As the guitarist of Creed and, later, Alter Bridge and his self-named solo band, Mark Tremonti is responsible for some of the most recognizable and anthemic hard rock riffs of the past few decades. Tremonti was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 18, 1974, and began playing the guitar aged eleven, but it was his family’s move to Orlando, Florida that would determine his eventual career path, alongside a high school acquaintance and aspiring singer Scott Stapp. Together with bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips, Tremonti and Stapp formed Creed in 1993 (initially as Naked Toddler) and worked their way up the ranks of unsigned Florida rock bands, until drawing the attention of independent Wind-up Records. To everyone’s surprise, the group’s 1997 debut, My Own Prison, became a monster hit, assaulting rock radio with a string of post-grunge hits and going on to sell some seven million copies in the U.S. alone. In doing so, the album also effectively put Wind-up Records on the map and determined the sound of mainstream American rock for the next half-decade, along with Creed’s even more successful follow-up, Human Clay (12 million units sold and a Grammy Award for “Arms Wide Open”) and 2001’s Weathered. However, growing musical and personal differences (primarily involving Stapp’s misadventures with celebrity) eventually led to Creed’s breakup in 2004, with Tremonti, Marshall and Phillips reemerging as Alter Bridge behind front man Myles Kennedy. The new group would go on to enjoy significant success (albeit nothing on the scale of Creed) with albums like One Day Remains (2004), Blackbird (2007), AB III (2010) and Fortress (2013) — the latter pair coming after a brief Creed reunion for 2009’s forgettable Full Circle album and tour. Meanwhile, Tremonti (a self-confessed workaholic) had acted in a producer or guest musician role with artists like Fozzy and Larry the Cable Guy, released his first solo album, All I Was, in 2012, and begun working towards a second, Cauterize, for 2015.