Here you go, Joe--more fodder for your Stapp-hatin' sarcasm....   ; )

 

Interviewed by Mark 'The Shark' on Pensacola's TK101 on 6/21/04

Shark: …..And on the TK101 celebrity hotlines is Alter Bridge drummer Scott Phillips is with us. Congratulations on the new material Scott, and it’s good to talk to you today brother.

Flip: Definitely! Good to talk to you too.
Shark: So let’s talk about the period between the end of the cycle of touring after the release of Creed’s last album, ‘Weathered’, and, where we are today with a new entity, new band about to put out a first album. From what we’ve read and heard in interviews things kind of fell apart with Scott apparently.
Flip: I wouldn't’t necessarily rest all the blame on his shoulders, it just kind of fell apart in general.
Shark: Did that fan lawsuit about the poor performance in Chicago kind of hasten Scott’s exit because to hear Mark Tremonti in some of the interviews and some of the things we’ve read, it almost seems like it was a firing in some respects.
Flip: Nah! I wouldn’t consider it that at all. I think it was…..there were a lot of events, you know, in 2002, that were not necessarily anybody’s fault. I was just a really, really tough year to tour that was sort of capped off with that Chicago show.
Shark: Right, and that was near the end of the tour….
Flip: Yeah, that was actually the next to the last show. We did that one on the 29th of December and our last show was the 31st of December in Philadelphia.
Shark: What exactly happened that night? Scott was sick, was he loaded? What was the story there?
Flip: You know, I still honestly don’t know. Ummm.. It was just a weird night, I mean that’s the only way I can describe it. It was not a normal performance.
Shark: And that must just be a nightmare! You’re up on stage in front of a sold out arena, and that facility is like 20,000 people up there…
Flip: Yeah it was a good sized crowd…
Shark: And uh…{laughs}
Flip: We were all just kind of like “What is going on? What’s the deal? What’s happening?” and just kind of, you know, tried to grin and bear it and get through as best as we could. You know, that’s basically kind of the way things went down and, you know, I think that there were a lot of people that just felt like they didn’t see the show they expected to see. Ummm….which, were not the first band that’s ever preformed that way….
Shark: Yeah, it can’t be easy to get on a stage every night in front of that many people and pull it off.
Flip: Yeah! Yeah…you know…
Shark: And especially when you factor in the travel and the living out of hotel rooms and suitcases….
Flip: Sure! And maybe not even seeing a hotel room, just living out of the bus.
Shark: {laughs}
Flip: I don’t want to make it seem like I’m, griping at the fact that I, you know, have to ride across the country in a nice tour bus, and, you know, that I…..
Shark: Still, sometimes you want your own bed.
Flip: That’s what we all love doing. We all love touring. Yeah, a lot of things went down. We took off almost all of 2003. I had a baby.
Shark: Congratulations!!
Flip: Thank you very much! She’s almost a year old and…
Shark: Wow!
Flip: That occupied, you know, a lot of my year; getting ready for that and trying to figure out if I’m ever going to sleep again!
{laughter from both}
Shark: They’ll keep you up, huh?!
Flip: Absolutely!!
Shark: So Brian Marshall is back in the fold with you guys, how did that end up happening, because I want to say it was, was it during the Weathered tour that he was dismissed from the band for making some disparaging comments about Pearl Jam in a radio interview?
Flip: Um.. It was actually summer of 2000 which was right in the middle of our Human Clay tour.
Shark: Right, okay…
Flip: And that was not the reason that we parted ways, there were some other factors that kind of went along with that. Brian is, sort of, stated, and it’s starting to become well documented that there were a lot of tensions, personally, between him and Scott that just, you know…..neither one of them are going to be able to be around each other, to share stage with each other and you know, Brian’s decision and our decision was, sort of, in agreement that somebody had to go and it was Brian. But he’s back in now and it’s absolutely amazing. You know, time has passed and I think everybody, if we had differences we’ve definitely settled them and all are very excited to be playing together again.
Shark: Since word of the break-up of Creed came down we’ve been hearing a lot from you guys; Nothing from Scott, do you think that’s a little odd?
Flip: Umm.. Yeah. I mean, people can interpret that how they want to interpret that. I am surprised that he hasn’t really said anything. He was doing a lot of stuff early on in the year when it wasn’t made known to the public that Creed was done, but we knew it and…
Shark: Well, you guys sure kept a good secret because that was a shocker when it came down.
Flip: Yeah, I think there were some people out there that saw it coming and it wasn’t even people necessarily on the inside. You know, Scott, he was doing some TV interviews and you know, TV shows and phoners and all that kind of stuff and he was talking a lot about his solo record that I think he’s still working on. Now, with the announcement of this, the fact that you haven’t heard anything from him does surprise me. But we wish him all the luck in the world, and hope that he does the same for us.
Shark: Myles Kennedy; how did his arrival into the fold come about? He was with, a pretty decent band, Mayfield Four..
Flip: Yeah!
Shark: And um, what was the movie he was in? Rockstar?
Flip: {snickers} Yeah!
Shark: {laughs}
Flip: He was Thor in Rockstar! Mayfield Four toured with us back in 1998, I guess it was when we were out on the west coast, and it was Mayfield Four, Fuel and us. It was a really fun tour and um, I just couldn’t describe how well Myles could sing. It was just amazing the he, you know, had all this talent. We, you know, hung out a little bit on that tour but never got a chance to really know each other personally and I think once Mark and I sort of saw that Creed was done and we were knowing that at least he and I and bring Brian back into the fold, that we wanted to continue to make music together. We uh, Myles was the first guy that I think popped into our heads. We looked for anybody and everybody but he was the one guy that really stood out above all others.
Shark: Well, he’s got some lungs, I tell ya! He really belted it out with Mayfield Four and on the new single ‘Open Your Eyes’ he really sings as opposed to….I mean it’s a different sound from what you had with Scott, anyway…
Flip: Yeah! And that was somewhat intentional. It wasn’t that we were, you know, we were looking for what we felt like the best singer would be for this band and this style and didn’t at all want to come across as it’s Creed with a different singer and a guy that sounds like Scott does, you know? We wanted this to be a whole new band with what we feel like is somewhat of a different sound. It can only be different by so much because you’ve still got three-fourths of Creed that’s making the music so it’s always..
Shark: Sure!
Flip: going to have those elements…
Shark: That’s what I was going to ask you about. I was going to have you differentiate for us what we will find on the Alter Bridge album as opposed to what we’ve heard from Creed. It’s my observation, you’re showcasing Myles voice but also a wicked guitar solo from Mark Tremonti..
Flip: Yeah!
Shark: Creed was never really a band that was known for it’s, you know, vociferous guitar solos…
Flip: Yeah! Mark’s always been a shredder, all of his life and this was, and for all of us, this was kind of our opportunity to go out and just play. It was all about the music and musicianship and being able to show off some of our talents a little bit. I think the album as a whole really, really does that well, where a lot of the Creed stuff, not that it didn’t, sort of, you know, it wasn’t about the music. It got to the point where it sort of was more just keeping it simple and making it easily digestible and…
Shark: It became a singles band.
Flip: Yeah…It’s kind of exactly what it became and you know we wanted to do this to be in a rock band. We wanted to go out and, you know, if I wanted to do a 30 minute drum solo, then damn it, I’m going to do a 30 minute drum solo.
Shark: Hell yeah!
Flip: Whatever we want to do…
Shark: Pull a ‘Tommy Lee’ and fly out over the audience..
Flip: Absolutely!!
{laughter from both}
Shark: So Creed was headlining and selling out arenas coast to coast and I’m sure there’s a certain appeal to that. How is going to be performing in an upstart band change life on the road for you?
Flip: Um…It’ll definitely change! We’re certainly not going to tour at the level that we toured with Creed..
Shark: Are you going to have to open for bands that you may feel aren’t as good or as experienced as you and will having to play, for instance, a club what will that be like after performing in front of 15,000 fans in an arena.
Flip: I think we’re looking forward to that as much as anything, to be honest with you. Club days were always our favorites. We’re going to go out and we’re going to headline our own shows, even if it’s for 30 people. You know, we’ve always done that with Creed and we’ve always felt like that was the right thing to do.
Shark: You know, come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever seen Creed open for anybody and right out of the shoot with ‘My Own Prison’ you guys were out on the road with Seven Dust opening for you guys.

