How does Mark Tremonti shoulder a prolific career that includes three bands — Creed, Alter Bridge and one that bears his surname — and 19 studio album releases during the past 28 years?
It's simple, the guitarist tells us. "I never throw ideas out," Tremonti says via Zoom during a recent Creed tour stop in Austin, Texas. "I just kinda organize my stuff. If I have a song that needs a bridge in a certain tuning and tempo, I'll have a bank of ideas and I'll go back and revisit everything I've stashed away. Sometimes those ideas are 15 years old — you never know when you'll need something."
The latest product of Tremonti's hoarding is The End Will Show Us How, the sixth studio album from his Tremonti band. Produced with regular collaborator Michael "Elvis" Baskette, the follow-up to 2021's Marching in Time offers a dozen new tracks of biting heavy rock, an approach that Tremonti, the man, carefully differentiates from what he does with Creed and Alter Bridge.
"The Tremonti stuff definitely has more of the metal side of things," he explains. "If there's any kind of speed metal or stuff that requires the rhythm section to do real quick, double bass drum, syncopated stuff like that, it's Tremonti. Alter Bridge is usually more atmospheric and epic sounding, if you will; there are bigger journeys throughout those songs, the arrangements are usually longer and more experimental. Creed is more grandiose — either really sad or really anthemic, nothing in between."
And with Tremonti, he adds, "fans always seem to want it to be as heavy as it can be. But if it's all heavy, it's not as heavy any more. It's got to have dynamics." That, he says, is where the "tone fanatic" in him comes out, a confessed "amplifier freak" who plays mad scientist in dialing in a sound that's both distinctive but distinct from his other endeavors.
"I'm a big amp guy; that's something I take pride in," Tremonti says with a smile that confirms the hunt is as much fun as the discovery for him. "When we go in the studio we'll bring in all my favorite amplifiers and have stacks of amplifiers in the studio and do an amp shoot-out." For The End Will Show Us How, Tremonti's collection included a newly acquired Sebago Overdrive Deluxe tube amp to blend with his custom Paul Reed Smith MT 100 and MT 15 with vintage Dumble, Cornford and Arcade Audio amps.
"We just want to find the best high-gain tone, the best lead tone, for each song," explains Tremonti, who leaned on his custom Paul Reed Smith electric guitars throughout the album. "When you get the tones down on the record, you have to have a real nice, clean tone so that when you hit the big, overdriven stuff and the big high-gains, it makes a strong dynamic shift.
"We always layer two, three amps to get that right tone. The Dumble Overdrive Special has the best clean tone in the world, in my opinion; I don't think there's anything that's ever compared to it. And the Cornford that they built for me is just magical; that must have been over 10 years ago and I've used it on pretty much every record since.
"That's a big part of why I love Elvis so much; when I partner up with him on these tones, he's an expert at seeing it through, just the way it needs to be. And this album was a lot of fun. I think we got a lot of different flavors for folks. It's one of my favorite Tremonti records."
The goal on The End Will Show Us How, he says, was "to outdo what I've done in the past and not repeat what I've done already." To that end Tremonti spent a month or so working on demos, initially working with drummer Ryan Bennett and guitarist Eric Friedman, who was also touring with Creed, and finishing at least a track a day to prepare for the final recording project.
As noted previously, the parts on the album are both new and old. The chorus for "The Bottom," Tremonti says, "has been around since, like, when I was a kid," while the chorus of "Live in Fear" was originally part of an Alter Bridge song before it was removed. The soaring solo from the ebb-and-flow title track, meanwhile, finds Tremonti following some of his own advice that he imparts on aspiring players he speaks with at clinics while he's on the road.
"That's in open G minor. I used that before on Alter Bridge's 'Darker Than Your Wings,'" Tremonti says. "At the clinics I like to show them alternate tunings. They feel like they can't play lead 'cause all the chord shapes and scales are different, but I tell 'em, 'Don't be afraid. You're gonna write a solo that nobody's written before 'cause you're in that different tuning. There aren't traditional scales that fall under your fingers.' Try to take advantage of that and try to make something different. Tell a story.'
"It's like finding treasure. You know how to play guitar already. You know how to use your bending and vibrato and whatnot. When you have a new tuning like this, it's like going to a new planet of guitar where you have new chord voicings nobody's ever played before, or a new scale shape or a new lick that wouldn't be possible in standard tuning. That's like a treasure hunt for me."
The End Will Show Us How's release commences a busy 2025 for Tremonti — unusually so, even by his standards. The band begins a headlining tour in Europe upon the album's release in Europe, and Tremonti is hoping for two more treks with the quartet before the year is out. Creed, meanwhile, will be back on the road in North America during the summer as well as hosting the Summer of '99 and Beyond cruise in April and an appearance at the Stagecoach festival later that month. Tremonti predicts that the group will likely record some new music as well.
And if that's not enough, Alter Bridge is headed into the studio during March to record its eighth album.
"I've got the craziest gridlock of bands going on that I've ever had in my career — but I bring it on myself," Tremonti — who's also planning his annual clutch of Frank Sinatra charity shows for December — says with laugh. "We had no idea the Creed thing would be as successful as it's been, which we're all happy as hell about.
"So I definitely have to manage my time, but I'm glad to be busy. I mean, this Alter Bridge record we're recording will be my 20th album, which is way above and beyond what I ever thought would be possible. I can't think of a lot of rock artists who do 20 records...so I'm blessed. I've just always tried to follow whatever I was passionate about, and so far it's working."
