Best known as the guitarist for Creed and Alter Bridge, Mark Tremonti has a third band, Tremonti, in which he sings lead vocals in addition to shredding the six-string. Tremonti released their sixth studio album, The End Will Show Us How, on January 10, 2025, via Napalm Records.
Recorded at Studio Barbarosa in Orlando, Florida with longtime producer Michael “Elvis” Baskette (Alter Bridge, Sevendust, Mammoth WVH), The End Will Show Us How sees Mark, alongside guitarist Eric Friedman, bassist Tanner Keegan, and drummer Ryan Bennett delivering a dozen impactful and captivating songs.
Beginning with the visual aspect of the album, Tremonti shares the origins of the cover art. “My brother (Daniel Tremonti) always does my artwork; he’s a visual artist. I just did my research. I went online and I tried to find all kinds of imagery that I thought was striking. I didn’t want to just do the black and white heavy metal kind of thing. I wanted it to be bold. I found this color scheme that I liked online and sent it to my brother. Then he went on a trip to Italy – first time he went overseas in his life. He went to Italy and found this statue; it’s a tribute to the postal service folks who passed away in the world wars. He took a picture of that; thought it was very striking, and added the color scheme I was into, put it together, and I loved the first time he turned it in. It was right on the mark. With the album title being The End Will Show Us How, I thought it fit really well cause these letter carriers lost their lives delivering the news to people who needed it during the war.”
The placement of the album title on the artwork is rather interesting. The words ascend, or descend, as opposed to the usual horizontal lettering. “Yeah, it’s kind of like the Star Wars intro.” When it came time to choose The End Will Show Us How as the name of the album, Tremonti recalls, “I went through the album lyrics when I was writing them. And this was one of the first albums I’ve had in a little while that didn’t have an obvious song title that was going to take the album title. So I went through all the lyrics, and when I came across the line, The End Will Show Us How, I was like, yeah, that’s a good thought-provoking line. There’s a lot of meaning to it, and I think that will make people ask, ‘What’s that all about?’ It just fit. And once I came up with that title for the record, I kind of went back through the record and I tried to add in elements of the end throughout the record. So that’s kind of a mini concept throughout the record.”
Not only is the “The Mother, The Earth And I” is the opening track to The End Will Show Us How, it served as the second single, with an incredible cinematic video accompanying it, which Tremonti details. “It’s AI mostly. I didn’t even know it was AI at the time. But I was online, again, looking for artistic ideas for the album and I came across – I think I was on Instagram – and I came across this artist, Kavan The Kid, and all his stuff was just mind-blowing! We reached out and he put it together in combination with the director, JT Ibanez, who did the other videos for the record. The simple stuff was me just pretty much walking, singing along to the song. Then it got cut in with all his visualization. With AI these days, you get a lot of push-back on it, but I think in the future, some of that stuff is just going to be another form or thing you’re going to have to interact with. Hopefully you can still express yourself through it in certain ways. But I can see the rub of some people not liking it.”
There’s so many images in that video! They don’t change as quickly as a strobe light flashes, but there’s certainly a lot to see. You really need to watch the video two or three times to fully comprehend all that appears on screen. “Yeah, I absolutely love it. You could screenshot about 50 shots of that and make t-shirts and album covers; it blew my mind.”
Leading up to the release of “The Mother, The Earth And I”, Tremonti commented, “Throughout mankind, everyone has fought over power, religion, and their beliefs. One side believes it’s right and everyone else is wrong.” The opening track and the closing track, “All The Wicked Things”, serve as bookends, tying together lyrically. In “All The Wicked Things” Mark sings, “Not a thing has changed, humanity’s gone. What a shame it is, we’ve taken our world, we’ve torn it apart.” That ideology really seems to come full circle on the album. “Yeah… I didn’t really plan lyrically for that to happen. I planned more for the anchor track, I know that the last track on the record needs to be that deeper, kind of cinematic song that leaves you wanting more. I thought ‘All The Wicked Things’ was the perfect track for that. But lyrically, yeah, there’s those themes you’re talking about throughout the record.”
It’s a bleak, yet realistic outlook. “Yeah, sometimes when I do my songwriting clinics, I tell people, when you’re writing a song, the music you’re playing is going to tug words from you. Sometimes the song writes itself on the emotion that you’re bringing out in your music. So, when you listen to the sound bed of those songs, I think the lyrics fit the mood of what we’re playing there musically. As much as I think ahead of what I’m going to write, that stuff just kind of comes out. It probably came out because when I was writing those lyrics, horrific things must have happened on the news. It it’s political, or whatever it is that happens at that time, it just comes out of you.”
