Myles Kennedy Kills It on Acoustic Cover of Iron Maiden’s ‘The Trooper’
As of mid-June, Myles Kennedy was "pretty much done" with his second solo album. No other details have emerged on that front, but the singer does have something to tide fans over while the wait for the Year of the Tiger successor continues as he's just released an Americana cover version of Iron Maiden's classic track, "The Trooper."
Before he played the one-man acoustic cover, which debuted on Sirius XM Octane and can be heard below, he told the satellite radio station how he had worked the song into his set list rotation on tour in support of his 2018 solo debut.
"I hit the U.S. a few times, did Europe, did South Africa," said Kennedy. "It was amazing — a lot of fun. I played tracks from my career over the last few decades and also played some covers that I would mix up in the set and there was one track that kind of became a fan favorite..."
Detailing how he arrived at Maiden's popular Piece of Mind track, he went on, "I was laying in my bunk in a bus one night, and I thought, I just need something at a certain tempo and [that] has a certain vibe, but I want it to be a song that's from my kind of formative years as a young, angst-ridden teenager. And I was thinking about a lot of the bands that I was listening to back then, and I thought it would be interesting to take one of those tracks and change the arrangement to fit the context of what I do within the realm of my solo project, which tends to have more of an Americana vibe, amongst other things."
"It's kind of a potpourri of sonic... whatever," added Kennedy, "So I thought, man, I was a big Maiden fan as a kid and one of my favorite Iron Maiden tracks is 'The Trooper.' And I thought, 'What would happen if you took 'The Trooper' and kind of mixed it up with how Johnny Cash might have approached it?' I thought that would be interesting."
And interesting it is. This is far from a predictable take on the galloping Iron Maiden anthem and Kennedy adapts it to suit his own needs — it definitely has a bit more of an outlaw feel and comes off less of a charge into bloody battle and more of an adventurous horseback ride through the dusty plains of America's deserts. Kennedy discharges plenty of variation from verse to verse, invoking a heavy storyteller vibe.
Once he was done performing the track, he lamented, "I really miss performing live and seeing people and connecting with music, but hopefully this crazy time we're in will pass sooner than later so we can get back to business."
When business does resume, Kennedy may emerge not only with another solo record, but another one with he's been working on with Slash and his Conspirators band.
Myles Kennedy Covers Iron Maiden's "The Trooper"
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