With a seemingly bottomless well of songwriting proficiency and productivity, Mark Tremonti could justifiably lay claim to being one of the hardest working guitarists in the hard rock/metal world today.
An original member of 1990s rock heavyweights Creed, Tremonti has gone on from the great success of that band to co-write, record and release four well-received albums as co-founder of Alter Bridge, as well as three albums of incendiary and melodic thrash metal albums under the Tremonti banner.
Dust is that band’s latest albums, having been unleased on the world at the end of April through his own Fret12 Records. It is a separate, but complimentary offering of 10 songs that is a direct follow-up to the fall 2015 release of the similarly intense Tremonti album, Cauterize. And that’s because both albums were essentially put together after the fruitful results of an amazingly productive recording period.
“At first, all I wanted to do was record as many songs as possible. Then when we got to the mixing process we had 20 songs ready to go in front of us. I decided to cut them into two albums so that we didn’t put out a 14-song record with six ‘B-sides’ on it. I didn’t want any song to be forgotten or treated as a throw-away,” Tremonti told Music Life Magazine, as he headed into a studio session for the next Alter Bridge album.
“I see it as two sister albums: they’re both a snapshot in a point in time. I tried to make each album as powerful as the next. I wanted to split the heavier tracks and the more atmospheric tracks and make each of the two albums flow evenly and have their own emotional dynamic range, like you would want for any album.”
The band on both Dust and Cauterize features long-time friend and guitarist Eric Friedman along with drummer Garrett Whitlock. Playing bass was the scion of rock royalty, Wolfgang Van Halen.
“Wolfgang toured with us through the album cycle for my first Tremonti album, and also recorded with us on the most recent two albums. Then when we went to tour for Cauterize, Van Halen got going again, so he obviously jumped into that tour. We picked up Tanner Keegan on the bass, and he has toured with us all this time. And actually, to his credit, while we were touring and Van Halen had stopped, Wolfgang put together his own material, so now he is doing his own solo project, which is great for him,” Tremonti explained.
“Eric and I have become pretty close. I first met him when he was only 15 years old at the NAMM (National Association of Music
Merchants) convention. He had these big managers who came and introduced him to me. They said he was an up-and-coming guitar player. I think he already had a Fender deal and was doing some recording with Steve Vai at Steve’s studio. So I sat down and played a little guitar with him and was blown away. I produced one of his own band’s first albums. And the drummer on that record was Garrett Whitlock, who I liked so much that he is my drummer now in Tremonti as well.”
Tremonti formed Creed in 1993 with vocalist Scott Stapp, with bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scot Phillips joining shortly thereafter. A string of hit albums, videos and songs began almost from the moment their debut album, My Own Prison was released in 1997. It featured the singles and concert staples Torn, What’s This Life For and One.
The album Human Clay came out two years later and propelled Creed into superstar status on the backs of the massively popular songs Higher and With Arms Wide Open, which netted the band a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song. Weathered came out in 2001 and was also a commercial success, spawning alt-rock hits like My Sacrifice, Don’t Stop Dancing and One Last Breath.
The rapid ascent for the band led to divisions and Creed essentially broke up in 2004, with Stapp going solo. The remaining trio still wanted to make music together, so Tremonti, Phillips and Marshall recruited the phenomenally talented singer Myles Kennedy to form a new band called Alter Bridge.
Some in the industry saw this as a glorified side project at the time, but quickly repented of that view when the first couple of Alter Bridge albums, One Day Remains (2004) and Blackbird (2007) became hits, and the band became a wildly popular draw on the concert and festival circuit. After an ill-fated attempt at a Creed reunion with the album Full Circle in 2009, Alter Bridge has released two more critically acclaimed albums, AB III in 2010 and Fortress in 2013, and while not equalling the sales success of Creed, certainly had a massive and growing fan base and universal respect within the rock community.
When Kennedy was tapped to become the permanent vocalist and songwriting collaborator with Slash, Tremonti pulled another musical rabbit from the hat, and brought yet another band together to release the album All I Was in 2012 under his own name.
“Of the three bands, Tremonti is definitely the heaviest. Speed metal has been a big part of who I have been since I was a kid and first picked up a guitar. Along the way, I have played with the same rhythm section for all these years between Creed and Alter Bridge, so a lot of the ideas I would throw their way that were on the heavier side would be received with blank stares,” he said with a good-natured chuckle, adding that the so-called ‘Big Four’ of thrash were important early influences.
“Metallica was first. I think Master of Puppets was the first record that turned me from just a casual music fan to a die-hard, search for everything I could find music fan. And from there it as Slayer: I got the Reign in Blood record from my brother and to this day I think it has some of the best guitar riffing ever. Soon after I got into Testament, Anthrax and Megadeth, and I also got into black metal – bands like Celtic Frost. I always say that Metallica and Celtic Frost are my two favourite bands.
“Honestly, as a really young kid I think I developed a real appreciation for melody too, when I would be sitting in the backseat of mom and dad’s care, listening to Gerry Rafferty or Rod Stewart – the AM radio stuff in the 1970s. I love 1970s soft rock to this day, it’s one of my favourite genres. So that’s why melody is always the most important thing for me in a song, no matter how heavy it is.”
