“Being able to go into a sacred space like that and start the process was a dream come true”: Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti on recording at the studio that Eddie Van Halen built – and the 5150 amp that gave them their fire-breathing tone

It might be one of the most famous recording facilities in the world but no one gets to record at 5150 Studios, Los Angeles, unless your surname is Van Halen, and yet, somehow, Alter Bridge did just that.

Their forthcoming self-titled studio album, scheduled for a 9 January 2026 release through Napalm, was tracked there under the watchful eye of producer Michael ‘Elvis’ Baskette, with the band finishing the record off at Baskette’s studio in Florida.

Frontman/guitarist Myles Kennedy and guitarist Mark Tremonti can barely contain themselves at the thought of it, recording in the same studio that the late Eddie Van Halen built from the ground up, where all Van Halen albums from 1984 onwards were recorded, This, says Kennedy, is a “sacred space”, so when they got an invite from longtime friend Wolfgang Van Halen to work there, there was only going to be one answer.

“Y’know, look, [laughs] being able to go into a sacred space like that and start the process was a dream come true,” he says. “I think Mark and I can both testify to that.”

“We planned to do preproduction there,” explains Tremonti. “It was an opportunity that came up. Wolfgang was nice enough to invite us there – because Wolfie is pretty much a brother of ours now. We’ve had such a long relationship. We love hanging out. We’d go to 5150, he’d come hang out with us, we’d go out have dinner with him, and he’d let us into his sacred studio.”

Alter Bridge and Van Halen go way back. Back in his Creed days, Tremonti supported Van Halen, with Eddie Van Halen famously gifting him one of his Wolfgang signature guitars. Wolfgang, the musician, played bass guitar on Tremonti’s solo project, and his band, Mammoth WVH, have spent months on the road with Alter Bridge, with both bands sharing management.

The enormity of Alter Bridge tracking an album in the facility that Eddie Van Halen built is not lost on manager, Tim Tournier, who knocks on wood that it might happen again.

Both Kennedy and Tremonti had been to 5150 before. This was Kennedy’s second visit. “It’s much different knowing you’re going to work there,” he says.

Tremonti already had some pretty good memories of 5150.

“I saw Van Halen play there, which was pretty nuts,” he says. “Wolfie was nice enough to call me when I was in LA and say, ‘Hey! You wanna come see Van Halen practise tomorrow morning?’ So he drove me to 5150. It was awesome.”

This would have been late 2011 or early 2012, when Van Halen were tracking their final studio album, A Different Kind Of Truth.

“They played the whole record,” adds Tremonti. “Roth wasn’t there. It was just Alex and Eddie [and Wolfgang]. But they played the whole new record.”

With Kennedy and Tremonti in the inner sanctum, ground zero for the Brown Sound, where some of the most iconic guitar parts and tones were put together, it begs the question whether they got to play Frankenstein.

“No, no!” laughs Tremonti. “We didn’t want to push it! ‘Can we play this on the record!?’ No, we respected the space. It wasn’t something that we deserve!”

“No, we’re not worthy!” says Kennedy. “It was literally, the minute we walked in the door, it was very Wayne’s World. ‘We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!’”

But when you press play on this new Alter Bridge record, you can be sure that 5150 – and Eddie Van Halen’s designs – left an imprint on its sound. Kennedy says the eponymous EVH Gear 5150 III 50-watt tube amp head was the secret sauce in the album’s reference quality rhythm guitar tone. Kennedy’s signature PRS signature model sounded all kinds of godly when played through the head.

“I don’t know if it was a prototype but it was a 5150 III, 50-watt version, which I just really grew fond of,” says Kennedy. “That amp turned out to be a pretty big part of the sound of this record. From the starting riff of Silent Divide, you can really hear the characteristic of that amp blended with my [Diezel] VH4.”

Looking at the pictures from the studio floor, there were other amps in the mix, too. Kennedy mentions his VH4, but there’s Tremonti’s 100-watt signature head from PRS, the MT-100, feating into a slanted Marshall 4X12 cabinet.

The EVH III in white vinyl pulls focus, but we can’t help noticing a more modest amp in white vinyl, the Positive Grid Spark Mini, that looks like it is being used by bassist Brian Marshall. What's that doing? Who knows. But it was the 5150 that was taking the starring role here, and Tremonti said it even made him rethink what he was looking for from an amp.

There is something in the upper mids that’s very unique about that amp, that really seem to work in the chain

“As far as the amps go, that 5150 III, it made me reassess 50-watt amps. I was never a big 50-watt amp kinda guy, and I have the 5150 100-watt version and the 50-watt version, but there was something special about that 50-watt version,” he says. “I’ve just recently bought a 50-watt Dumble. It’s my first 50-watt Dumble, and versus the 100-watt, it’s got a different thing.

“It’s an Overdrive Special. It was very early. It’s serial number 49, so it’s very early. The first Dumbles didn’t have two master controls so you couldn’t get two live tones out of it, meaning you couldn’t set one channel at a different volume.

“But those 50-watt versions? There’s something about that 5150 III, the 6L6 that we used.”

Kennedy’s the same. He preferred 100-watters, too.

“Well I thought that the 50-watt wouldn’t carry the weight of the 100, it wouldn’t stand side by side in an arena or something, but it does, it does carry the weight, and it just has more bite,” he says “There is something in the upper mids that’s very unique about that amp, that really seem to work in the chain.”

Is that unique certain something in the upper mids an Eddie Van Halen quality? That kind of aerobic drive and harmonic response? “Oh yeah,” says Kennedy, and he advises guitarists to concentrate their efforts on nailing these battleground frequencies when dialling in a tone. Get them right and the rest will fall into place.

“That’s where we sit as guitarists,” he says. “It’s funny, guitar players are like, ‘Oh, the bottom end!?’ Well, once you put it in context, in the mix, a lot of that is getting drowned out by the kick drum and the bass guitar anyway. Upper mids are where you’re going to sit so you want them to be [right]. Wherever those upper frequencies are, you want them to cut, and also you want the right type of cut.”

Alter Bridge’s self-titled eighth studio album available to pre-order and is out on 9 January 2026 through Napalm Records.