“I played drums before I played bass,” Brian Marshall told me backstage after an exhaustingly energetic performance by his band Alter Bridge. “Thankfully you made the change,” deadpanned drummer Scott Phillips. The foundation of the more-popular-than-ever band, which also features guitar god Mark Tremonti and vocalist extraordinaire Myles Kennedy, have sat down with me following their show in Biloxi to talk about the tour they had only recently started. They are excited to be back in front of their American fans and the past couple of shows have been really special to them.“We did Earth Day Birthday in Orlando, which was a large all-day, three or four stage festival show,” Phillips explained. “It’s tough when you’re the last band on and people have been out there all day in the sun drinking and I think by the time we got out there most of the crowd had fallen asleep. But we had a great reaction and it was the first show for us in almost a month so it was nice to do it in front of a hometown crowd.”
Biloxi’s show was also a highlight. “Tonight was amazing,” said Phillips with a smile. Featuring songs from their latest album Fortress, released last October, and sprinkled with many of their most beloved tunes such as “White Knuckles,” “Metalingus,” “Rise Today” and the acoustic Kennedy-only ballad “Watch Over You,” the only slowed down moment in an otherwise high energy set. With Tremonti roaring like a fierce bull on guitar all night and Kennedy hitting from first note to last, this has to be among the top five concerts to see in the first half of 2014.
With so much volume in one show, I asked Phillips and Marshall which of the songs tend to wear them out the most:
Brian: None of them really take me out. The hardest song for me probably is maybe “Waters Rising.”
Scott: What about “One Day Remains” or, well, you use a pick on that now so it’s not so bad.
Brian: Probably “Waters Rising.” “Metalingus” is really busy throughout the whole thing.
Scott: “Ties That Bind,” that’s one that gets me pretty bad
Brian: My arm gets a little crampy about the second verse. You can see it in my face going “arrgh.”
Scott: Either “White Knuckles” or “Metalingus” would be the two that are probably the busiest songs that are kind of non-stop the whole time. “Addicted To Pain” is another one that is real up-tempo and there’s not a lot of downtime for me but it doesn’t seem to wear me out. Maybe just cause it’s the beginning of the night and I’ve got more energy. But either “Metalingus” or “White Knuckles” would be the two.
Playing the title track for the first time in America was a breathtaking highlight. “We only did it once on the entire European run, back in October/November, and we played it in Portugal on the very last night of the tour,” recalled Phillips. “Got a great reaction from it but I think we were all probably more nervous than the crowd was as far as not having played it. It’s not an overly complicated song but there are a lot of time signature changes and tempo changes and just making sure everybody hits all that stuff really tight. And tonight was awesome. It felt good and it got a good reaction too.”
Which new songs not on your setlist would you like to add?
Scott: I think the only … you have to help me out, Marsh. I think the only song that we haven’t done live is “All Ends Well.” Does that sound right? Off of Fortress?
Brian: Yeah and it’s my favorite song
Scott: And I am sure that will make it in to set at some point.
Brian: I think you’re right
Scott: We’ve done “Bleed It Dry,” we’ve done “Peace Is Broken,” “Uninvited.”
Brian: We haven’t done “Peace Is Broken” live. We’ve practiced it.
Scott: We did it over in Europe. At least once, once or twice, I thought.
Brian: Never did it
Scott: Ok but we practiced it a lot. We’ve done “Lover.” I’d have to look at the track listing to see but yeah, “All Ends Well” is probably the one that we get the most requests for that we haven’t played live yet.
Alter Bridge, which was formed from the ashes of Creed in 2004, has been building their catalog with better and better songs since their debut album, One Day Remains, culminating with their latest, Fortress, a sonic temple of vibrating sounds. All four members now play in alternate bands: Tremonti, Phillips and Marshall still play with the re-formed Creed; Tremonti broke through with his band Tremonti to rave reviews in 2012; Phillips plays drums with Sevendust’s John Connolly in the heavy metal outfit Projected; and Kennedy is the main vocalist for Slash.