While he has been lauded for his guitar player prowess, including winning reader’s polls from the likes of Guitar World Magazine, Loudwire and the Revolver Golden Gods Awards, Tremonti prefers to see himself as a composer first and foremost.
“Whenever I pick up a guitar, I am always writing material first. That’s my main focus. The whole guitar playing lead stuff just kind of comes along for the ride. The writing is what I really love. Being able to do this solo project allows me to make sure that a lot of these ideas that may just never see the light of day get to come out,” he said.
“I am just very happy that with the Tremonti stuff I can write music for myself, and then having other people relate to it is a great bonus. I just work as hard as I can to make the songs as good as they can to satisfy myself first. And that seems to be the trick that works because lot of other people seem to enjoy them too. I think if you love the song, the people who have been your fans and followed your stuff will usually follow suit.”
He said his songwriting process and tone has changed substantially over the years, as he has grown as an artist and as a human being.
“A lot of times, I have to be by myself or be around people that I am very comfortable with. I can be on the back of the tour bus and write and make a fool of myself and not worry about it. For me, a lot of what comprises songwriting is allowing yourself to sound bad and make mistakes and try to catch lightning in a bottle by not playing traditional stuff all the time. I try to come up with awkward tunings and try to make myself make mistakes because sometimes those become beautiful disasters turn into something really good,” Tremonti said.
“But, again, I need to either be alone or around trusted friends where I don’t mind doing silly stuff, or making lots of mistakes, because I am challenging myself to always find something new. And when I write, I don’t try to write a whole song at a time: I write parts and let those parts breathe for a while. And I may find another part to marry it with even years down the road. I never try to force out a song – I like to leave my parts until they find their partners.”
And his approach to writing lyrics has similarly evolved over time.
“When I have written, I have always spat out lyrics improvised on the spot and I often am surprised at how close the final words come out to when I am kind of just throwing it out there – especially vowel placement and the rhythm of the lines of what I am saying. Once I have a few key lines, then I know what the subject matter is going to be about,” he said.
“Over the years I have found myself writing stuff that’s too gloomy. So I will try to force myself to write something that’s not quite so dark. I mean, like I said before, I try to write songs for myself first, the kind of song that I would appreciate, but I also understand that not everyone want to go on this trip with me down the dark alleys of my life. So I try to put stuff in there that isn’t what I would call uplifting, but certainly has more energy and is less gloom and doom.”
Tremonti has always been inspired by the generations of rock musicians who came before him and noted with quiet sadness some of the great losses that have hit the music world in recent months.
“Every time there is a loss like that it’s a crazy feeling and it reminds you that we’re not here for a very long time. A lot of these guys have gone out with class and dignity, especially David Bowie. He went out like a poet with his whole last album based around his passing. He went out like a true artist, and did so in a brilliant manner, exactly the way his whole career has been,” he said.
“Lemmy always said that he wanted to die on stage and he almost did. I saw him touring last year, and I noticed he wasn’t quite on his game as he was before. Offstage he was more quiet and not as energetic and you could kind of sense that he was getting up there and getting close to the end. But he still went out there and kicked ass every night, doing what he loved to do.
“Prince was a complete shock. I had no idea that was coming. Everybody knows that the guy is one of the most talented musicians to ever come around. Between his songwriting, his performances and the entertaining – he was the complete package. He was one of the true music legends of the world. And even if you were a metal guy, you never talked trash on Prince, because if you did, he would step up there and wipe out your metal guitar player. He had it all. It’s a very sad thing. I’ve got plenty of Prince’s music and I still get inspired by it.”
Tremonti is set to hit the road with his band throughout the spring, but is also in the final stages of recording the as-yet untitled new Alter Bridge album, which he expects to have out in the late fall, with a single coming out in time for the summer. With Slash reuniting with Axl Rose and Duff McKagan in Guns N Roses, Kennedy has some more time on his hands for touring with Alter Bridge, but Tremonti said having breaks from that band has been good for Alter Bridge overall.
“I think we both would be bored if we were focussing on just one thing. I don’t think Alter Bridge would be as good as it is if Myles didn’t go off and do his thing and I didn’t go off and do my thing, and then come back with refreshed, and with new experiences. When we all take a break and come back together, it’s like starting over again,” Tremonti said, as he also confirmed that there is next to no possibility of Creed getting back together for the foreseeable future, especially with Stapp announcing on May 3 that he is now the lead singer for the Art of Anarchy project, which previous saw Scott Weiland as its vocalist.
“Right now, things are so hectic with Tremonti and Alter Bridge I just don’t have the time to do anything else right now anyways. I never say never, but it’s just not on the radar at the moment.”
For more information on Tremonti, visit https://fret12.com/mark-tremonti. For more information on Alter Bridge, visit http://www.alterbridge.com/
Order Tremonti‘s new record and get their new single Dust, My Last Mistake and Betray Me today! Record Out 04.29.16 Digital: http://smarturl.it/dustdigital
* Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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