Online Exclusive Interview: Alter Bridge singer getting use to new gig Web Posted: 10/29/2004 11:24 AM CDT Hector Saldaña San Antonio Express-News When alt-rock singer Myles Kennedy of Mayfield Four stepped in to replace departed (ejected may be more accurate, according to some accounts) Creed singer Scott Stapp 11 months ago, in a revamped, renamed version of Creed, few of that hit band's millions of fans had a clue anything was wrong. The breakup wouldn't be officially announced for months. For his part, Kennedy had no illusions about the challenge of taking the place of one of the most charismatic frontmen of the post-grunge era and what it would take to lead a new group, Alter Bridge. Like matchbox twenty's Rob Thomas, Stapp was the hunky, visual focal point for almost every female in the audience. Sonically, he sounded like Eddie Vedder and Jim Morrison. He was a huge part of why Creed sold more than 30 million albums. But Creed's original rhythm section (including chief songwriter Mark Tremonti on guitar) and Kennedy's vocals helped make Alter Bridge's debut album, "One Day Remains," one of the most powerful rock releases of the year, debuting at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. Not a platinum seller out of the box like Creed, Alter Bridge's debut album has sold more than 300,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It’s dropped out of the Top 100 on Billboard’s album chart. Alter Bridge performed at Sunset Station earlier this month for about 1,000 people, spreading the word about the new CD and that they "weren’t gonna play any (expletive) Creed songs!" Before hitting town, Kennedy talked about the new group. Was there a lot of pressure to step into a new situation with former members of a platinum-selling band? "Initially, there was for me. Honestly, Creed was such a huge, huge band, and I was just this guy from Spokane, Wash., you know. But now we've been a band for the last nine months, and it feels like we've really come into our own. It feels very natural. And just hearing the fans' response, we're starting to be embraced by folks. We're just trying to develop our own legacy at this point. It feels good. It feels real natural." Did you have to audition? Were you friends with the Creed guys? "It was somewhat of an audition. I wouldn't really say that we were friends. We had toured. I was in a band called the Mayfield Four, and we had opened for Creed in the late ’90s and they were familiar with me. Mark (Tremonti) called late last year and asked if I'd be interested in laying down some vocals on some songs that he had. So what he did, he sent me these four songs. I sang over them and sent them back. The next phase was the ‘audition' and to come down here, down to Orlando and see how it was in a live environment. And so, that was pretty much the extent of the audition." Can you speak to the importance of chemistry in a band? "So much of performing together, writing together, it is a chemistry thing. You're basically speaking to one another with your instruments, you know. And so it has to be there. I remember when I got down there, and we started playing together for the first few rehearsals, it felt, a few days into it, so natural. It felt like we'd been a band for a long time. That's one of those things, and it's hard to articulate. You don't know why you put a certain group of people together and it works and other times it doesn't." Sometimes things that look good on paper, even with friends, don't always work, right? "Absolutely, absolutely. That's the truth. Fortunately, it worked out. And I think some of it is just that musically, like, Mark's sense of melody, my sense of melody, the way I phrase things, we're all kind of on the same page. And that also goes for Scott (Phillips) the drummer and Brian (Marshall) the bass player. When they contribute things, everybody's judgement about what should and shouldn't be in a song, usually everyone's on the same page – and that's a rare thing." The new album should please Creed fans but has heavier moments, harsher riffs and faster tempos. Was this by design to carve out a new identity? "I don't know if any of it was really by design. I think it just evolved that way. That was the interesting thing. It was never like we were sitting there going, ‘Well, this group of fans is going to like this or this demographic is going to like that.' I would never hear anything like that. It was all about what we liked and what we enjoyed and what got us off. So, I think that's why the record sounds the way it does." Was the new album mostly leftover Creed songs or were they written fresh? "Some of the stuff, Mark had around for awhile, yeah. Mark is always writing and always has things sitting there on his micro-cassette recorder. And then, a lot of it was a matter of arranging, and he and I sat together for a good four months and would take some of these parts