38 year old guitarist and Grammy Award winner MARK TREMONTI made a name for himself in CREED and ALTER BRIDGE. Now after a combined seven studio albums between the two bands, Mark has issued his first solo album, All I Was, under the moniker TREMONTI. The 12-track disc incorporates Mark’s signature style with his love of heavy metal. “It’s been a fun process,” admits the modest musician.

As far as the material on All I Was goes, “There’s some stuff that’s old on there, ‘Wish You Well’ is real old; it pre-dates Creed (who released their first album, My Own Prison, in 1997). I think I started writing that song in junior high school on my four-track, and finished it just before the record. All the other stuff is two or three years old. A lot of it is parts that really didn’t fit Creed or Alter Bridge, so this was a good opportunity to get those ideas out there.”

All I Was sees Mark singing lead vocals on each and every song. “I never considered myself a singer, but after being a songwriter and kind of singing to yourself all these years, you finally get the nerve to do it.” The idea of inviting guest vocalists to sing on the album never crossed Mark’s mind. “No. I’m a melody writer, that’s my favourite thing to do. It’s liberating to be able to sing what you worked so hard at, and sing it exactly how you want it.”

Prior to recording his vocals for All I Was, Mark didn’t ask Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge, or Scott Stapp of Creed for any advice. “No, just kind of did it. I think singers and vocal teachers all say different things, so it’s kind of hard. You’ve just got to find the right thing for you. I bounced around a little bit on YouTube and saw some clips, and I’ve bought some CDs to go over vocal warm-ups, but other than that, it’s just been doing it.”

Not only did Mark sing all of the lyrics heard on All I Was, he penned them as well. “I’ve written a lot of lyrics over the years, but I’ve never had to finish an entire record of lyrics, which was a real big undertaking.” Each of the songs has a personal connotation to Mark, but that significance is not immediately obvious; they’re open to interpretation. “Yeah, some of the songs can mean different things at different times. A lot of the subject matter is about being burned by folks you had trusted, and being a young musician thrown into the success that Creed had early on. We had a lot of people latch onto us for the wrong reasons, and one by one they do you wrong. So this record is kind of getting that off my chest.”

Joining Mark in Tremonti are Eric Friedman on rhythm guitar and Garrett Whitlock on drums. “I’ve known Eric for probably about 12 years now,” reveals Mark. “We met at a NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) convention years and years ago and became friends. Doing this, it was just obvious to start something up with Eric. The band that he was in about six or seven years ago called SUBMERSED, had Garrett on drums. I had co-produced that record and got to know the guys, so when we went to do this new record, he was the obvious choice on the drums. Garrett’s got a great pocket, but he can also do the speed metal thing that we were really pushing on this album.” When asked to compare Garrett and Scott Phillips – the drummer for both Creed and Alter Bridge – Mark replies, “First off, they’re very good friends. They know each other very well and respect one another. Early on Garrett probably learned some tricks from Scott, and Scott says he wants to learn from Garrett on all his crazy double-kick stuff.”

All I Was has been released on Fret 12 – a company Mark co-owns with his brother Daniel Tremonti, and his Uncle Tom Stanley. Mark reveals the origins of this family-run business, “Fret 12 started out as a company that my brother Dan – he was pushing me to do a guitar instructional DVD, cause I was such a big fan of them. When I finally agreed, we set up Fret 12 as the company that distributed the DVD. After that we had LESLIE WEST (MOUNTAIN) do a DVD, and then TROY STETINA did one. Now there’s a merch line, and when we were talking about doing this solo thing, we decided to turn it into a quasi-record label. Dan’s just a brilliant businessman; he’s really done well with it so far. I think in this day and age, you can’t follow the same rules we’ve been following for the last 20 years. Things are changing so drastically, you’ve got to find new ways to get music to people’s ears and new ways to survive.”