People generally think of Mark Tremonti first and foremost as a guitar player; however, he’s quite a poignant lyricist. Six albums in now with Tremonti, and Mark gets stronger as a wordsmith with each outing. The song “One More Time” was treated with a lyric video, so everybody can absolutely see his words, there’s no mistaking what’s being sung. There’s a brilliant line in that track – “Fools believe that those who lead will forge a better day.” That appears to be aimed at politicians and/or religious leaders. “Yeah, absolutely. It’s about how people get so passionate about one way or another, the black or the white of what they believe, and everybody’s wrong who doesn’t share their same beliefs. They almost worship our leaders in a way. A lot of times they’re not being told the truth. It turns into this kind of sheep thing; people turn into sheep. Not everyone, but there are people; I’ve seen it firsthand where people will just verbatim speak to you about what somebody said on the news, and they believe it word for word. Listen, you’re not winning the argument telling me something that I heard verbatim that this person was arguing in his political speech. It’s rhetoric. I’ve seen that happen to people I’ve known… I don’t know if I’ve just wisened up to it over the years, but I don’t remember being a child and seeing on TV these black and white battles between these political parties or belief systems. I don’t know if it’s just the way we’re entertained nowadays or what, but it’s become a polarizing kind of world.”
Going on to the title track, although it begins with cynicism, there’s a line in “The End Will Show Us How” that is undeniably positive and uplifting amongst all this dreary reality, and that is, “Living every note until the song rings true.” “Yeah, those are some of my favorite lyrics on the record,” admits Tremonti. “That song isn’t necessarily a negative song. That song’s about hoping to believe in something. Hoping, wishing, dragging somebody with you, saying, ‘You’ve got to believe with me.’ It’s almost a spiritual type of song for me. The lyrics on this record… it’s funny, it’s probably the quickest I’ve written lyrics for a record. I didn’t overthink them, I just let them happen. I think sometimes when you do that, they hit the mark better than if you overthink them.”
Upon first glance at the title, without hearing the song at all, “Now That I’ve Made It” seems perplexing. Now, in 2025? Mark has three decades of experience in the music industry, thousands of shows under his belt, 18 albums between Creed, Alter Bridge, and Tremonti. Surely, he “Made It” a long time ago. But then you listen to the song and realize that’s not what it’s about at all. The lyrics talk about pride, jealousy, and the space between us. “It was a song written about a close person in my life that kind of turned on me once I became successful. The pride and jealousy thing showed its ugly face. It’s shocking, cause no matter what kind of person you are, if you’re a good person or whatnot, there’s going to be people who look at your situation from the outside and judge you for being successful in any kind of way. I heard an offhand comment that somebody made about somebody that I’d lived my whole life… somebody close. I don’t want to say specifically who it was. But somebody said something, and it was just disgusting to hear. It stuck with me, and when I was writing that song, that memory came back and became the theme of the song.”
Musically, there’s no shortage of thick, chunky riffs on this album. It’s a guitar player’s dream with each song showcasing its own dynamic. “It’s Not Over” really stands apart as a tender ballad. In fact, Temonti’s label, Napalm Records referred to it as, “The emotional apex of the album,” which is completely truthful. There’s such a vulnerability to Mark’s voice in that song, it almost sounds live on stage, as opposed to in the studio. “That one I probably worked the hardest on – well, that one and the title track were probably the two that took the most time to get finished. I had the verse for that song, probably a year before the record was written, and it just was my favorite idea that I had going on. I remember playing it for one of my dear friends, and he got emotional when he heard it. I was like, wow, I’m onto something. I looked down and he’s all choked up. Alright, that’s exactly what you’re trying to do, is move people with music. I second-guessed myself a little bit – like I said you shouldn’t do – on the lyrics with putting parts together on that song. I must have written a dozen choruses for the song before I settled on the one that’s there, cause I felt so strongly about the verse. So, that song took a little bit of doing. Just writing and writing and writing until it came together. I’m really happy with the way that bridge turned out. It’s one of my favorite bridges on the record. I think it’s such an uplifting moment for the song. That’s one of the songs we’ll be performing right out of the gate when we hit the road.”
Speaking of hitting the road, Tremonti is playing Europe and The UK from January 14 to February 18. There’s no North American shows announced yet. However, it’s no secret that writing mode for the next Alter Bridge album is well underway, with plans to begin recording in March. Does that mean it’s a very brief touring schedule for The End Will Show Us How? “No, I was honestly waiting on the summer to get put together for the Creed stuff. Creed has just become such a big, huge touring thing for us.
“At the moment, we kind of have to wait to see where that settles, and then it’s looking like maybe September or October we’ll be hitting the States with Tremonti. But trust me, behind the scenes, I’ve got my brother, who does a lot of online stuff for us, going, ‘When are we going to announce the US tour?’ I know. I’m constantly pushing for it. I don’t want it to be as late as October because I feel it needs to be around the record release. We’re doing all we can to make it as soon as we can.”
But come late February, the focus will be switching to Alter Bridge. “Yeah, I’ll be finishing writing some more good stuff with Myles (Kennedy) in the next month or so, and then we’ll hit the studio in March with that. We’re doing something really, really cool and special with this record that we haven’t… it’s kind of a top-secret thing. It’s going to be pretty epic for us to do this. We’re pretty excited about it.”
(Photos – Chuck Brueckmann)
Source: bravewords.com