and melodic ideas and lyrics and piece them together. That was a long process. That was a lot of work. What makes it so difficult? "It's intense. Mark and I are both pretty obsessed with (music). That's part of the beauty of this. I have never in all my years of playing and performing met someone who was as intense as (Mark). We're just complete music junkies. We just love what we do and feel very fortunate to do that. In the course of a day, we spend so much time writing and arranging songs with the band, and then coming back to the house and writing into the wee hours of the morning. We did that for so long that it really worked well. Mark's got a great work ethic, and it's nice to be involved with somebody like that." What do you bring to the chemistry of Alter Bridge? Where do you fit in? "One of the unique things about the four of us is that our temperaments are very similar. We're all pretty mellow guys. There are not a lot of egos. There is none of that. Period. Which is strange because most bands, there's always so many different personality types that can be put into the equation. But we're all kind of hard-wired the same. I think that's part of why it works so well. You don't have that one guy standing up and throwing a temper tantrum if he doesn't get his way. Everybody respects one another. Ultimately, that's what it's all about. As far as what I bring to it, I bring my sense, my musical sense, everything that I've taken in musically over the years I just bring and try to add to he party and add to what they do, you know. What is the feedback on the new album? "I'm surprised. It's going so well. If someone would have told me nine months ago that our record was going to debut at No. 5 on Billboard, I would have been blown away. I was blown away. I couldn't believe it. People seem to be accepting it. It's a very subjective business and there are people who aren't going to embrace it. But there seems to be a faction of folks out there that really are digging it. It really seems to move them one way or another. And that's all that we can hope for as band, to develop a fan base and develop that rapport with the people." How does Brian Marshall (Creed's original bass player) feel about being back in the fold? "The guy is completely thrilled out of his gourd. He told me that after he got the call that he was literally running around and screaming in his house. So, he's really glad to be back. Being a musician is such a luxury. The bottom line is that you get to play your instrument, write your songs, sing your songs, for a living. It's a really amazing lifestyle, and I think we're all just really blessed to be able to do it. Where did you grow up? Who were your influences? "I grew up in Spokane, Washington. I was pretty schizophrenic (musically). I love music so much. I started off really into Jimmy Page and all the Zeppelin stuff I was really fond of. And then a little bit later on I really got into Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. When I heard ‘Songs in the Key of Life,' I was pretty taken by that record. A lot of different jazz: Coltrane, Miles Davis. I really enjoy a lot of different things." What is your favorite song to sing on the new album? "I really enjoy singing this song called ‘Down to My Last,' which I think has a really beautiful melody. That was one of the first songs that Mark sent me. I really enjoy that one a lot." Is there any contact between Alter Bridge and former singer Scott Stapp? "To my knowledge, and I didn't know Scott, but from what these guys have told me, no, they haven't spoken to him in quite a while. If you were working on demos months ago, the break-up was maybe not as sudden as it seemed to Creed fans? "I think it officially came out that Creed was done around May or April. I came down here, and it was official that I was in probably the first week of January, eight or nine months ago." What did producer Ben Grosse bring to the sessions? "A lot of his role was to make sure that everything sounded as good as possible, and that's Ben's real forte. He gets some of the best sounds in the business, the tones. He's got a really good sense, like a good producer should, about what makes a song fly, you know. If there are bad little vocal phrasings, he's got a good sense of that. He's a real laid-back guy, as well. Everybody on the project was so laid back and cool. There were no temper tantrums or weirdness. He's an awesome producer. How do you know when a track is done? "If Mark, Ben and I are all satisfied, then we usually would let it fly. There were a handful of vocals on there that I still wasn't sure about because I'm such a perfectionist but I trust Mark and Ben's judgement. The easiest vocal to put together was ‘Find the Real.' That one came pretty quickly for me. ‘Down to My Last,' the range on that song was a definite challenge but I'm real happy with the results on that one."