SKY HIGH

“I NEVER GET TO SLOW DOWN— AND I DON’T WANT TO.”
—MARK TREMONTI

It’s been roughly 16 years since Alter Bridge first rose from the ashes of Creed’s initial incineration, and in that time the group has proven itself to be nothing less than a continually dominant force in the modern rock world. Guitarist Mark Tremonti and singer/ guitarist Myles Kennedy, the creative duo at Alter Bridge’s helm, are among the most prolific musicians around, evidenced by the sheer volume of output between them in the past 16 years. With Alter Bridge, Tremonti and Kennedy have issued six studio albums, four live albums and a handful of box sets, EPs and assorted other goodies; Kennedy handled lead vocals for three Slash albums and issued his first solo album, The Year of the Tiger, in 2018; Tremonti has released four albums under the solo project that bears his name, as well as one science-fiction novel, A Dying Machine. That’s 14 studio albums, four live albums and one book in 16 years — a tremendous outpouring of music and imagination by any rocker’s standards.

But it’s not just the sheer numbers that make what Tremonti and Kennedy do so impressive — it’s the fact that the quality of their music continues to rise with each new offering, and that their fans are among the most impassioned and loyal in all of rockdom. The result of it all is that Alter Bridge have reached a point where they can almost do no wrong — where each new album is met with fervent enthusiasm by their fans and praise by critics, each new video racks up impressive numbers of views (usually in the million-plus range), and the group continues to tour the world regularly and have incredible experiences like their October 2017 shows at the Royal Albert Hall alongside the 52-piece Parallax Orchestra.

“I think we all recognize that that was probably the two best nights we’ve ever had onstage,” says Tremonti, who was named Guitarist of the Decade in the January 2020 issue of . “Unless you’ve experienced something like that, it’s hard to explain. When you’re onstage playing your songs the way you always