How Myles Kennedy Writes Songs as Self Mantras to Cope With Lifelong Anxiety

If you deal with anxiety, Myles Kennedy can relate — when he was young, he was given an award for being a “worry wart,” but now he writes songs to use as mantras to himself.

Kennedy’s sophomore solo album The Ides of March is out today (May 14), and he spoke with Loudwire Nights host Toni Gonzalez about how the experience differed from when he wrote his debut record Year of the Tiger, which dealt with the loss of his father at a young age.

While parts of the album were written prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a lot of it is relevant to the everyday anxiety people were feeling all over the world as everything began getting shut down and death tolls rose. “In Stride,” in particular, is a reflection of the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, but also the personal anxiety that Kennedy has been dealing with his whole life.

“I was thinking about when everything first started happening, my wife is running to the store… there’s still just stacks of toilet paper. When are we gonna use all of this toilet paper?” he said laughing. “It was just the idea that, as if we were preparing for a zombie apocalypse. And once again, there was just all this uncertainty. We’d never experienced anything like this, we didn’t know what was gonna happen.”

“Since I was a kid, I’ve always had anxiety. In the sixth grade when all of my friends were getting like, ‘Best Athlete’ and ‘Best Student,’ what did my teacher give me? I got the ‘Worry Wart’ award,” he said.

“So songwriting, for me, has been the best outlet because it helps me write these songs and create these mantras that I can replay in my own head,” the rocker continued. “So, ‘Cool down baby, ya know / You’re gonna burn out in time,’ that’s directed at me.”

To hear more about Kennedy’s experience writing The Ides of March and how he balances writing songs for multiple acts, watch the full interview below. The singer also recently gave us an in-depth look at the meanings behind all of the songs on the album, which you can check out here.

Myles Kennedy – The Ides of March Interview With Loudwire Nights