things felt like anything we could pursue in any sort of…yeah, they played guitar, but I was a kid. I never really thought about it.
Then I saw the movie The Kids Are Alright, which is a documentary about The Who and it really opened up a part of my brain. It led me down a path of punk rock and eventually metal. There was something about Pete Townshend being this tall, gangly dude with a big nose and that kind of thing. I thought, “These guys don’t look like poster boys.” Everything was so aggressive. It doesn’t really translate when you listen to the recordings of those songs in the early days because they’re such pop songs, but live they were just so aggressive with the smashing of instruments and the arm windmill. It was the first time I thought to myself, “I wanna do that.”
I had an acoustic guitar. My father got tired of me banging around on his and was like, “Here. That’s a C chord. That’s a G chord. Now get the hell away from my guitar.” *laughs* At that point, I was just like, “Wow!” It opened up that part of myself. Finding punk rock was a big deal because things like the Ramones was the first time me and my friends went, “I think we can play this! We can get through the 3 minutes of this.” Everything else just seemed so challenging, and it was.
Trying to learn Beatles songs, there were so many chords. Even more challenging was Pink Floyd and all of these things that were going on. But the rock n’ roll, Cheap Trick and all that kind of stuff, that opened up a part of that kind of thing. It’s all part of The Who. They all sort of really opened that door for me, oddly enough. I was invested in that band for a long time until I found whatever the next obsession was.
The Who is a band who gets played so much on classic rock radio that I feel people forget about the power and aggression of their music. Like you said, they weren’t poster boys either. Even with Roger Daltrey being “the pretty one”, these were strange looking dudes. It’s moody music, but it hits you in the gut. I love The Who.
TK: Yeah, and it was one of those bands that by the time I really got into them, I don’t know if Keith (Moon) was either gone or on the verge of being gone. It was sort of like that with Led Zeppelin too. We’re younger and we find these bands and it’s like Bonham was either gone or about to be gone. I don’t know if I would’ve even been able to have registered that because so much of that music feels like it was from a forgotten time in a sense.
It was like, Brian Jones from The Rolling Stones is dead, but he had been dead for 10 or 15 years by the time I found The Rolling Stones. Jim Morrison, he had been gone long before I found The Doors. The Who had such a reputation. No one could really live up to that reputation by today’s standards. Even today, being in a rock band, if my phone rang in my hotel room at 3 AM and the tour manager said, “Get your shit. We gotta get out of here because the drummer just drove a Rolls Royce into the hotel pool.”, I would be pissed off. I would be like, “What?! He did what?! What an asshole!”
Back in the ’70s, it was like, “That’s hilarious!” You already threw a TV off the balcony. It was such a different time. That kind of wildness is not something you could just concoct. These were basically unhinged people that you’d strap a guitar on or put behind a drumkit and say, “Go make music!” That aspect of it really opens up a whole other side. I think that if I really boiled everything I think about music, it would all boil down to those very early roots of what I like about rock n’ roll.
As much as I fell in love with metal, I never fell in love with metal guitar playing. I never really cared about playing like that because I always knew there was somebody else who was better than me. There was always a guy who was gonna be better than I was. As far as guitar playing went, I thought, “Well, somebody’s gotta be Paul Stanley!” *laughs* I like his guitar playing! Somebody else can be the Bruce Kulick or the Eddie Van Halen or the Steve Vai or the Nuno Bettencourt. That’s a whole other animal. That wasn’t for me. That just seemed like to much work *laughs*.
You know, as you were giving that answer, I just remembered I have this next to me on my window *pulls out vintage Who carnival mirror*.
TK: Oh, that’s so cool! That’s the best, with the union jack and everything!
Right on! Expanding upon that last question, when you eventually started playing music, what was the hart rock and metal scene like up in your part of Canada?
