MARK TREMONTI Biography - Musicians

 
 

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MARK TREMONTI

Name: Mark Tremonti                                                                   
Birth name: Mark Thomas Tremonti                                                       
Born: 18 April 1974 Detroit, MI U.S.                                                   
                                                                                       
Mark Thomas Tremonti (born April 18, 1974) is a Grammy Award winning guitarist,       
lead guitarist for the American rock band Alter Bridge. Tremonti writes music,         
lyrics and contributes backing vocals.                                                 
                                                                                       
Mark Tremonti was born and raised near Detroit, Michigan. He listened to hard         
rock and metal like KISS, Celtic Frost, and Metallica. At the age of 11, he           
bought his first guitar. It was a Tara, which was a Gibson Les Paul copy and           
cost about 25 dollars. Mark then attended music lessons but decided to quit           
because the teacher would not teach the style that he wanted, "They were               
teaching me 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' when I wanted to learn 'Master of Puppets'."     
Instead, Tremonti learned guitar autodidactically with tab books. One of the           
first songs Mark wrote was called "Yesterday". Mark played in many bands before       
his venture into Creed. One of the name of the bands he played in was "Night           
Stalker."                                                                             
                                                                                       
After high school,Tremonti went to Florida State University, there he met up           
with singer Scott Stapp, whom he knew from high school, and former guitar player       
Brian Brasher and started writing music. Contrary to the common belief, Tremonti       
and Stapp were not friends in high school, they knew of each other but hung out       
in different crowds. Together, Tremonti, Stapp and Brasher held auditions for a       
bassist and a drummer that resulted in the selection of Scott Phillips and Brian       
Marshall. They initially named themselves "Naked Toddler" (from an article title       
on a press clipping that Tremonti used to carry in his wallet/0, but settled on       
"Creed" at Marshall's suggestion (having previously been in a band called "Mattox     
Creed"). Creed sold 30 million plus records world wide in seven years, and             
performed up to 5000 live shows. Due to increasing differences between Stapp and       
the other band members, Creed split and Alter Bridge was born.                         
                                                                                       
Since Creed split up, Tremonti has worked with many different guitarists and           
musicians such as Michael Angelo Batio, Thomas Gospodareck, and Fozzy. He took         
extensive lessons from guitarist Troy Stetina. He stated, After all Creed             
achieved professionally, I felt that I needed to refocus on the goals that I had       
personally. One of those goals was to get back to my rock and roll roots. After       
Creed took a break, band-mate Scott Phillips and I started to jam together again       
and realized that we both shared the same vision and were surprisingly anxious         
to get back out there and start doing it again. ". They reunited with ex-Creed         
bassist Brian Marshall and recruited former Mayfield Four vocalist Myles Kennedy       
to form Alter Bridge. The name symbolized going over and into the unknown, and         
while the new band mates decided collectively on the name for the new project,         
it was inspired by Tremonti's youth in Detroit. Alter Bridge is a real bridge in       
Detroit located near his childhood home. The children in the neighborhood weren't     
allowed to cross the bridge as it led to a bad section of town, and thus to them       
what lay on the other side was unknown.