Mark Tremonti is bang on time. Well, of course he is. The Detroit-born guitarist doesn’t waste a single beat of his time; he’s released no fewer than 19 albums while leading three bands in the form of Creed, Alter Bridge and his solo project (“Four bands,” he corrects, flagging up his suited ’n’ booted Sings Sinatra sideline).
Even on a rare day off from Creed’s Are You Ready? tour, Tremonti is facing a mile-long call sheet of Zoom interviews to promote fiery new solo album The End Will Show Us How. Once he’s done with those, he’s got a dinner appointment with Sevendust’s Lajon Witherspoon.
Doesn’t this black-clad, alt.metal Duracell bunny ever stop moving? Tremonti smiles, shrugs and imparts the wisdom that underpins everything else he will offer today. “I won’t feel like I’ve made it until I feel satisfied I’ve achieved everything. And there’s still so much left to do.”
This business will eat you up if you’re not careful
“The music industry is tough and there’s been a lot of ups and downs. When you’re a kid, you don’t want to disappoint anybody, so you don’t question anything. You never want to say: ‘Hey, this contract is seven records long – why should I do this?’
“I think the toughest moment for Alter Bridge was when we were trying to get out of our record deal for the second album [2007’s Blackbird]. We had to pay off the loans it took to pay off that deal for most of Alter Bridge’s career. Right up until covid hit we were still paying off debts. That was a tough lesson for us.”
He's paid his dues
“I’ve had some of the physically toughest jobs. I worked at the Octopus Car Wash in Orlando back in high school, and that was the hottest job ever. Imagine being out there on that black asphalt all day. I worked as a busboy, then as a fry cook at Chili’s – I still have the scars on my arms from all the grease flying out at me. Then I got a record deal and I got to quit that job. But I loved everybody I worked with at Chili’s, so I had a lot of fun there too.”
Haters gonna hate
“When you start out as a musician, everybody says you’re not going to make it. People take potshots at you. When you come out with your first single, they say you’re gonna be a one-hit wonder. When you come out with your first successful record, they say you’re gonna have a slump on your second one. I’ve always felt like I was fighting for survival in this business. It wasn’t until we came out with AB III in 2010 that I was finally content with saying: ‘I think I can do this as my career for as long as I want to.’”
If his teenage home was on fire, Metallica’s Master Of Puppets is the record he’d save
“Master Of Puppets is the album that made me want to do this. Before that I was just into what everybody else listened to, like Beastie Boys’ Licensed To Ill. I’d already started getting into guitar through simple stuff; like the J Geils Band would come on the radio with Love Stinks, that bit when it breaks down to just a guitar riff. But when I heard Master Of Puppets, that’s when I was up all night.”
He’s never seen the USA this divided before
“I wrote the first song on my new solo album, The Mother, The Earth & I, after seeing everybody fighting over politics, fighting over religion – y’know, just fighting over everything these days. It’s election day here in the United States and it’s just been nuts. I’ve never seen so much bickering and arguing between folks. This is the first time in my career we’ve had a show the day after election day, and we’ve had to speak to the local police about civil unrest. It’s a sad thing. Hopefully we’ll bounce back, like we always do.”
There’s a weight of expectation when you’re a guitar hero
“I joke about that with Myles Kennedy. I tell him: ‘You love to play guitar solos, and I love to sing.’ Because there’s no pressure. When Myles plays a solo, everyone’s like: ‘Wow, the Alter Bridge singer is an awesome guitar player!’ And when I sing they’re like: ‘Wow, I didn’t think that guitar player could sing.’
"I remember Joe Bonamassa asked me to get up on stage when he came to Orlando. He’s like: ‘It’ll be great, we’ll do a slow blues.’ And I’m like: ‘That’s the last thing I want to do, play a slow blues with one of the world’s best blues players, in my home town, when blues really isn’t my strong suit.’ When you’re known for being a guitar player, you definitely have to make sure you’re presenting yourself properly every moment. It takes that one bad night to have that video get out everywhere because everybody has a cell phone.”
