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 "Each performance is an intense experience for us," says singer Scott Stapp of the Tallahassee, Florida quartet. "We play from the heart. I think it's important that the first time you see a band that you're in love with, you can see the sweat dripping off my face and the spit coming out of my mouth. You can reach and almost touch our feet. And I want to be able to see them, too. I want to be able to make eye contact with everyone in the room" It's a show for the band, too. We're looking at all these faces in the crowd and they're putting on a show for us." Integrity, commitment, and energy are indicative of Creed -- of Stapp and fellow songwriter/guitarist Mark Tremonti, and the driving rhythm section of bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips. The dedicated fans go the extra mile as well: relentlessly bombarding radio stations with requests, and driving hundreds of miles to see the band perform. On My Own Prison, certified platinum in March, 1998, themes of survival in Torn ("Yes I'm the only one who...would carry on this far,") are combined with compassion in Sister ("Broken father, broken brother/emptiness feeds the hunger,"). Social critique from In America ("Church bells ringing/pass the plate around") alternates with poetic detail in Pity for a Dime ("An artificial season/covered by summer rain"). As the music builds in guitar-driven attack, the unifying note is sounded by the lyrics. "There's always a spiritual thrust to what I'm writing," Stapp says. "Spiritual, not religious. For me, religion was about Ôwhat not to do.' Spirituality opens you up, sets you free." Creed has been in charge of their own destiny since their 1995 advent. They recorded My Own Prison for less than $6,000 in the home studio of producer John Kurzweg ("He's amazing," Scott says, "people will be hearing a lot about John"). Two months after it's 1997 release, the disc had sold over 3,000 copies. Remixed by Ron Saint-Germain (Tool, Soundgarden, 311) and re-released on BMG-distributed Wind-up Records, My Own Prison quickly became the #1 track at rock radio. Started by former high school classmates Stapp and Tremonti, Creed began playing dates in their adopted hometown of Tallahassee. "Most of the bands were playing cover songs so we kind of stood out," Stapp recounts. "We played four-hour gigs with 20 originals, and 20 covers. Our goal was to replace a cover with an original every week and that's what we ended up with -- four hours of our own songs." The songs were the products of the Stapp/Tremonti bond. "I had a ritual for writing lyrics," Scott explains. "Every night I'd lie in bed in with paper and a pencil. Then I'd show the lyrics to Mark. He'd play a riff, and I'd sing. Ninety percent of the time, what we'd arrived at worked. Brian and Scott Phillips have a free hand in creating the bass and drum parts. On the road, we're using sound checks to write. A week ago, I started singing. Mark started playing. Brian and Scott joined in. In about 15 minutes, we had a new song." Tremonti, too, notes the remarkable facility of the songwriting process, an outgrowth of the bond he and Stapp formed first while jamming in Mark's dorm room at Florida State University. "I'll get a chord sequence or a melody line going - I have literally hundreds of them that I've come up with in the past or am currently working on - and when Scott adds the lyrics, it's amazing how well they fit." An impassioned video game addict as well as a Les Paul master, Tremonti is the perfect balance for Stapp; after brainstorming new material, the pair turn the songs over to Marshall and Phillips. And, adds Tremonti, "It's great the way the two of them pick up and expand on new ideas so quickly." With influences from Metallica to Jim Morrison, and R&B to Black Flag, Creed's music is rich in texture. It shines through from the dazzling guitar and drums interplay on Ode, to the graceful six-string work on Pity for a Dime and the insinuating bass line of Illusion. Combined with the vocals on My Own Prison, the result is memorable. (It makes sense that Stapp's an R&B fan; in the shower, he used to sing along with the a capella parts on Take 6 Records). The full-born assault of Unforgiven gives way to the syncopated rhythms of Sister. Throughout the record, there's a palpable sense of cohesion. Creed is a young band, but somehow they play together like seasoned pros. While theirs is an egalitarian spirit, they found their collective voices in Stapp's highly personal lyrics. He grew up singing in church and also nurtured a Southerner's love for Elvis. But in his late teens, Scott became increasingly disillusioned with the strict religious dogma of his youth, later to be influenced in his writings. Initially turned on to heavy rock by Def Leppard's Pyromania, he soon began his personal search. Down on his luck, Scott ended up for a week living out of his car. (A fairly large Chrysler New Yorker, but still bitterly cold in the Tennessee winter). After gaining his bearings, Scott turned to music. With Creed, he began focusing his energies and gaining in self-reliance and creative partnership. "We get along extremely well in this band," he says, "We're more like a family than just a band." He found, too, that his experience provided ample material for lyrics. Take the stunning title-track to My Own Prison, for example. "I wrote it about 4:00 in the morning," Scott says, "I realized I was building up reasons to blame people. I was getting bitter. I'd come from a fairly wealthy family and I was eating noodles every day. I'd felt betrayed by the people at my school. Writing the song was a turning point. I realized that I'm responsible, we're all responsible for our lives." When we were on our extensive national tour, Creed continues to live up to their promise. And it seems likely that they'll gain new followers to join their swelling ranks. "At the gigs," Scott says, "We find that about half the audience |
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