Alter Bridge: The Future’s All But Set In Stone

For US rock titans ALTER BRIDGE, 2020 looked set to be another standout year. The band, riding high off the back of last year’s well-received sixth studio album Walk The Sky, had completed a string of tour dates across Europe and were just setting off on the first of several planned US touring legs, and preparing for a busy summer on the festival circuit, when the ongoing nightmare of the COVID-19 global pandemic hit, forcing the Florida collective off the road and into isolation at home for the entire year.

“We had vast touring plans for this year; multiple rounds from the States, we had a couple more runs to Europe, we were hopeful for a run in South America and Australia, Asia, – a lot of things that have just either kind of been cancelled or put on an extended hold, due to the pandemic running through the world these days,” drummer Scott Phillips explains to us over the phone. “It felt like this was a good opportunity for some of those fans that would have come to these shows to at least get a chance to experience these songs from Walk The Sky in a live format, and you know, thought this would be a good time to, to release something like that”.

What he’s referring to is ALTER BRIDGE‘s latest endeavour, Walk The Sky 2.0 – a new EP set to form part of a re-release of that album, consisting of live versions of Walk The Sky songs culled from the small amount of touring they managed in the US at the start of this year to support the record, coupled rather excitingly for fans with a brand new song entitled Last Rites. “[That] was a song that we had actually worked on and sort of formed on the original writing sessions for Walk The Sky,” Scott explains of the track’s genesis.

“We loved the music; it had no lyrics at the time, it had no melody at the time. It was just music. I thought it was just a really cool riff and had this sort of grungy ALICE IN CHAINS kind of a vibe to it, but felt like at the end of the day, it really didn’t quite fit in with the rest of how Walk The Sky was shaping up to be, the album itself. So we kind of shelved it, you know, and then being shut down, like we were all shut down this year and thinking about doing sort of an EP or a live type thing, thought it would be a good chance to get that song finished and let it see the light of day. Most of my parts were done – there were a couple of things that needed to be polished up.”

With it’s promotional cycle having essentially ground to a halt, and the record’s one year anniversary having just passed at the time of our chat, we press Scott for his and the band’s collective thoughts on the original Walk The Sky album, having now had presumably some time for perspective a year later. “With us, it’s still kind of feels fresh just because we only got to tour it for such a limited amount,” he reveals.

“Honestly I haven’t gone back and listened to much of it since well, A – since the recording, and B – you know, since we were stopped touring, so it still feels new and fresh to us. And, I think we’re all really pleased with the way that it turned out. It’s, you know, it’s got a little bit of a different vibe than other things that we’ve done with some of the synth textures that got added to it, which made it a lot of fun to play, in a live format. But, yeah, we’re certainly proud of the work that we put into it and, you know, we’ve heard a lot of positive feedback from it. So we hope everybody enjoys it.”

Exactly what the future holds for Phillips and the rest of ALTER BRIDGE at the moment is uncertain, however for now, fans can at least take solace in the new material enclosed in Walk The Sky 2.0, and look forward to whenever it is the next opportunity to see the band live will come. “You know, the four of us have been doing this for a long time and without a loyal fan base, we wouldn’t be able to be continuing to do this”, Scott expresses as our time together draws to an end.

“You have to have fans in order to sustain a career in this industry. We’re very fortunate that we’ve got some diehard fans and, you know, we hope that everybody’s staying safe, obviously. 2020 might be the worst year I’ve ever been alive, but I hope that everybody’s doing well, staying safe and we’re all hopeful that 2021 might bring back some normalcy. And if it does, we’ll be one of the first bands out there, and hope that everybody will come out and try to get back to a sense of normal life.”

Walk The Sky 2.0 EP is out now via Napalm Records. 

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