Success story couldn’t star nicer guy

Life is often filled with tough choices.

My friend Myles Kennedy, for example, was agonizing over one of those pivotal, life-altering conundrums one day last winter. We sat together in a poorly ventilated, cramped studio in a north Spokane guitar store, discussing the big decision he had to make.

Being 20 years older than Myles, I was able to give him some of the wisdom one can only describe as fatherly.

The way I saw it Myles could either: A) continue to give me weekly guitar lessons at 20 bucks an hour or B) accept the offer to become lead singer of a rock band whose members had sold 30 million albums.

Hmm. What to do?

I think I told Myles something like:

“Are you nuts? Of course you’ve gotta go. This is the freaking chance of a lifetime.”

Everyone he consulted probably told him the same thing.

Myles went to Florida. He joined Alter Bridge, the new band that has risen from the ashes of that CD-selling cash cow, Creed.

Alter Bridge appears to have a public relations outfit Bush or Kerry would kill for.

The band is everywhere these days. It’s being hyped like the Second Coming in the rock press. Mark Tremonti, Alter Bridge founder and guitar slinger, gazes from the cover of the current issue of Guitar One magazine with ax in hand.

Alter Bridge videos are aired more often than commercials on VH1. Earlier this month, the band’s first album – “One Day Remains” – hit the stores. Sales have already been so brisk that, during a recent stay in New York, the band was awarded gold records by label execs.

“It’s really bizarre,” Myles told me in a telephone call Tuesday. “Every morning I wake up and can’t believe it.”

File the Alter Bridge sound under the genre, “Gargantuan Guitar Arena Rock.”

The good news is that Alter Bridge has mercifully divorced itself from the pretense and pomposity that made Creed so embarrassing toward the end.

There’s plenty of melodic, straight-ahead rock on “One Day Remains.”

I’m biased, obviously. But anyone with working ear canals should agree that the star of Alter Bridge is Myles’ riveting vocal command.

I’ve always known Myles could sing. But this lad has world class rock chops.

“Thanks,” was the low-key reply when I told him so. “I’ve worked hard on it.”

Classic Myles modesty.

The best part of the success story is that it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Myles earned his shot at the Big Time through dedication and drive and all those other traditional virtues.

True story: Myles practiced his guitar so much during his years at Mead High School that he literally wore a hole in the carpet where he sat playing endless riffs and scales.

It’s become a cliché that you make your own luck. That doesn’t make it any less true.

Myles’ determination to make a career out of rock ‘n’ roll paid off for the first time in 1997. His band, The Mayfield Four, signed a fat deal with Epic Records. Their two albums failed to set the charts on fire. The group called it quits.

During their run, however, Mayfield opened for Creed several times in 1998.

Tremonti took notice of Myles’ singing abilities. How could he not? So when Creed finally imploded, the guitarist had an obvious candidate to replace the band’s egomaniacal singer, Scott Stapp.

Sometimes life really does imitate art.

One of Myles’ small claims to fame is that he landed a bit part in the Mark Wahlberg/Jennifer Aniston movie, “Rock Star.” In it, he plays the lucky kid pulled out of the crowd and given the mike when Wahlberg decides to give up the stage.

“My name’s actually Mike, but my friends call me Thor, God of Thunder,” says Myles to Wahlberg.

Go get ‘em Thor.