TREMONTI frontman/founder Mark Tremonti (CREED, ALTER BRIDGE) and drummer Garrett Whitlock are featured in a new interview with Zoiks! Online. In the excerpt below they discuss how VAN HALEN bassist Wolfgang Van Halen ended up filling in on their current tour:

Zoiks!: How did Wolfgang Van Halen end up playing with you guys on this tour?

Mark Tremonti: "Brian (Marshall) had something personal come up the night before our Rhode Island show on September 10th, the night of September 10th. He (Wolfgang Van Halen) was in town with the SEVENDUST guys. I called him up and said, 'Dude we got a show tomorrow night, what do you think?' and he said, 'I’ll be there in an hour.""

Z!: What was the back up plan?

Mark Tremonti: "There was none (laughs)."

Garrett Whitlock: "If Wolfie wasn’t there I don’t know what we would have done."

Mark Tremonti: "Actually the guitar player in MAN THE MIGHTY would have had to learn the songs, because he’s like a shredding guitar player, but he looked pretty taken aback."

Garrett Whitlock: "I’ve got to learn twelve songs in three hours…deer in the headlights for sure (laughs)."

Z!: You (Mark), before the Van Halen record came out, because you got to hear it ahead of time were asked over and over again about it. How did your relationship with Wolfie start?

Mark Tremonti: "First time I met him we were both playing in the same city, I think it was Baltimore. He had invited us to come to his soundcheck. So we went to see their sound check and after their show he said he was going to catch a runner over to your show, to catch the end of our show. In our encore he comes and watches the rest of the show and we hung out for a little bit. The next time we came to LA, he had become friends with Eric (Friedman) our other guitar player, because Eric lives out in LA too. The next time we went out there we were all just kind of hanging out and he asked if I wanted to come see Van Halen practice, or he said, ‘Do you want to come see practice tomorrow?’ (pause) No (laughs), So he came and picked me and Eric up and drove us to his dad’s house, because that’s where they practice. 5150 Studios is actually up in the parking lot of his dad’s house. We went in there in a room no bigger than this and listened to the Van Halen record. We listened to it live."

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Upcoming Tremonti tour dates are as follows:

October

12 - London, England - Brixton O2 Academy
14 - Glasgow, Scotland - The Garage
15 - Newcastle, England - Newcastle O2 Academy
17 - Birmingham, England - HMV Institute Birmingham
18 - Manchester, England - Manchester Academy 2
20 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg Max
21 - Cologne, Germany - Gebaude 9
23 - Milan, Italy - The Tunnel

Tremonti recently shot a video for 'So You're Afraid', the follow-up single to 'You Waste Your Time'; it can be seen below.

Some may know the variation of this riff from Mark Tremonti's Sound and the Story Guitar Instructional DVD as part of a riff exercise. The riff stuck around and eventually blossomed into the four-minute alternative metal tune, 'So You're Afraid'.

The video was recorded and shot live at Groovemaster Studios in Chicago, IL back in April; with all live audio recorded by Grammy-nominated producer Johnny K.