TK: Like most places, the influence is rock is pretty universal. The NWOBHM…it’s funny now because someone will talk about, my kids call it “dad rock” *laughs*. Like Deep Purple or something like that. I go, “Dude, that was dad rock when I was a kid!” You know what I’m saying? It felt like Deep Purple was old back then! “Smoke on the Water” seemed like ancient music. I guess it was maybe 20 years old? I don’t know. I definitely remember metal being…my friend in his basement going, “Check this out!” and he put on “Metal Gods” by Judas Priest from British Steel on vinyl. It was like, “Woah, what the hell is this?” Going back and listening to it now, it’s quite a poppy tune, but at the time it felt quite revolutionary.
I would say obviously the influence of Led Zeppelin and then, of course, into the punk rock, you slide into things like Motörhead which remained a constant in my life. A constant even in the level of what they were doing from song one until the very end of their career. They had established who they were and they never really deviated from that plan. With the introduction of the NWOBHM, I was probably catching the tail end of it anyway because being where I was from, it was like being introduced to Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and all of that, it was the tail end before boom: Quiet Riot and Def Leppard.
Then all of a sudden, one day, my friend brings over Kill ‘Em All by Metallica and goes, “Dude, this is heavier than Motörhead.” I go, “There’s nothing heavier than Motörhead. What are you talking about?” He played it and sure enough, it was heavier than Motörhead! That opened up a whole other world of Slayer and Megadeth and that whole thing that still reigns to this day. I really feel privileged to have come from such a small, remote place because a lot of my friends that grew up in the bigger cities were like, “He’s a punk rock guy. He’s a prog rock guy. He’s straight thrash metal.” We were more like, just making this weird stew like, “Hey, that’s pretty cool!”
You mentioned Humble Pie. Steve Marriott was one of my gods. All that kind of stuff you just put in there. “Iggy Pop’s real cool! Have you heard Saxon?” *laughs* You would just find all these little things and you would love them. I still am like that to this day where my playlist looks like 10 different personalities put it together, but it’s kind of like that, and still having this audacity to be able to have a soft spot in your heart for your mom’s AM radio listenings of Olivia Newton-John. I’ll be like, “Oh, I love this song. Do I love this song because it’s a good song or do I love it because my mom listened to it when I was in the backseat driving around town?” I don’t know, but it’s all in there and it’s such a bizarre hodgepodge of weird music.
Just like this record, it’s such a cool mix of retro sounds. Sure, it’s a bluesy hard rock album at its core, but one thing I noticed is a lot of groove and funk, especially on a cut like “Coming in Hot”. It reminds me so much of Mk. III Purple. How did that tune come about? It’s such a simple rocker, but it works.
TK: It’s funny because that has that, like you say, Zeppeliny…you’re the first person to point out the Mk. III comparison, but I would 100% agree with you there. That’s sort of delving into white guy hard rock being funky. It’s always fun to me. I think that sort of “da-da” would work as the chorus, and when it finally goes into that riff *hums riff*, I immediately thought, “That’s coming in hot!” It just turned into a ’70s kind of…like a bunch of heavy rock dudes playing something funky.
Sometimes those are my favorite things, when thoughtful songwriter guys finally decide to make a rock song, but when guys delve out of what their known for and do something a little different, which is why I think Mk. III Purple was so cool. It was like, “Wow, these guys are really stretching out.” It definitely felt that way on “Coming in Hot”. To Adam and Tracii’s credit, that song came to me fully formed musically like that. It was just a matter of coming up with the right hook and the right lyrics to make it work.
It’s a pretty bizarre song because the chord changes get pretty outside. Sometimes when you’re trying to come up with a melody on certain things, it can be quite challenging, but that one came in very authentically and very organically and very easily for me. It wasn’t like I was sitting there stroking my beard for two weeks. It was a matter of sitting down with headphones on and going like, “Yeah!” The song just came together. That’s a good one. I like it a lot.
The other outliers on this album are some incredible ballads like “On and On / Over and Over” and “The Last Song”. On that note, here’s a question I’ve asked from the legendary Reverend Billy F. Gibbons to the infamous Steve Sylvester of Death SS. What would you say makes the perfect ballad?
