EVERYDAY HEROES
Mark Tremonti was once in Ozzy Osbourne’s road crew. Well, briefly. The Alter Bridge guitarist was at college in Clemson, South Carolina, when he saw a sign-up sheet promising the job to the first students who put their names down. It was 40 dollars for eight hours’ work, but to the 18-year-old finance major from Detroit it was the chance to get close to his heroes.
“They asked for volunteers to stay until two in the morning, and I said: ‘I’ll stay’,” he recalls. “It was no extra pay, but they said you’ll get to meet Ozzy or go on his tour bus or something. I did get to go on his tour bus, he wasn’t on the bus… I pretty much sat in the back and wrapped up cables in big huge boxes. But I got to see the show. It was Sepultura opening up, I think, and Alice In Chains was on that bill too, so it was pretty awesome.”
Tremonti’s bandmate, Alter Bridge singer/guitarist Myles Kennedy, turns towards him curiously. We’re in the upstairs bar of a smart hotel in West London. It’s quiet as the morning’s well-heeled guests file in and out, and gold trolleys of expensive suitcases linger in the foyer.
“What tour was this?” Kennedy asks.
“It was…” Tremonti thinks, “maybe [’91 Ozzy album] No More Tears?”
“So Zakk [Wylde, guitarist] was playing?” the singer asks, raising his eyebrows.
