[Uchiha Sasuke]

The need for Creed

In the era of Eminem and four-letter lyrics, Scott Stapp and his band have managed to rejuvenate rock 'n' roll with a positive message that borders on the religious.

By Steven Chean

Here's my question," says Scott Stapp. "If Eminem can rap about killing his mother with his daughter there and somehow get all kinds of critical acclaim and promotion, shouldn't music with a positive message get at least the same respect? Sometimes I think everything's all backwards."

And with that, Stapp, who'll be 29 this Thursday, is officially re-engaged. Sipping a smoothie at a West Hollywood, Calif., coffee shop, the singer and unofficial spokesman of Orlando-based Creed, one of the world's most commercially successful rock bands, has recently received the OK from his spine specialist to return to the road to continue the group's U.S. tour after the April 19 car crash that resulted in a bulging disc between two vertebrae in Stapp's neck and a smashed disc in his lower back. But it's more than that: Stapp is re-engaged in the wide, wild world of pop music, which is no small occurrence, considering that, since the November release of their third album, "Weathered", the band has declined virtually all requests for interviews.

Chalk it up to mandatory R&R, but Stapp has had a lot on his mind -- a lot to do with that wide, wild world his group so grandly inhabits. But to know Stapp -- to understand what he means when he uses words such as "vendetta" and "hypocrisy" -- is to know Creed. Specifically, how a group has come to be at once so adored and so abhorred.

"There's a time and place for boasting about Bentleys and cash coming out of your ears," Stapp says. "But it's just my opinion that music should have substance. People love songs that they can feel and relate to." Apparently, he's right: Stapp's heartfelt sagas of confusion, anger and, ultimately, redemption, infused with the Godzilla-sized riffs of guitarist Mark Tremonti, 28, and the jackhammer backbeat of drummer Scott Phillips, 29, seem to have hit a cosmic nerve. In five dizzying years, Creed's albums -- 1997's "My Own Prison", 1999's "Human Clay" and 2001's "Weathered" -- have sold close to 25 million copies in the USA alone; "Human Clay" was one of fewer than 100 albums in history to sell more than 10 million copies. Their arena shows, complete with a stage set straight out of "Gladiator", sell out in nanoseconds.

Simply put, Creed fills the gaping chasm between teen pop and rap-rock, a fact that hasn't eluded Stapp. "When we came out, rock 'n' roll was dead," he says. "They said rock bands couldn't sell records anymore. Now, rock has taken over Top 40 [radio], and 90% of the bands sound like us. We changed the whole scope of music and defined an era. I call that era 'anthemic rock.' "

"You can punch into five or six different radio stations, from adult contemporary to modern rock, and hear Creed," says Tim Richards, program director of Chicago modern-rock station Q101. "Their music fills a huge void, spanning blue-collar workers to soccer moms, and you just don't find that type of crossover appeal with any other rock band."

But Creed's success has come at a hefty price, as the title of their latest CD suggests. They've been attacked relentlessly by their peers and critics. The "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" has cited "the arrogant, ham-fisted aura that the band projects," while "Entertainment Weekly" magazine has accused them of "shameful self-glorification."
"They generate a decent amount of dislike amongst critics and people in the alternative-rock world because they sound like a very watered-down version of music that meant a lot to them in the '90s. Kind of like Pearl Jam in leather pants," says Sia Michel, editor in chief of "Spin" magazine. "They consider them unoriginal and over-the-top. Stapp can come off as pretentious and humorless when he's striking his rock-god poses -- unlike [U2's] Bono, for instance, who also seems to be winking at you at the same time."

Musical originality (or the lack thereof) aside, the various criticisms leveled at Creed share a common denominator: Christianity. "We cannot say this enough," Stapp reiterates. "We are not a 'Christian band.' We have no agenda to lead others to believe in our specific beliefs." More precisely, then, what rankles some are the Christian associations generated by the group's biblical imagery-laden album artwork and spiritually searching/ guiding songs, like "Bullets" ("Oh these thorns in my side") and "Who's Got My Back"? ("The covenant has been broken by mankind"). It's an image that has proven a little holier-than-thou for rock's liberal-minded cognoscenti.

Stapp's response? "When critics hear my lyrics, they hear, 'This is the way that I am, and this is the way the world should be.' What they don't realize is 99% of my lyrics are 'This is where I want to be, but I'm not there yet. I've got a lot to learn.' The rock establishment has a vendetta against us. They're cowards hiding behind typewriters. So, when we debut at No. 1 and sell millions of albums, that's my way of saying, 'We survive on the strength of our talent and our music and our fans.' "

If the members of Creed are in any way religious -- and they are -- their dogma manages to make room for the the sex-drugs-and-rock-'n'-roll lifestyle superbands more often follow. "Drug use is allowed in the band, but nothing more than you could grow in your own back yard," Stapp says. "And I love women. I meet a lot of women, and let's just say I have numerous friends. But I've heard some crazy stories about what certain artists have done with fans. You've got to have a little compassion for their hearts. I mean, one night there was a 15-, 16-year-old girl in the audience. She gave me [a lewd come-on] sign. She's just a little girl, and she thinks that's what rock 'n' rollers want. I went to her and said, 'Honey, that's not what men want.' I don't know what compels me to do that."

Likely, it's the same thing that compels him to speak out on subjects ranging from religious hypocrisy to parenting. Creed may not be a Christian band, but, as Stapp makes clear, its members do believe in God. In his case, that belief was hammered into his head as a child growing up in Orlando. His stepfather, Steven Stapp, a Pentecostal minister, raised Scott and his younger sisters strictly by the Bible. Church was a near-daily event. And when Scott broke the rules, he was made to write out long passages from Psalms and Proverbs. "He's a good man," Stapp now says of his stepfather. "I respect him for believing in something so much that he felt obligated to teach his children, 'cause he didn't want them to go to hell. But it was too much. I wasn't allowed to listen to rock; anything with heavy guitars was wrong. I had Christian albums that had heavy guitars, and I couldn't listen to them."