That being said, taking the traditional record label route for All I Was did cross Mark’s radar. “We looked at EMI who had done great for us with Alter Bridge; and Roadrunner who did great for us overseas. The reason we didn’t go with EMI is because their radio staff was too busy to work the single, and that was the main reason we wanted to use them. It wasn’t for their distribution, it was for their radio. So we decided to go with a different radio team and just find our own distribution. Now we’ve set up worldwide distribution that works very well for us.” The word about Tremonti definitely got out there. When the first single, ‘You Waste Your Time’, was released on iTunes, it cracked the Top 10 Rock Singles Chart in its first week of release. “Yeah, we have those die-hard fans that will always be there right out of the gate, and they jumped all over it.”

The cover art to All I Was (pictured above) was created by Mark’s brother Dan. “He submits art and we kind of tweak it as we go. His first submission was actually the interior art in the booklet. I had suggested we do more of a symbol or something that would look good on a backdrop at a concert, or look good as a tattoo. There’s a statue in Detroit that he based it off of.” If you’re wondering what the symbols depicted above the skeleton’s hands signify… “Those are all secrets,” chuckles Mark. “Those will be told to people… Dan is really big into scavenger hunt-type things with fans, where he sets out clues and they have to figure out what the clues mean in order to win prizes. There’s going to be a guitar giveaway that we’ve already shot video for. All these symbols and all these hidden things he’s put in the album art and everywhere else will lead to the discovery of this guitar. He’s always thinking ahead.”

Michael “Elvis” Baskette, who produced the last two Alter Bridge albums: Blackbird and AB III, also produced All I Was. “He’s great to work with in the studio. We trust him and his tones are huge. And he lives about 15 minutes from my house so it’s a perfect scenario. We did five days in a studio for the drums, and then came to my house to do most of the guitar, bass, and initial vocal tracking. Elvis had bought a new board, once he got that set up we went back to the studio to finish off my final vocal things that I needed to fix up. Then he mixed it there in the studio. Most of it was done at my house, so I got to spend time with the family while recording which is always positive.”

It took an Alter Bridge hiatus for Mark to release All I Was. Frontman Myles Kennedy is currently on tour with SLASH, drummer Scott Phillips is busy doing PROJECTED, and bassist Brian Marshall will join Tremonti on the road; is all that extra-curricular activity detrimental to Alter Bridge? “No, we do pretty much three-year album cycles with Alter Bridge; that seems to do well for us. I kind of get lost when bands come out with albums too quick. I like to really dig into it; if albums come out every year and a half, I can’t keep up with them.”

Despite professing his love for instructional guitar DVD earlier in this interview, Mark is a self-taught guitarist. Should young guitarists follow the same route, or take lessons? “It just depends what they’re after. When I first picked up the guitar I wasn’t playing it to be a lead guitar player, I was just writing songs. I didn’t have any training, I just figured out what the guitar was all about by hearing what I liked and didn’t like. Over the years, you figure out this pattern you play is actually a harmonic minor scale. You find things by accident and learn along the way. Doing it that way, you develop your own style. If you get lessons right off the bat, I would suggest switching your teachers every six months so you don’t end up sounding like your teacher.”

One of the guitarists Mark holds in high regard is the late Dimebag Darrell of PANTERA and DAMAGEPLAN. In fact, Mark has a sticker of Dime’s face on one of his Paul Reed Smith guitars. “Yes, he’s a great player. We were doing a show in Orlando right after he passed, and a fan was handing out Dimebag stickers to everybody in line. I grabbed a few of them and as soon as I got upstairs, I picked my favourite guitar and put it right on the front. And I’m glad I did cause everybody sees it; it’s the guitar I use more than any other. It’s a good tribute, what little I can do.”

After this summer’s Creed tour - which runs July 27th to September 8th - wraps up, Tremonti plan to head out in the fall, but don’t expect to hear any Alter Bridge or Creed songs performed live. “The only way we would play Alter Bridge or Creed is if one of the guys was in the crowd and we called him out to come up and play. It’s definitely just going to be our stuff.” As far cover songs go? “Not at this point. When we get on a real tour, we’ll probably mess around with all kinds of stuff. There’s ideas that aren’t turned into complete songs yet, that we can play a big freestyle jam with just to make it interesting. But that’s going to take time, so we’ll see what we come up with.”