TK: Geez, that’s really tough. I think the authenticity of the song is important. That’s something that started to happen in the ’80s where it became the format. You have a hard rock single, or two hard rock singles, and then it’s followed by a black and white video, mournfully staring out windows and stuff like that. There was always this sort of like, “Who wrote this song? Is this some outside songwriter?” I think there’s something to be said about, like most songs in general, if you can feel what that person is singing about, or feel what they’re talking about.
“Since I’ve Been Loving You” by Led Zeppelin feels very deep. There’s probably a number of…I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but pop type or folk type, ballady type songs that we all probably…once in a while, I’ll hear “I Am, I Said” by Neil Diamond on the radio and I go, “Damn, this is some deep shit!” *laughs* That’s fuckin’ Neil Diamond! That also comes with maturity too. When I was young, I liked Neil Young, but I preferred really noisy, out of tune Neil Young. As I got older, I started to understand his folk, touchy feely type stuff. I think a lot of that comes with maturity and being able to go, “Wow, there’s a lot being said in this song.”
My best answer would be authenticity and making sure whatever you’re singing is real. Something like “The Last Song”, which is the one you mentioned, there’s another song on the record called “Better Than This”, which is sort of a ballad. “The Last Song” was the weirdest thing because I wrote down…I had my work list of things I had to do, whether it was “take out the garbage” or “pick up laundry detergent” or whatever the hell it was *laughs*. “Don’t forget to call this guy”, “return this email”, and then I just had written down, “The Last Song”.
All of the other songs had presented themselves really quickly on the Blackbird Angels album. There was that last song that I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I had written, literally, “The Last Song”. When I started to go back and listen to the song and I had that in my head, I started to think, “That’s such an interesting idea. What’s the last song you’ll ever sing? What’s the last song you’ll ever hear?” This idea of, as somebody who’s as obsessed with music as I’m sure you are, music is my whole life. If you wanna wake up, put on this song. If you wanna mellow out, put on this song. If you’re feeling down, put this one on.
Then I thought to myself, it’s such a weird thing to imagine what’s the last song you’ll ever hear before lights out? You hope it’d be something awesome, but it’ll probably be something lame *laughs*. You’re standing at the golden gates going, “Damn, I think I died to an Ambrosia song.” *laughs* Not to diss Ambrosia. It just wouldn’t be my choice of songs to die to *laughs*.
It’s wild because not too long ago I was having this conversation with some friends. This idea of, if you had a choice, what is the last song you’d want to hear before you die? I guess I’ll relay that question to you!
TK: You know, I always bug my wife. If I theoretically died, what would they play at my funeral? I said, “I want the fucking doors to fly open and it’s “Kick Out the Jams” by MC5!” Something like that which would make people go, “What the hell?!” Have all these people jarred awake by, “Kick out the jams motherfuckers!” and you’re at Todd’s funeral *laughs*. Something like that would be a good way to go. Just go out screaming. How about for you?
It’s a tad obscure, but it’s one of my favorite songs of all time and the perfect album closer: Styx’s “Pieces of Eight”.
TK: Wow! That’s some deep digging there!
It’s just so intense, musically and lyrically. If I have 5 minutes left, I’m telling whoever’s there, “Put this on the aux!”
TK: That’s the bizarre thing, and I’ve had this conversation too since this topic came up with this song. A friend of mine said, “My daughter was born to “Orinoco Flow” by Enya.” I was like, “What?!” *laughs* Just the idea of playing music while your children are being born. All I remember is the chaos of children being born. I didn’t even think to go press play on a boombox or Spotify. I was so wrapped up in the moment. It’s a dark topic, but if someone is in a hospice situation, I suppose if that were me, I’d say, “Put some tunes on!” I apologize for dragging us down this lane, but when we start heading down that lane, you better get your “Pieces of Eight” mixtape together because it’s your playlist of, if I’m gonna lie here, put on my top 100 or 200 favorite songs to go out to and hope it doesn’t get to that. Who knows?
