Mark Tremonti never slows down, from the recent Creed reunion and Alter Bridge albums to the brand new single, “Just Too Much,” from the forthcoming sixth Tremonti album, The End Will Show Us How (due January 10th, 2025). Mark and I caught up about his multiple bands, home studio, giant spiders, pinball machines, philanthropy, and his ongoing Mark Tremonti Sings Frank Sinatra performances.
RYAN J. DOWNEY: When inspiration strikes, how do you know which band you’ll park it with?
MARK TREMONTI: The only time I park something for a specific band is if it’s for the Tremonti band because that is the only band I have that does the speed metal thing in certain spots. If I play speed metal riffs for [Alter Bridge bassist] Brian [Marshall] or [drummer] Scott [Phillips], they’ll just look at me like I’m crazy. I’ll throw it to the Tremonti band if it crosses the line into metal too much.
Although, Alter Bridge has gotten heavier and heavier over the years. [Frontman] Myles [Kennedy] will come with some metal riffs. I’m like, ‘Wait a minute! How come only I get pushback on the metal riffs?’ The door is open for more metal stuff.
Keeping the bands on equal ground allows each to stay pure. Many bands have different things they want to try as they go on. I know you grew up loving thrash bands like Metallica and Death Angel, but it would have been weird if Creed had suddenly gone thrash. Having each of these projects, you don’t have to be burdened by somebody trying to sneak their reggae stuff in.
MARK: If you get too experimental within one band, sometimes the fans don’t appreciate you being too artistic for your own good. I’ve gotten to do a lot of different things. Like with the Sinatra thing, I get to live with that world. It could be my favorite thing of all of them. I love it. But could you imagine if I was just in Creed and I wanted to sing some Frank Sinatra, and it just becomes the first encore?
How did you get involved with the charity aspect of the Sinatra shows?
I was obsessed with singing like Frank Sinatra for a few years. I was singing in the car, but I was practicing diligently. I was a fanatic about it. When we got the diagnosis that my daughter was going to be born with Down syndrome, the light bulb went off. I’m like, ‘You know what? There’s a reason for all this.’
I have read all kinds of biographies about Frank Sinatra. He was a massive philanthropist who raised over a billion dollars for charity. It kind of upset me that they talked about his affairs and his mafia connections. What about all the money he raised for charity? He would call his guys and say, ‘Sammy [Davis, Jr.], get on the plane.’ ‘This fireman got injured. We’ll raise money for him, but I don’t want any press there.’ Those are the good things that people don’t talk about. I’m glad that this project sheds a little light on that. That’s why we did it: the fact that he was so philanthropic, that I was so obsessed with singing like Frank Sinatra, and that my daughter was diagnosed with Down syndrome.
It all just made sense.
My buddy Jon Dunn, from Demon Hunter, has a son with Down syndrome. He, Shane Gillis, and others have made great points about how joyful many people with Down syndrome can be.
Many folks with Down syndrome are jovial, nice, fun-loving, and loving. Some of my favorite people I’ve known in my life I’ve met in the last three years. When I go to these Down Syndrome events, I can’t get enough of meeting everybody and making new friends, and it’s opened a whole other world. And I wondered when we got the diagnosis. I thought it would be a lonely life. I thought with all the responsibilities of raising a child with Down syndrome, we would kind of be isolated.
But you don’t realize until you have a child with Down syndrome how huge the community is and how supportive all our friends became. We just opened the first lifespan Down Syndrome clinic in the southeast in Orlando under Stella’s name. And all my friends, you go to the wall at the hospital, all the founding donors, you know who they all have a huge amount of money to donate to get your name put on there, it’s all our friends on that wall. [Frank’s daughter] Tina Sinatra was a big donor. So that was amazing.
Alter Bridge is winding down an album cycle, and Creed is touring. Your new single is out. What is your average day like, balancing all these different things?
I take my daughter on a nice 40-minute walk in the morning. My wife and I take turns taking her to therapy four or five days a week, and it’s an hour away. I play frisbee golf with my boys. Once the baby goes to sleep, I’ll watch some soccer with the boys or get into the studio and do some work. I love reading, too, man. I’m reading Shogun right now. I was trying to finish that before the tour to watch the series on Hulu, but I am still about 200 pages away, so I’ll have to finish it on the plane.
Did you record the Tremonti record in your home studio?
It was where it was written. This is also the room where much of the Alter Bridge records were written. The room used to look different. If you look at old pictures, the room had a more Moroccan look, with dark tapestries on the walls. We had some massive spiders in our house when we first moved in. We’re right on the lake. The last thing I wanted to do was be in my studio at three in the morning, writing a song, and have one of those gigantic spiders crawl on my lap. If I’m going to be here at three o’clock in the morning, I want it to be bright. It’s all white here now. I’ll see them coming. I’ve got my pinball machines if I want to take a break.
What are we working with, pinball machine-wise?
I’m a pinball fanatic. I started buying pinball machines when you could still get them for $1400 bucks. I have 12 machines upstairs and four down here [in the studio].