Flip: Yeah! And that’s the way we wanted it. It was, you know, us playing in front of 300 of our fans as opposed to playing for 3,000 of somebody else’s fans. We just wanted it to be our crowd and , you know, all those people that have come there to see us and uh were hoping to build this one the same way. We’re really excited about playing small venues, you know, it’s a lot of fun. It’s the most intimate you can possibly get with the crowd.
Shark: And it’s uh, probably being that close, being able to interface with the crowd that’s there will kind of give you a quicker vibe as far as how the music’s going over.
Flip: Yeah, uh absolutely! You’ll know immediately once you start playing songs if people aren’t reacting, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Shark: We’re hearing that you guys will not be playing any Creed material. Is that true and if so, why not?
Flip: That is true, and um, I think we feel like it’s not fair to the four of us as Creed. It’s not fair, in my opinion, to the fans that are coming to see either Alter Bridge or wanting to see Creed and it’s not all of Creed out there. Even if it is three-fourths of us. We just feel like, you know, we want to be our own band and the Creed days were amazing and fantastic and we’ll always cherish but we’re turning the page and just want to go out and do our own thing. I don’t think it’s fair for anybody to come to the show and watch Myles do Creed songs when Scott was so much a part of those Creed songs.
Shark: True, and we’ve seen the reaction when Sammy Hagar, for instance, sang some of the David Lee Roth material with Van Halen..
Flip: Yeah! I’m a huge fan of Van Hager, if you will and I’m glad to see their actually doing that. I don’t think David Lee Roth will ever get back in that band and at least it’s good to see some of the better days of Van Halen are coming back but you know, it’s not the same as when David Lee Roth did those songs. You would rather see him sing ‘Panama’ than Sammy Hagar sing ‘Panama’ It’s just kind of the way it is and that’s sort of our mentality is…
Shark: Onward and upward…
Flip: Yeah! Absolutely!
Shark: Scott Phillips of Alter Bridge…The debut CD is coming out on August 10th called ‘One Day Remains’ and we can hardly wait to hear the entire body of work. You’re hearing the single, of course currently here on TK101. The song ‘Open Your Eyes’ which is a great track. And uh, thanks so much for taking some time out of your schedule. I’m sure you guys are busy trying to launch this baby! Scott Phillips of Alter Bridge here with us this afternoon…Thanks a million, brother!
Flip: Hey, thank you very much! You guys have always been there for us and we’ll always continue to be there for you guys…

By: Exposed Soul at: 6/23/04 9:33 pm

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