Background and career
Mark Thomas Tremonti (born April 18, 1974) is an American guitarist and singer, best known for his tenures with the hard rock bands Creed and Alter Bridge. He is a founding member of both bands, and has also collaborated with many other artists over the course of his career. He formed his own band Tremonti in 2011 and has released six albums with them, including 2018's A Dying Machine, which was adapted by Tremonti and science fiction novelist John Shirley. Since his early years with Creed, Tremonti has received positive recognition as a guitarist and songwriter and has received a number of accolades, including one Grammy Award for Creed's single "With Arms Wide Open". He was also named "Guitarist of the Year" for three consecutive years by Guitar World, and in 2011 he was listed in Total Guitar magazine as the fourth-greatest heavy metal guitarist of all time.
Tremonti was born on April 18, 1974, in Detroit, Michigan. He grew up in a Catholic family of Italian descent in Grosse Pointe, just outside Detroit, for most of his childhood before moving to Wilmette, Illinois. He began to become interested with music, and bought his first guitar at the age of eleven. When he was fifteen, his family moved again to Orlando, Florida, where he enrolled in Lake Highland Preparatory School. During this time, his mother was diagnosed with a life threatening illness. After graduation, he moved to Clemson, South Carolina to attend Clemson University to major in finance. After his freshman year in college, he moved back to Florida to enroll in Florida State University, where he was reunited with his then future Creed bandmate Scott Stapp, whom Tremonti had known since high school. Before Creed took off, he worked as a cook at Chili's.
Tremonti is a founding member of the American hard rock band Creed. He formed the band with lead vocalist Scott Stapp in 1994 with fellow members Brian Marshall and Scott Phillips joining as bassist and drummer, respectively. Creed is recognized by many as one of the major acts of the post-grunge movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Tremonti and Stapp have been collectively recognized as one of the most prolific songwriting teams in all of rock music. The band released their debut album My Own Prison in 1997 to strong mainstream success, selling over six million copies. Four singles were released from the album: "My Own Prison", "Torn", "What's This Life For", and "One". Each song reached No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, making Creed the first band to achieve such a feat with a debut album. My Own Prison was followed in 1999 by Human Clay, which was an immediate success and certified diamond and eleven times platinum by the RIAA. The band released four singles from Human Clay: "Higher", "With Arms Wide Open", "What If", and "Are You Ready". "Higher" spent a record-breaking 17 weeks on the top of the rock radio charts.
Marshall left the band in 2000 due to increasing tension with Stapp and to pursue other interests. He was temporarily replaced by touring bassist Brett Hestla. Creed also won their first, and to date only, Grammy Award for Best Rock Song for "With Arms Wide Open" in 2001. That same year, after a tour, the band released another multi-platinum selling album, Weathered, from which six singles were released: "My Sacrifice", "One Last Breath", "Hide", "Don't Stop Dancing", "Weathered", and "Bullets". It would be the band's only album without Marshall on bass; Tremonti handled the bass parts himself. The tour to support this record was overwhelmingly successful but ended with a considerably controversial concert in Chicago that ultimately led to the band's breakup. The band announced that they had disbanded in 2004, citing tension between Stapp and the other members, Tremonti in particular. The three instrumental members went on to found Alter Bridge while Stapp opted for a solo career, and Creed released their Greatest Hits in November 2004. However, after months of speculation, despite early claims from Tremonti that Creed would never return, it was announced that Creed had reunited with plans for a tour and a new album. The record, Full Circle, was released in October 2009, accompanied by three singles, "Overcome", "Rain", and "A Thousand Faces". Though a moderate critical success, it ultimately became the band's only album to not be certified by the RIAA. Creed supported the album by touring throughout North and South America, Europe, and Australia during the summers of 2009 and 2010. The band released a record-breaking concert film titled Creed Live in December 2009. Tremonti, Marshall, and Phillips, initially planned to alternate tours between Alter Bridge and Creed with the singers of both bands working on their own projects while the other band is active. A fifth Creed album was expected in late 2011 or early 2012 according to Tremonti, and in early 2012 the band reconvened to tour and start work on a fifth album which never began production. In June 2015, while promoting his second solo album Cauterize, Mark Tremonti claimed in an interview with Kerrang that he "[hasn't] been a close friend of Scott's in 9 years". He said that Stapp thought that Tremonti, Marshall and Phillips would return to Creed permanently and forget their work with Alter Bridge. The band felt this was unfair and didn't talk any further about Creed's future during the whole South American Tour in 2012. Alter Bridge kept going at the tour's conclusion.
