Providence Journal, February 6, 2005 Alter Bridge keeps faith with Creed fans while exploring new territory 01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 6, 2005 BY RICK MASSIMO Journal Pop Music Writer When your band breaks up after selling 30 million records, a lot of emotions can come to the surface. Mainly, the emotion coming from Mark Tremonti is relief. After the success of Creed, Tremonti, drummer Scott Phillips and original Creed bassist Brian Marshall are back on the block with Alter Bridge, which comes to Lupo's in Providence on Tuesday. Their debut album, One Day Remains, came out late last year; the first single, "Open Your Eyes," and the new single "Find the Real," have already become rock-radio staples. According to Tremonti, the split with Creed singer Scott Stapp gave him, Phillips and Marshall the freedom to do "just absolutely whatever comes to mind." "Whatever we feel like doing, we just do," Tremonti says from a tour stop in Indiana. "We've earned the amount of success from Creed to be able to do whatever we want to do." As a self-described "metalhead" who started with KISS and Metallica, Tremonti says, "I haven't spent 19 years of my life playing guitar to not do guitar solos and all that fun stuff. Neither did all the other guys in the band." The first difference that hits the listener between the two bands is in the voice -- Alter Bridge's Myles Kennedy has a higher, more rock-oriented voice than Stapp's sleepy, ponderous stylings. Tremonti says he met Kennedy when Kennedy's old band, the Mayfield Four, opened for Creed in 1997. Kennedy was one of the first singers the rest of the band thought of, Tremonti said, and after trying out about five people "we knew he was the guy." Pretty quickly, the listener can't help but also notice that the arena metal that hooked Tremonti in his youth is at the forefront, especially on the riff-metal of "Find the Real" and the up-tempo lope of the title track. "I think the hardest thing to do is come up with melodic songs that are still heavy. And that's our main goal, when it comes to the heavier songs. Not every song has to be heavy, but when it comes to the heavy songs, it still has to make sense. We just had a lot of time to come up with more songs that made sense and are heavy." Tremonti says that the songwriting process is more harmonious in the new band. "I write on my own, so a lot of times when I have a song pretty well arranged in my head, sometimes with Scott (Stapp) he'd come in and arm-wrestle over ideas. And this was after I'd been working on something for six months. So that got aggravating. "But with this band, nobody's trying to put their input in just to say that they did it. Everything's getting done for the greater cause, and that's how it should be. . . . "We respect each other, and we listen to each other's input. And we push each other to try and give input. . . . But it's not just so that people can say they had a part in something; only if they have a legitimate concern." Gradual evolution Even though for Tremonti the biggest thing about Alter Bridge is "the freedom to do whatever we want," the band's first single, "Open Your Eyes," is very much in the Creed vein, with anthemic, sing-along choruses. "It was the record label's choice, but we all wanted to not alienate all the fans we'd gained in the past with a song that completely sounded different. It's kind of an introductory track to the new band, that fans could hear and get used to before throwing something real heavy at them. . . . "You can only change yourself as a songwriter so much. The songs are still coming from the same person. It's hard to completely reinvent yourself, and it's not something I really want to do." But on "Find the Real," Tremonti says, "we established what we were all about . . . I think that's gaining a lot of fans that Creed never had." One of Creed's trademarks was the spiritual, almost religious, underpinning of many of the lyrics. According to Tremonti, that was Stapp's doing, not his. "Our songs are just about the human condition. Just about everyday, and about life. Creed was more poetic; Scott, in his lyrics, would always relate them to the verses in the Bible. I don't know the Bible, so Myles and I write from our personal experiences; that's all we really know how to do. It's not quite as poetic and theatrical as the Creed stuff." Reunion Getting Marshall back -- he'd split from the band in 2000 -- was "a no-brainer," Tremonti says. "He was such a nice guy. We always got along really well, and I think his bass style's very [unusual], and I wouldn't rather have any other bass player playing with us." Marshall had never been permanently replaced in Creed; Tremonti played bass on Creed's final album, Weathered. Did Tremonti or Phillips have to do any fence-mending? "Not at all. He knew the source of the problems with him and Creed, and it wasn't me or Scott Phillips. . . . He knew that we weren't the ones who chose to go without him before. He knew we were all still friends, and we enjoyed his playing. . . . "I think Brian did a lot of growing in that time. It was a horrible, horrible thing to happen to him, and he changed for the better. And we all did the same. "I played bass on the last Creed record, which was a pretty rewarding experience. It's good to broaden your horizons a little bit, as long as everything works out fine in the end."