Alter Bridge brings in musicians beyond crossover from Creed Friday, February 04, 2005 Gary Graff Special to The Plain Dealer Mark Tremonti and Scott Phillips knew that ending Creed in 2003 put them in a precarious spot. But starting Alter Bridge -- which also includes original Creed bassist Brian Marshall -- took them a little bit, well, higher. "I'm feeling great," says Tremonti, 31. "We're really excited about the new band, and that's all we can focus on. I'm feeling a little under the gun; it takes a lot of energy to end one band and begin another. But the pressure's good, in a way. It makes you really focus on what you have to do." They've been here before, of course, when they launched Creed in 1995 in Tallahassee, Fla. That group became a hard-rock monster, selling nearly 35 million albums and dominating rock radio with hits such as "Higher" and "With Arms Wide Open." But the group's volatile relationships, particularly between guitarist Tremonti and frontman Scott Stapp, led to an irrevocable schism as Creed started to work on what would have been a fourth album. Tremonti and Phillips acknowledge that Stapp's growing faith-based focus was among the differences between them but says it was hardly the only issue. Stapp, however, contends that his spiritual issues "were kind of screwing up their plans for sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll because of how it changed the way people approached our band." Neither Stapp nor his former bandmates will rule out the possibility of Creed working together again. However, Tremonti says that for now he's "fully dedicated" to Alter Bridge, which is named after a structure in his hometown of Detroit that crosses the city limits, connecting it to the affluent suburbs of Grosse Pointe. Tremonti and Phillips, 31, immediately enlisted Marshall for their new project "because he was such a good fit for us." And while Tremonti considered singing, the group ultimately decided to recruit Myles Kennedy from Mayfield Four, a band that had opened for Creed. "I always thought he had a great voice," Tremonti says, "and he's also 100 percent different from Scott. Myles is a tenor, and Scott's a baritone. I think a lot of people would pounce all over us if we got somebody just to replace Scott. We wanted to start something completely new." That said, by virtue of having three of the same players as Creed there are noticeable similarities, especially in the taut, sinewy dynamics of the song arrangements and in Tremonti's timeless guitar licks. "Of course it's still going to have elements [of Creed]," says Phillips, "but it's a different sound, a little heavier than a lot of stuff Creed has done. This is a chance for us to highlight our musical abilities more than we could in Creed."