I asked Phillips if it required being in a different mindset to create music for other bands; especially within Creed where the only difference physically is the lead singer: “I think it’s just kind of what the song dictates. You know, when Mark is writing stuff, and Myles does a lot of writing on the Alter Bridge side as well, so that’s a huge difference right there, but I don’t think Mark writes with a mindset of, ‘I’m writing this for Creed’ or ‘I’m writing this for Alter Bridge’ or ‘I’m writing this for Tremonti.’ I think it’s whatever the song dictates and we’ll all kind of sit down and listen to it and go, ‘Yeah, this might not be Alter Bridge stuff.’ Or it might not be Creed material. We’ve done four Alter Bridge records since Creed initially split. We’ve done one Creed record since that time and I think we probably put a little bit of Alter Bridge flair into it compared to how we used to do the old Creed records. But I think it’s whatever resonates with us is how we choose whether it’s Alter Bridge or Creed or something Mark is going to use for his solo project.”
Tremonti agreed with his bandmate’s assessment, telling me back in 2012 regarding the songs for his Tremonti album that, “A lot of [the songs] I had played with the other guys in the other bands and they didn’t quite fit. They were a little too heavy metal for them so all the ideas that I had that never made it to a song, I wanted to pull out first for this album.”
Kennedy, who’s voice sounds blazingly clear despite moving from AB to Slash and back again with little or no time off in-between, shined throughout the show and not only with his vocal cords. Playing the guitar intros to “Ghosts Of Days Gone By” and “Blackbird,” he is an unsung hero when people mention guitar players, often forgotten because his singing is so blatantly powerful. He can go from the sharpness of “Metalingus” to the softness of “Watch Over You” in the blink of an eye and never falter. But he’s never quite that confident when it comes to his songwriting, as he told me in 2011: “I’m never sure until the record’s done. I’m always afraid to kind of be content cause I’m afraid if there’s a second where I’m content I’ll stop working as hard so I’ll just obsess. I have such an obsessive, obsessive nature when it comes to songs where I tend to more often than not overthink if I’m not careful.”
On the other end of the stage, Tremonti has grown more confident in his vocals. So much so that he sang all the leads for Tremonti’s debut album. “I’ve been a songwriter for most of my life now so it was pretty natural for me to make the transition to singing cause I’m always writing and singing for myself. I just never thought I had a good enough voice to reach my full potential. But now, finally after all these years of singing and singing and practicing, I think I got to the point where I could do it myself and try my hand at it.”
Not to be left in the shadows are Phillips and Marshall. Both musicians reached sonic highs during the Biloxi concert. Marshall was a beast at times, despite hanging further to the back near Phillips, as non-show-offish as any musician could possibly be, yet tearing through “Metallingus,” “Isolation” and the newer “Waters Rising.”
So who influenced these guys?
Scott: I’m a huge fan of Living Colour and we actually just got to share the stage with them in Australia and meet and hang out with those guys, which was a dream absolutely come true for me. But it was their second record, which was called Time’s Up and I went and saw them play Lollapalooza in 1991 and they were the third band from the last and it was that day, watching them, that I decided I want to be on that stage. I want to do what they’re doing. This is my calling in life.
Brian: Zeppelin was the first band that really hit me big. I took a liking to the musicianship and songs, Led Zeppelin IV, and then I got into Rush; but Zeppelin IV was like THE album.
Did you connect with John Paul Jones or just the band in general?
Brian: The band in general but the rhythm section especially. I was always kind of drawn to bands that had a rhythm section that stood out like Rush and Iron Maiden. It always kind of like struck me. I always kind of latched onto that part of music. That’s what led me to play music.
It was certainly hard to narrow down the Biloxi show highlights to just a few but Tremonti soaring on “Brand New Start,” the quietly haunting rendition of the acoustic (with help from a singing crowd) “Watch Over You,” the bad ass midsection of “Ties That Bind,” the chugging of the rhythm section on “Waters Rising,” the excellent “Blackbird” and the even more powerful “Fortress,” a song I hope they continue to keep in their set.
“We’ve got three shows in the middle of May and then the end of May we leave for Europe for summer festivals,” explained Phillips. “That will run through the end of June and then we’ve got two shows that we’re doing in July. Myles is going to be doing some stuff with Slash during that time. I think it’s looking like probably mid-September to mid-October we’re going to go back out and try to hit the West Coast and some of the markets that we really wanted to get to but just didn’t have the time to do. After that, we continue to talk about trying to get to South America. We just have to get the logistics right. Then there’s a possibility of one more final hooray in Europe at the beginning of next year. But everything’s tentative. The only thing that we’ve got officially booked right now is up until the middle of July.”
With not many shows left on this leg of the tour, it is best you not miss this band if they pass anywhere near you for this is what the band of the decade sounds like.
Live photographs by Leslie Michele Derrough
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