Leading up to this interview, I was revisiting some of your past output and was watching the music video for Age of Electric’s “Remote Control”. The top comment on YouTube reads, “I love this band. Chased and hung out with them when I was 13. Chased them to a Chinese restaurant.” Do you recall this incident? Furthermore, what is the most unusual fan encounter you’ve had?
TK: *laughs* I don’t, but I remember a lot of people, especially back then. We were just kids ourselves, so we were really good about…people would come up freaked out, but to us, we were literally a bunch of kids from a small town who made a band that suddenly stumbled into, I suppose they’d call it a hit song. We’d be like, “Yeah, come on!” “Really?” “Yeah, we’re just going to Arby’s.” *laughs* Whatever we could afford.
It’s such a funny thing because I’ve always said I hate the term “fan”. I prefer the term “friend” because nothing brings people together more than music, especially the people that I really connect with. It’s mostly about music. Not to say I don’t have other interests, but it’s just that way. When I think about it, I don’t necessarily remember anybody chasing us or being with us at a Chinese restaurant, but I remember a lot of people being with us at a lot of places. Those after-show Denny’s type things, it’d be like, “Yeah, come on!” There’d be a whole group of people hanging out. “Fans”, I suppose.
Weird interactions? They’re all kind of weird in their own way because I never really get past the…I still can’t help but think of myself as, “I’m just some guy.” I put my hardhat on and go to work everyday with my lunch pail. It just happens to be making music. It’s different because I look at Rod Stewart or someone like that and go, “That’s a whole other level. I’m just a working musician.” People get nuts. Some people get a little wonky and music can attract the most extreme behaviors, as you can imagine. You just have to navigate that. It’s like, “OK, take it down a notch.” *laughs* It is what it is.
The press release mentioned upcoming live shows that will feature an expanded lineup including L.A. Guns’ Johnny Martin on bass and Faster Pussycat’s Sam Bam on guitars. Are there any confirmed dates in the foreseeable future and what can fans expect from these shows setlist-wise?
TK: Honestly, we’ve just only started to approach that topic. As you can imagine, our schedules are all ridiculous. L.A. Guns is more in demand than ever. I feel like their new music is some of the strongest they’ve ever made. I’m so proud of the guys. I’ve been a big supporter of all those guys in all their different versions too. I’ve always tried to be supportive, but seeing Phil (Lewis) and Tracii come back together, most of us fans were very excited to see that.
Their schedule is pretty full. Tracii and I keep in contact going, “When we can find that window, we’ll pull the trigger on that.” Whether that means a one off here or something there. Oddly enough, places like the UK have been quite vocal about us getting over there. I don’t know. When you talk about setlists, I have no idea. I assume we would play the album and maybe a couple of covers of some sort. Do we have to? I’m always game to play some L.A. Guns, but I don’t know if that’s something we need to play.
It’s funny because I’m about to do a tattoo convention show in New Jersey next month. Phil’s singing a bunch of L.A. Guns song with us. I was like, “That’ll be a blast, man!” They sent over a list of songs to play and I was like, “I know all these songs!” I’m just one of those guys that has been invested since they came out and I know this stuff. It’s more a case if we can find a time and make it all work. Obviously Johnny and Tracii are on the same timeline because they’re in the same band *laughs*. Sam, who has such a future, he’s such a lovely, super talented guy, and Adam…it’d just be a matter of making it all sync up. I would love to see something like a Whisky a Go Go show and then Vamp’d out here in Vegas. Then just figure it out from there and see if we can make things work.
It’s so funny these days because most musicians, and I’m sure you’ve talked to so many of them, rarely have only one project on the go. Because of the record industry being what it is, there’s no money to be made in selling records. Everybody has something that’s their focus, but they always have something else going on because you can’t do everything 365 days of the year. I’m one of those guys that loves playing music, so if we’re taking a break from this project, it’s like, “I still want to play. I still want to do stuff. I still want to create. What are you doing?” *laughs*
Looking forward, what are your plans for the rest of 2023 and going into the new year in regards to Blackbird Angels, Slash, or any other upcoming projects?
