Mark Tremonti on collecting amps, the importance of improvisation, and being the busiest man in rock
You have to wonder how Mark Tremonti finds the time to squeeze it all in. When we talk, he’s out on tour with Creed, but admits he’s regularly found backstage practising his Frank Sinatra songs in preparation for an imminent round of Tremonti Sings Sinatra shows.
He also confesses that Alter Bridge will be going back into the studio to record their new album in March, and that’s before we get into the reason we’re actually talking to him – the Tremonti album, The End Will Show Us How, which arrived last week. “I don’t have a solid two week break for the next year,” he admits. Mark Tremonti might be the busiest man in rock.
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Though he might be almost permanently in work mode, there’s a notable gear shift involved when he has to turn his mind from one project to another. “They’re all completely different,” Mark considers. “There’s a lot of prep work. But with the Tremonti stuff [for example], I have to really get my voice warmed up for it which takes a really long time. Relearning all this stuff takes a long time. A lot of people just think you’re going to retain all the knowledge of how to play all the songs you’ve ever written, but when we do the next Alter Bridge record, that’s going to be 20 albums that we’ve recorded between all the bands. Every time I go on tour, I have to re-learn things.”
Because time is so tight, Mark’s solo records often come together slowly in the background, sometimes taking years to gestate. “I write continuously. I never stop writing. I have a lot of active bands and I have to keep churning out new tunes; I never want to be behind my deadlines. It’s just a hobby I love to do.”
As such, The End Will Show Us How – his sixth album under the Tremonti banner – was made, as ever, with the purest intentions. There’s no grand master plan or overarching vision, it’s rather music made for the joy of it. “[I] always try and do something different from before, but [the goal was] just to write the best songs possible without repeating myself. I write songs I want to hear myself.”
Image: Press
Chain Reaction
The record might have come together in fragments, but the process of its creation was almost reactionary. Ultimately, the last thing Mark wanted was a one-note album, so each song incidentally informed the creation of the ones that followed – if at one moment, he decided to zig, the next time, he’d have to zag.
“After about three or four songs, I’m like, ‘You know what? We’ve got three or four really heavy songs, maybe we should get into a more atmospheric thing. We have four speed metal songs, we need some more groove. I’m trying to tell a complete story – it’s not just a ballad record, not just a metal record. There’s a little bit of everything in there.”
That huge sonic range is matched by his emotional range too. Then again, like an optical illusion, sometimes one shade of emotion stands out to certain listeners more than others – what one hears at first listen might be different to what jumps out to somebody else.
“It’s funny how everybody will take the record differently,” Mark considers. “I spoke to somebody [who said], ‘Wow, your lyrics are so negative,’ but I like to write almost at the extreme opposites. I like something to be hugely triumphant and positive, or really morose and angry, I don’t like to write anything that’s kind of lukewarm in the middle. Either it has to be the best feeling, the happiest thing in the world, or the angriest or saddest. I think the ‘-est’ factor is what I try to go after.”
Emotional Attachment
Emotion is what Mark often encourages his tutees to follow for themselves in his guitar clinics, which he has been conducting for a few years in person on tours. At each stop on his current Creed tour, he imparts his wisdom around both playing and songwriting. The best knowledge he can pass on is soulful rather than mechanical – being able to shred for hours means nothing without self-expression. Conveniently, that’s also the means to become self-sufficient as a musician.
“The best piece of advice I can give you is to become a songwriter. Don’t be this tremendous guitar player that can’t write anything and has to always rely on other people to have a gig,” says Mark. “Write your own music and express yourself. I think when you break it down to just being creative on the guitar, if you just take just a few notes that you know how to get to on the guitar and you improvise and only use those few notes and get everything you can out of them, I kind of start with that. It’s a basic building block of improvisation and go from there.”
Improvision, he believes, is crucial for players to develop a voice with their instrument. “I spent a lot of time when I was younger playing guitar with a metronome, playing a lick over and over and over and over again, but I didn’t find my voice that way,” he continues. “I think the way I approached guitar was to try to learn as much as I possibly could before feeling able to improvise. I think this should be the other way.
“I think you should improvise from day one, given whatever information you can gather in the beginning and use it immediately and as you’re learning, just keep on trying to use this new information in your improvisation. If you just learn licks and techniques, you might not ever find that voice. I feel like some of the players that might know half as much as the others, who just play and have fun playing, become better guitar players because they’re playing with emotion.”
Image: Press
Dumble Tour
When it comes to his own gear, Mark’s history as a PRS artist goes back almost to the start of his career. The young kid who grew up staring in awe at the PRS guitars on the top shelf – too expensive, out of reach – became an adult who became only the second artist after Carlos Santana to have a PRS signature made. With his dream guitar ticked off a long time ago, his great collecting love is amps – including various Dumbles – and yes, his position on the tube amp vs digital modeler debate is obvious.
“Each one draws something different out of me,” Mark reasons. “They make me play differently and inspire me in different ways. I’m always on the amplifier hunt – I’m a tone hound! Dumbles are my favourite thing in the world to collect – I’d rather have a Dumble than a car. There’s only really two material things in the world that I get excited about and that’s amplifiers and pinball machines!”
Speaking of excitement, the current Creed reunion has been the subject of huge buzz. In fact, demand has spiked so much that their reunion tour has been extended into next year. Even when they’re not feeding hits to the airwaves like they did previously, tickets have still been flying. Maybe it could have been an unsurprising consequence of a nostalgia-hungry climate, but given the number of younger fans showing up to venues, it seems like there’s something bigger afoot.
Image: Press
“Creed is now bigger than we ever have been,” Mark says. “One surprising thing for us is we have a whole another wave of people that are coming to the shows. Pretty much 80 per cent of the people out in the crowd, when they’re asked ‘Is this your first Creed show?’, they’ll raise their hands. It’s cool to see that it’s not just the people that came back to see us in the day. It’s their kids. It’s all the people that see us online. A lot of sports teams have been playing our music as their hype music. I think a lot of the social media platforms are playing a lot of Creed music – there’s tons and tons of TikToks out there.”
The door appears to be open for new music too. This way, it ensures that Creed can never be consigned to the realm of nostalgia cash cow – and of course, the fans are waiting for it too. “This tour, was all fuelled by the time between tours. We haven’t toured in pretty much 12 years. If we continue touring now, we’ll need to drive it with new music. We’ll see we can find time to do that.”
The End Will Show Us How is out now.
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