Radio Friendly Unit Shifters

Kerrang Magazine February 6 1999

In 1997, four young men from Florida recorded their debut album for mere $6,000 and released it on their own label. They were dismissed as a poor-man's grunge band. Three million sales of 'My Own Prison' later, CREED are having the last laugh...

If grunge is dead, nobody told Creed. Or the three million Americans who've bought their debut album, 'My Own Prison'. Amazingly, while Marilyn Manson's 'Mechanical Animals' has as yet failed to sell a million units despite all the hype and headlines that money can buy, Creed have come from nowhere to out-gun every single rock band in America - and that includes Korn, Metallica, Hole, Pearl Jam and Green Day.

Not bad for four unassuming blokes in their early 20s from the unfashionable town of Tallahassee. Not bad either for an album which was recorded for a mere $6,000. And as Creed's beardy bassist Brian Marshall notes with a sly grin: That six grand included the price of pressing 2,500 albums!".

Creed's tale - self-belief plus self help equals lottery sized pay-off - is the classic all-American success story. It's a story which began seven years ago when self-styled 'intellectual jock' Scott Stapp met soccer-mad metalhead Mark Tremonti..."We knew each other at high school but we weren't friends," Stapp confesses. Tremonti, seated to Stapp's right on a squishy sofa in a London photo studio, nods his assent. This is Creed's interview pattern: Stapp, the singer, talks and the others nod, mumble and fidget.

Stapp and guitarist Tremonti are Creed's creative nucleus. By early '95 the pair had hooked up with Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips, and within two years Creed were local heroes. To capitalize on the buzz they'd created in Tallahassee, the foursome set up their own indie record label, Wind-Up, to release My Own Prison'.

"It was a high quality demo," Stapp explains. The producer was very good and got the most out of the limited equipment we had. We sold 5,000 copies in two months. At a small level we showed that this band could be successful. By using our own initiative we proved that there was a market for what we were doing, although no one knew that the market would be as big as three million!"

Inevitably, a major label feeding frenzy ensued. Epic won out. The album was remixed by Ron St. Germain (Tool, Soundgarden) and was soon doing brisk business from New York to,er, Seattle.

"We've always been very confident, almost in a naive sense," Stapp says. We felt that we were going to be a successful rock band so long as people could hear us. We thought we were different, that we had something special. We had a lot to say that wasn't being said at the time.

"Rock music had become very blase and had no meaning, whereas we were full of meaning. And amid our friends, that's what people were hungry for: music that actually made them feel and think, that had passion and emotion. They said rock 'n roll was dead, but it obviously wasn't and isn't. Essentially, we're an American rock 'n roll band."

True, but rather vague. Aerosmith are and American rock 'n roll band. Specifically, Creed are a grunge band. Alice in Chains plus Pearl Jam equals Creed. Canute-like, the band disagree. Creed, it appears, are in grunge denial.

"Grunge died when Kurt Cobain died and Creed's a rock band," Stapp argues. A lot of people are confused about what grunge was. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains got thrown into the grunge category when they're not grunge bands, they're rock bands. Nirvana was really the only true grunge band."

What a load of bollocks. Sure as Bill Clinton likes nosh, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains are grunge bands and so are Creed. The real issue is, are Creed a good grunge band? Three million Yanks say yes.

"Three million records doesn't sound like such a big deal", Stapp shrugs, because just about every band we grew up liking was a huge rock band - like Led Zeppelin, The Who, U2 and Metallica. That's what we wanted to be, and we don't feel like we're there yet."

Creed are nevertheless the biggest rock band in America right now. Apparently they told a cabbie as much on their arrival in London!

"It's a fulfillment of our dreams," Stapp glows. We had expectations of being successful and we've achieved that. We've accomplished some goals. Now let's make another album, and make it solid and do it all over again."

"We're very goal oriented," he declares, full of uniquely American self-awareness and ambition. We don't sit around and relish every moment of success. We've a lot we want to accomplish together. Every once in a while the feeling will come over you. You're like 'Damn, this is so awesome!', but the general vibe is we've got to keep moving. It's probably all to big to comprehend."

There are of course some tangible rewards of Creed's success. The Porsche that Mark bought last month, for example, and Brian's new Corvette. But as the Rolling Stones remarked, you can't always get what you want - and Scott Stapp really, really wants a little respect from the music industry.

Stapp's frustration surfaces when he speaks of Creed's forthcoming US summer tour with fellow nouveau-grunge starlets Fuel 238 and Days of the New.

"We're all fresh up-and-coming bands who I think are going to be around a while," he says. I really feel like it's going to be an 'I told you so' thing."

Suddenly his face darkens to a scowl. You know, we really aren't getting much respect for what we've accomplished. We've sold two million records and Conan O'Brien didn't want us to play on his show. I guess we're boring to the media because it's all about the music with us. We write songs. We don't trash hotel rooms, and we're not shooting up heroin and getting arrested."

With the lack of media attention, at first we thought, 'This sucks - we're huge and we're not getting anything'. But we have three million fans who like us on the strength of our songs. It's not like we have a million 13-year old girls who like us because a photographer can make us look cute in a picture."

Despite these protestations, Stapp is rock's new poster boy; clear-eyed floppy-haired and... newly-married. But like the man says, Creed are currently the biggest noise in rock because they have songs that connect with people.

"A lot of this album is based on things that happened in my life," Stapp opines. Not actual experiences, but things I was thinking about - the inner demons and struggles that I was dealing with personally."

"'My Own Prison' is the most meaningful song to me. It was a turning point in my life when I wrote that song. When I read that song back it really spoke to me: take some responsibility for your life, don't blame other people when things go badly, move forward. When I did that, it totally changed my outlook on life. And it's ironic that that song was basically the one that started it all off for us."

"I think that's why we've become so successful. People can relate to these songs. That's the key."