Hypothetical Scenarios - Mark went solo directly after Creed's breakup

[maximzub]

It's been a while since I did a hypothetical scenario.

Not sure that most of us would want such a thing to happen, as we would never get the magic of Alter Bridge that comes from Myles and Mark writing together...but what if instead of recruiting Myles to join the band, Mark just went solo? This could be with or without Brian and Flip tagging along. What would the first album be like if he was in charge?

Let's first think about what songs Mark had fully written at the time that we know about.

I looked at the writing credits of One Day Remains on musicbrainz.org to confirm which songs Myles participated in writing: Find The Real, One Day Remains, Metalingus, The End Is Here, and he's credited as an "additional lyricist" on Open Your Eyes. Everything else was solely written by Tremonti. I would assume then that Mark didn't record these on his demo prior to the album, except Metalingus which was recently confirmed by Edge to have been on the demo with Mark singing.

There were other songs from that time period as well. I read an interview yesterday about how Mark had a version of On My Way Now that he sang, so apparently that was finished. In another interview, he mentioned that he took the intro of Fall Again directly from his old demo tape of it from the same time period. Somewhere else, I found that he used guitar parts from his demos on Unable To See. We also know that he had written Wish You Well long before even Creed existed. Those four songs are potential candidates for this hypothetical solo album. I don't know what the writing credits for some of the other One Day Remains B-sides (Cruel Sun, Solace, Breathe, and Save Me) are, so they may or may not be considered here. I'm going to not for the time being. EDIT: I found that Save Me was entirely written by Mark as well, so it can be considered.

So, here are the songs we can consider for now:
- Open Your Eyes
- Burn It Down
- Metalingus
- Broken Wings
- In Loving Memory
- Down To My Last
- Watch Your Words
- Shed My Skin
- On My Way Now
- Fall Again
- Unable To See
- Wish You Well
- Save Me

Okay, anyone have a potential track listing out of these songs? Fire away.

[TenaciousBe]

I think, in general, it wouldn't have been nearly as well-received as AB or the subsequent Tremonti releases. Mark is a great lyricist, obviously (and that dates back to the Creed days, as he has been confirmed to have written Torn in its entirety and brought it to Scott, which leaves me to assume he'd been behind a lot of other lyrics there as well). But as a vocalist, and a front man, I think having that experience of the first couple AB albums really brought that out of him. I'm sure he would have done fine, but I bet he learned a lot from Myles (and everything else along the way).

Commercially, I think it would have been seen as even more of a "Creed guy doing something new" than AB was. Myles is such a top-notch vocalist, I'm sure that had a lot to do with quelling the "Creed with a new singer" stuff - especially coming up on Blackbird when he really stepped into the songwriting and guitar-playing aspects.

I'm sure for those of us who love them and follow them already, we'd have loved it. But the road they did take led to the magic we've gotten, and I'm glad they went the way they did. (Though, there was some rumor here on the board years ago that Mark might be working on some kind of metal project with Corey Taylor, which would have been KILLER.)

[Dan Dando]

This is interesting to ponder. Equally interesting is the alternate universe where Slash keeps his grubby paws off Myles.

[maximzub]

This is interesting to ponder. Equally interesting is the alternate universe where Slash keeps his grubby paws off Myles.

Then we would have Myles's unreleased solo album.

[Devil Inside You]

I don't think it would have worked to be honest. Alter Bridge gave Mark a second wind, and Myles redefined him as a musician. Mark is so far away today from the sound he had on My Own Prison-One Day Remains that its hard to imagine where he would have gone without Myles. Based off other bands I know with similar turbulence to Creed I think these are the most likely options

-Wind Up releases his solo album with little to no promotion to tempt/force him back into Creed

-He returns to Creed and puts up with Stapp the same way the Godsmack guys did with Sully Erna after Another Animal fizzled out
OR
-He refuses to do Creed and either quits music altogether/works as a songwriter for other popular artists such as Daughtry.

Ideally, if Alter Bridge never happened and Creed had to break up, I'd want Mark to do that speedmetal project he wanted with Joey Jordison and the Hatebreed singer but I think the other options I mentioned are more grounded in reality. Especially since many people would just write Mark off as a guy from Creed. Worst case scenario is he'd quit music altogether and just become an accountant or something

[maximzub]

Ideally, if Alter Bridge never happened and Creed had to break up, I'd want Mark to do that speedmetal project he wanted with Joey Jordison and the Hatebreed singer but I think the other options I mentioned are more grounded in reality.

I just read an interview with Mark where he said that the Joey Jordison/Hatebreed collaboration was just a rumor and there was no intention of doing such thing.