TK: That’s been the other side of talking about any sort of scheduling. My own schedule is particularly nuts. When I’m in Vegas, I sit in with the Raiding the Rock Vault show here. It’s a gig here, a gig there. The regular schedule is about 3 days a week, but it varies on who’s around and if I’m in town. I’m gonna be there this Friday. Next month, I have that tattoo convention with Sebastian Bach, Phil Lewis, and Taime Downe. Brent Woods, Brent Fitz, and I are the backing band.
Then, in October, I’m doing a KISS Convention with Bruce Kulick and Ace Frehley, so that’ll be super fun. That’s in Tampa. I’ve been playing with Bruce off and on since 2010. We’ve done KISS Kruises a million times, so we’ve got this whole other thing going on. In November, my Canadian band that I have with Brent Fitz from Slash’s band and our guitarist Cory (Churko) from Shania Twain’s band…over 10 years ago now, we started doing these charity shows and benefit shows in Canada.
We told ourselves, “Let’s just play Canadian music.” April Wine, Loverboy, Saga, Rush, as a complete challenge to ourselves. We figured, We’re playing in Canada. Let’s play nothing but Canadian classic rock.” That turned into a very popular thing. Then we started writing our own music. That’s been a fun side project. It’s called Toque. We’re doing a run of dates in November. Then I go back to Europe with my other project, Heroes and Monsters, with Will Hunt from Evanescence and Stef Burns from Alice Cooper and a bunch of different bands. Another COVID project that was really fun to do and has managed to tour a giant chunk this year.
The new year promises to be SMKC, Slash and the guys, we’re doing a run. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to talk about, but I can talk to my good friend Joe about it *laughs*. A lot of that is still in talks of how it’s gonna work, but it looks like the new year will have a run of dates on that. We put out a record in 2022, 4, the fourth record we did. We had a brief run of dates on it because as soon as the world opened from COVID, everybody’s schedules exploded. We all had these things we had been promised to in 2020 and 2021 that we all had to make up for.
Suddenly, Guns N’ Roses, off they went. Alter Bridge, off they went. The rest of us all went off in our other directions. Frank (Sidoris) plays in Mammoth WVH, so it’s been really crazy to watch us all go in other directions. People keep asking me, “Is Blackbird Angels a band or a project?” I always kind of giggle because people asked the same thing about SMKC. “Is this a band or is this a project?” Aren’t they all the same thing? Aren’t they all bands and projects?
If one of them becomes hugely successful, then it suddenly becomes your focus. For me, I feel very, very fortunate to be able to do all of this, especially creating music at a time when Aerosmith and KISS just stopped making new music. I love making music. Having a record coming out with Tracii and all of that is such a blessing, to be able to go, “Wow, we’re still making music.” That’s exciting. Having somebody put it out and having people actually give a damn about it is awesome. We live in a day and age where it’s getting harder and harder to figure out how to put it out, where are we gonna put it out, how are we gonna get it to everybody. To me, this is just gonna be my life for the foreseeable future: creating music and playing as much as possible.
They made a movie about Jerry Lee Lewis with Dennis Quaid many, many years ago. I remember at the end of the movie, it had that, “This happened to this person. This happened to that person.” And it said, “Jerry Lee Lewis is probably playing somewhere tonight.” I thought, “I want people to think that about me: I’m not sure what he’s doing, but he’s probably playing somewhere tonight.” I’m gonna keep doing this until the wheels fall off, until someone taps me on the shoulder and says, “Here’s your gold watch. Thank you for your time.”
The new Blackbird Angels album, Solsorte, is out now on Frontiers Records. For more information on Todd Kerns, visit www.toddkerns.com.