HIGHER BY CREED

We made it to covers in the 2000s (ok, this was released in 1999 but STILL). Recently our friend Fluff got himself a choice PRS Tremonti and it actually inspired me to pitch this song at him. He was all over it, being a big fan of Mark's. The signature guitar lick/hook in the chorus of Higher is one of the all-time great ear worms and I used to slip it into a song every night on tour with Harvey Danger. They HATED it and on many occasions I was threatened with my job if I continued. If you know me, you know that I wasn't deterred. I was never sent home. Later, I got to awkwardly tell Tremonti this story backstage at a festival where he was wiping the floor with me at ping-pong for a couple hours. Its a weird story to tell the person that wrote the song but in my excitement that was lost on me. He was an incredibly nice guy, as all the guys in Alter Bridge are, and is also a very graceful winner. I stood no chance of beating him on the ping pong table, I assure you. Ryan (Fluff) suggested his pal Tanner Wayne for the drums on this song and, of course, Tanner delivered the goods! The thing is that there are songs, right? And then there's the performance. The performance of the original song is incredible. Tremonti has earned his spot in the history books as a top-tier riff master of course but the Creed/Alter Bridge rhythm section of Brian Marshall and Scott Phillips is monstrous! To see them live is to see a band that projects music and energy off the stage as a single organism. I thought it would be fun to take this song and have a woman's voice deliver the vocals and Rachel Flotard is an absolute crusher singer and hilarious person. One of my all-time favorite humans, I've known her since 1996 and she's always been an inspiring person to be around and my stomach usually hurts from laughing so much after our hangs. She chose to take on a few characters for her delivery of the vocal parts here and visually this is really fun. But, close your eyes (or go download the audio at PATREON!) and you'll experience this song in a way that you never have. She's amazing. Of course, Fluff had set up his Tremonti guitar 1/2 step down as soon as he got it so we did the song 1/2 step down here. I didn't bother tuning my bass down which would have made things a bit easier for me. I just played it in a lower register of my trusty Yamaha 5-string bass. I'm rarely a path of least resistance guy. Maybe someday I'll learn.