I told my manager to tell the record labels that the deal must be license-free for use in pinball. I wrote one original song for [Stern Pinball’s] Venom machine; the rest are from [2021’s] Marching in Time record. I did the vocal version of the theme for The Godfather machine with the guys who are on the Sinatra record, and Slash did the guitar version. We did a charity fundraiser where me and Slash’s songs were both put on a limited little mini record. We signed them. All the money went to the National Down Syndrome Society.
I can’t forget Jersey Jack [Guarnieri], a dear friend of mine. I’ve known him for almost 25 years now. I knew him when he was pinballsales.com. Now, he’s the second-largest manufacturer of pinball in the world. His Elton John machine is an absolute work of art. It could be one of if not the greatest pinball machines ever built. Turn the lights off in the studio, and it turns into a concert in the room.
Who produced the new record?
Michael ‘Elvis’ Baskette. We’ve been with him since the Blackbird record with Alter Bridge.
Myles also does his solo albums with him.
We’ve done a whole hell of a lot of records with Elvis.
He’s probably like another band member at this point.
He’s trustworthy. He’s another filter. When you’re writing the songs, and you know every little nuance of them, it’s good to have somebody with a fresh ear to say which songs deserve more focus.
How did you choose “Just Too Much” as the first single?
Um, the powers that be? [Laughs] When we started writing that tune, it just started materializing as something that we could keep the arrangement short and sweet. I’ve made it a rule for years not to think about writing for radio. But when it falls in my lap like it did here, where it’s a shorter arrangement and straightforward, when the label and radio people heard it, they were like, ‘That’s the single, right?’
It’s better when checking those boxes is a happy accident, right?
Yeah. I never write for anybody but myself. I don’t want to say I don’t appreciate fans and everybody else who has helped me. But it won’t be real if you start writing for other people. I think people connect with it because it’s real because you’re writing for yourself, to begin with.
That’s the lesson we learned from Metallica.
I think the one time they strayed from that path was on the song ‘Escape’ from Ride the Lightning, which I loved that song when I was a kid! When I saw an interview on YouTube saying that was the one song they hated, I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I love that song!’
Creed is touring. Where will Tremonti fit into the puzzle?
We plan to go to Europe in January and February until we go to the studio with Alter Bridge in March. After that, we’ll hit the road again with Tremonti throughout the summer. I think that’s [all] we have scheduled for now. But we’ll probably tour through the rest of the year on Tremonti. I try to pepper in as many Sinatra shows as I can. I’ve got Sinatra shows in December. I love those shows.
I love how prolific you and Myles have become in building such diverse catalogs.
You spend your life looking at an artist like, ‘Wow, it’d be great to do that.’ So why not? Life’s too short not to try to do it. That’s how I approach the Sinatra thing. I’m such a fan of his. I just want to do it, whether it makes sense or not. Sometimes, life can align the stars where it makes sense. One of the proudest moments in my career is the Sinatra thing, and I’m so glad I did it. I was a little nervous about doing it, not singing it, but about how people would respond. I didn’t know whether the metal side of the fanbase would accept it. But everybody was like, ‘We’d love to hear it!’
Frank Sinatra is like Johnny Cash, where gangster rappers and death metal people respect him.
Slayer fans love Sinatra! And he’s singing love songs 95 percent of the time.
As a big comedy fan, I love the relationship between Sinatra and Don Rickles.
Did you see what he said about him on [The Tonight Show with Johnny] Carson? Growing up [watching] Carson, he was the coolest of the cool, the guy who’s like the top of the line. But then, the only guy I’ve ever seen Carson get all giddy about was Sinatra. Frank was the leader of that gang. He was the guy. So, when Sinatra went on the show, it was like Carson’s big brother came on the show.
I love that. It’s like when you would see James Hetfield around Lemmy.
Or when you see me around Hetfield!
I’d love to see one of the Sinatra shows.
A lot of the guys I play with up there toured with Sinatra. It’s a big production with a 17/18-piece big band. I’ve got Carey Deadman, who does the arrangements and puts the bands together, and Mike Smith, the leader onstage. Mike was best friends with Frank Sinatra, Jr. Frank Jr. was his son’s godfather.
I’ve gotten to do some cool things, like share stages at festivals with [Black] Sabbath, Metallica, and Slayer. Frank Jr., in his will, gave Mike Smith the original sheet music that Frank Sinatra used to record many of these songs. So, when I’m in the studio singing ‘Luck be a Lady,’ I’ve got the actual sheet music that Frank held when he sang. When I looked at the sheet, it was all yellow, old, and aged, and it said ‘Frank Sinatra vocal’ on top. I thought everybody would have ‘Frank Sinatra’ written on their things, but all the others said, like, ‘Trumpet one.’ ‘Alto sax two.’ I had Frank’s vocal chart.
Before I sang, Mike made a pot of tea. ‘This is exactly what the old man would drink before he sang.’ I kept the tea packet, the amount of honey, and all this stuff. He also told me that if he ever felt rough about his vocal, he’d smoke a cigarette [laughs]. That’s the worst advice of all time. I’m not doing that [laughs].
The Sinatra stuff exceeds any dream I’ve ever had. #
