Chords for Alter Bridge's Mark Tremonti + Myles Kennedy Play Their Favorite Riffs

What's happening, I'm Mark Tremonti.
And I'm Miles Kennedy.
We're from Alter Bridge, and you're watching_ Loudwire.
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_ [B] _ [Eb] So when I was a kid, my older brother Dan used to listen to metal upstairs, and I always
heard this song about a sanitarium, and it turned into one of my favorite songs from
my favorite records, Master of Puppets, and _ Welcome Home Sanitarium.
[Ebm] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Gb] _ _
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_ [Eb] _ [D] Last time we were here, I played that on the little _ _ Hello Kitty guitar, but yeah, that
riff is one of my very first riffs I ever played.
Well, it was the second riff I ever learned to play, which was Judas Priest.
I was at a friend of mine's _ house.
He was a drummer, but he had a guitar.
And I remember I picked up the guitar, and he's like, you want to learn how to play Breaking the Law?
And I was like, well, yeah.
That would be [Db] awesome.
But I thought it would be way too hard.
I was like, oh, it seems so intimidating.
So he showed it to [Ab] me, and [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _ [N] I tell you what, that _ might be one of_
Outside of the first time I had sex, that might have been the best moment of my life. _ _
One that gave me a little bit of trouble initially _ was the riff for Rock and Roll by Led Zeppelin.
I think I was still_
I had been playing for a few months, _ _ [Fm] but it still felt pretty good to get it.
[Eb] I haven't even rehearsed this, so this could be interesting.
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_ _ [Bb] When I was a kid, _ _ I had a four-track recording device, and the first time I wrote a song
where I was like, I can write songs.
The first song I wrote that I liked [B] was_
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_ [B] _ _ _ Someone was like, that's just Purple Rain, man.
That's just Purple Rain.
You're doing it.
But people repeat the same chord progressions all the time, but that was kind of the first
thing where I was like, it's something other than just a bunch of gibberish on the guitar.
So how _ about you, Miles?
How about me?
_ [Ab] _ There's a song called Lonely Nights.
It's [F] like_
_ _ Hey.
[Ab] _
_ [F] _ _ Hey.
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_ [Ab] That's a great first song, Miles.
I think it might have been the first or second [Gbm] song.
_ [Abm] _ _ [Db] _ _ [Fm] _ _
[Dbm] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Gbm] _ _ _ [Gb] _ [Fm] The Blackbird.
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
_ [A] _ _ _ [N] _ _ _
I like [Db] that one too.
Just to stay on that one, that _ [Gb] _
probably_
The riff that_
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_ [E] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [Abm] _
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_ [A] _ _ [D] _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ [E] _ _ Yeah. _ _
It's interesting that each of our favorite riffs was that song.
I think the Smoke on the Water and Iron Man riffs are the two [Gb] most iconic, most learned
riffs [Eb] of all time. _ _ _ _
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_ [Ab] _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
Yeah, they're simple stuff, power chords, but you never forget them once you hear them.
_ _ [Db] _ _ _ _
_ [Gb] _ _ _ [Db] _ [Ab] _ I mean, it's just_
_ ACDC's got every single ACDC riff.
We went back to this last night.
[Gm] _ Yeah, _
_ _ _ [Bbm] _ _ _ [Ebm] _
that's a [Bb] good one.
[Ab] _ So when we were writing _ Walking the Sky, we always try to come up with something a little different.
So we write in different ways, but when I was writing, I tried to bring in some kind
of strange loops.
I'll go online and I'll find just loops.
And I came across some old 80s, John Carpenter-esque, old school synth wave stuff.
I fell into a [Db] loop that was_ _
_ _ _ _ _ [A] That's really the engine of the song, the mood of the song.
_ I kept on just trying to dive back into that.
_ It just gave the song a different vibe than we'd normally go for.
Simple, simple _ _ [Db]
riff, but _ _ _ [B] I dug it and it stuck and created a song from it.
Pain oh my.
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The story behind this riff _ _ is that we'd been submitting demos _ and Elvis, our producer,
is always looking for a certain thing. _ _
And he felt like we just didn't have that box checked yet. _ _
So I remember sending him some demos and thinking, oh, we've got it.
We're good.
It's going to be great.
He goes, I need to talk to you.
I'm like, oh, right.
This can't be good.
And so he's like, look, you guys aren't there yet.
_ You got to go back to the drawing board.
So I remember I hung up the phone and I was just like, picked up the guitar and I was just like.
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_ [E] _ [Db] _ _ _ _ [N] _ _
So it was essentially the frustration that _ inspired [Db] the, you know, _
_ [G] _ [A] because it was just so _ angry.
But in the end, _ _ I'm actually really glad that we had that conversation because sometimes
that's what it takes.
It's just a little. _
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[C] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ [A] _ _ _
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