The well is bottomless
“Every time you feel like everything has already been done on guitar, somebody comes out with something new. Y’know, there was Eddie Van Halen, then Yngwie Malmsteen. Then Tom Morello came out and I remember thinking: ‘What the hell is he doing with those guitar solos?’ It’s very hard to be that unique player these days, but it’s still possible. Now, there’s a new player called Matteo Mancuso who’s blowing everybody’s minds. I think he’s gonna spark an entire new wave of guitar players.”
Too much success can break a young band
“As a kid, Creed’s success was hard to take on. There was some stress within the band itself. Each person has their group of talking heads telling them that they’re the special one. It poisons the well. It was definitely tough to watch Scott [Stapp] go through his troubles, because sometimes when he was going through it I hadn’t spoken to him in years. I think we’re all way more mature now than we were then.”
He’s happy anywhere except planes and hospitals
“I can’t stand medical stuff. I hate having blood drawn, IVs, all that stuff. And as much as I travel, I hate flying. I used to love getting on planes, because I could read a book and didn’t have to answer my phone. But one time we were in South America and spent about forty-five minutes in the middle of this lightning storm. The pilot wasn’t speaking English, I had no idea what was going on, and my tour manager looked back from a couple of rows ahead and goes: ‘Do you think we’re gonna be okay?’ I’m like: ‘You turn your ass around! Don’t make me more worried!’”
Don’t believe everything you read about Frank Sinatra
“It’s a shame that when people talk about Frank Sinatra they talk about the affairs or whatever. My favourite stories are about how he would call up the Rat Pack [informal group of Hollywood-star entertainers]: ‘Get over here and get on my plane.’ ‘Where are we going?’ ‘Don’t ask me any questions, we’re just going.’
"And when they landed, there’d be a private concert that would raise, like, half a million dollars for a fireman who got injured. No press would be allowed, because Frank didn’t want anybody to know about it. I only know about it because of reading books about him. He’d fly around going to children’s homes and hospitals for blind children. He raised over a billion dollars for charity.”
At a biological level, his hands aren’t so different from yours
“I think anybody who puts their mind to it can get faster at guitar playing. Things do not come easy for me. I’ve seen other players where techniques seem to come so easy, and it pisses me off that I have to work for three hours on something that takes them half an hour. But I feel like I’ve got a lot of gumption. If I want to do something, I will fail and fail until I get it, and I won’t give up.”
Now and then he likes to switch off the internet
“There’s definitely a lot of perks to the internet. YouTube is one of the greatest things in the world for learning guitar. But YouTube is definitely also a mystique killer. When I was a kid, I always wondered what a Slayer or King Diamond concert would be like, and how dangerous and awesome that must be. And when you can just find it on YouTube it kind of demystified it.”
He scrubs up well if he wants to
“I was at a Christmas party, and there was a karaoke machine. I started singing Sinatra tunes, and it felt good for my vocal range. Then I did a deep dive and came across a track called The Song Is You from the 1940s, where he just has this majestic voice. I told myself: ‘I want to sing like that.’ So for four hours a day I would listen to Sinatra songs on my laptop, typing in phonetically how he spoke the words and studying his phrasing, where he placed the vibrato.
"I created my own little scientific approach – and then I just practised my ass off. “When I went up to record the album [Mark Tremonti Sings Frank Sinatra] with all these guys that Sinatra had performed with, I put on a suit. I remembered Bono saying: ‘Frank doesn’t like guys with earrings, but he liked me alright.’ So I took out my earrings, and I’ve never found a need to put ’em back in.”
He doesn’t care if critics give creed a hard time
“It comes with the territory. If you get very successful with any project, you’re gonna take some criticism. It’s hard to find an artist that doesn’t. Maybe somebody like Whitney Houston. But for everyone else, you’d better be able to take some hits along the way. “It’s been crazy to get back into Creed. We’ve done maybe forty-six shows this year and every single one has been sold out. Touring-wise, this is the biggest the band’s ever been.”
The work is never done
“Out on tour I’m working twenty-four hours a day. One of my dreams is to become a published author. I just wrote an illustrated young adult book that I’m trying to get a deal for. That work ethic is just something I’ve always had. I’m addicted to creating. I think life’s too short.”
Mark Tremonti's The End Will Show Us How is out now via Napalm Records.