Alter Bridge was formed in January 2004 by Tremonti, Marshall, and Phillips after Creed disbanded. They asked Myles Kennedy, formerly of The Mayfield Four and the future vocalist for Slash's solo project, to be their singer. The newly formed band released their debut album, One Day Remains, in August 2004 on Wind-up Records. It saw mostly mixed reviews, but became Alter Bridge's only RIAA-certified album, going gold. Three singles were released from One Day Remains: "Open Your Eyes", "Find the Real", and "Broken Wings". After a tour, it was followed by a second album, Blackbird, in October 2007 on Universal Republic. Blackbird was met with largely positive reviews and released four singles: "Rise Today", "Ties That Bind", "Watch Over You", and "Before Tomorrow Comes". Its title track received strong acclaim from reviewers, and its guitar solo, which was performed by both Tremonti and Kennedy, was later named the greatest guitar solo of all time by Guitarist magazine in 2011. Alter Bridge embarked on a successful world tour in support of Blackbird, recording their December 7, 2008, show at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam for a live DVD titled Live from Amsterdam. A single-disc version of this DVD was sold exclusively at venues during the Creed reunion tour in 2009 and on Amazon with a Blu-ray version and a deluxe DVD edition scheduled to be released later in stores. However, the distribution in stores was delayed as a result of record label issues multiple times, causing frustration amongst Alter Bridge fans and band members. It was finally released in stores in North America on January 11, 2011, after two years of delays. Alter Bridge's third album, AB III, was released on October 11, 2010, in Europe and the UK on Roadrunner Records, and on November 9, 2010, in North America on Alter Bridge Recordings via EMI. A loose concept album, AB III has received critical acclaim, with Rick Florino from Artistdirect calling it a "sprawling masterpiece". Its lead single, "Isolation", reached No. 1 on active rock radio and the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks, the band's first single to do so. The band toured extensively in support of the record, with Black Stone Cherry and Like a Storm in the spring of 2011, in addition to co-headlining the second annual Carnival of Madness Tour with Theory of a Deadman. The tour continued into January 2012. Four more singles from AB III have since been released: "I Know It Hurts", "Ghost of Days Gone By", "Wonderful Life", and "Life Must Go On". The band also released a second concert film titled Live at Wembley on March 26, 2012. The band reunited in late 2012 and recorded from April to July 2013 their fourth album, Fortress, released on September 30, 2013. The band reconvened in January 2016 to record their fifth studio album The Last Hero, which was released on October 7, 2016.
During the time that Creed was at the end of its career in the early 2000s, Tremonti had intentions to form a speed metal side project called Downshifter (with Hatebreed vocalist Jamey Jasta and Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison), but the project never got off the ground. Later, in 2008, Tremonti and his brother formed FRET12, an online musicians' community, production company, and record label, to release his 2008 instructional guitar documentary DVD titled Mark Tremonti: The Sound & the Story, wherein he teaches all of his guitar solos from Alter Bridge's sophomore release, Blackbird. He also teaches warm-ups, alternate tunings, finger picking style, legato techniques, and other advanced exercises. His DVD, which is the first in The Sound & the Story series of instructional DVDs, also features guest appearances from Myles Kennedy, Michael Angelo Batio, Rusty Cooley, Bill Peck, and Troy Stetina. The aforementioned series also includes DVDs by Leslie West and Troy Stetina. Tremonti later began expressing interest in releasing a solo album in 2010. "The bands are so different", he said of his two current main projects. "And I write so much. I'm going to do a solo record because there are some songs that I'd hate to think wouldn't see the light of day because they don't work for Creed or Alter Bridge." He plays guitar and singing lead on all of the songs himself, and former Submersed members Eric Friedman and Garrett Whitlock perform on the record as well. Tremonti described the music as "melody driven", In a May 2011 interview, Tremonti said that it would be a "heavier-sounding" thrash metal album. He later said that the album is "probably heavier than either Creed or Alter Bridge", and that it would have "lots of soloing". On January 20, 2012, Tremonti launched a website for his solo album where fans can sign up to receive news, previews, live streams, and giveaways. A list of working song titles was also included on the webpage, as well as the album title, All I Was. He later launched a new website for his solo work after the album's release. It was set for a July 10, 2012 release on FRET12 Records with "You Waste Your Time" being the first single from the album, and according to FMQB, "You Waste Your Time" would be released to active rock radio stations in May 2012. The entire song was made available for listening on May 6, 2012, one day before its release, on Loudwire.com. One day after its release, the song reached number 10 on the iTunes Rock Songs Chart, and Tremonti's live music video for it premiered on May 17, 2012, on Noisecreep. The album's official release date was announced on Ultimate Guitar Archive as July 17, 2012. His solo band originally consisted of Friedman and Whitlock alongside Alter Bridge and Creed bassist Brian Marshall playing bass guitar as a touring member. The band performed its first solo concert at The Social in Orlando, Florida, on July 17, 2012, with the performance filmed for a future video release. Wolfgang Van Halen replaced Brian Marshall as a touring bassist in September 2012. Tremonti recorded their second album with Wolfgang Van Halen playing bass for the 2015 release. On March 3, 2015, Tremonti released a sample of the song "Radical Change" whilst revealing the album title Cauterize and the track listing for the upcoming sophomore effort. On March 17, 2015, Tremonti released another song preview for the track "Flying Monkeys" and also gave a concrete release date of June 9, 2015, for Cauterize. On March 20, 2015, Tremonti unveiled via Twitter that the first single, titled "Another Heart", was released March 24, 2015.
