 
|
|
|
Page 1
|
|
|
"It bloated me up like a beached whale. I looked like fat Elvis" ...
|
|
|
Page 2
|
|
|
"Would the public demand that I perform knowing that I have pneumonia and two tumors?" ...
|
|
|
Page 3
|
|
|
"Maybe I'll put on a Superman suit with 'God' in the front and be God-Man" ...
|
|
|
|
Browse Bands by Name
|
|
Or enter a band name below to search:
|
|
 Bands Main
|
|
|
|
|
|
— by Joe D'Angelo
Two months ago, Scott Stapp refused to talk to MTV News. When Mark Tremonti and Scott Phillips announced the breakup of Creed from Tremonti's Orlando, Florida, home, Stapp bagged on telling his side of the story just days before the interview was to take place. He says now that he didn't feel the breakup should have even been revealed.
As Stapp prepares to demonstrate what he can do apart from the guys he's called friends and bandmates for the past decade, with his first solo offering, the single "Relearn Love," and a full album on the horizon, the singer opens up about what really happened on the last Creed tour, the ailments that almost ended his music career, starting over, and why he's not ready to turn off the lights on Creed just yet.
MTV: For your solo album, you've written a few songs with hip-hop/R&B; producer 7 Aurelius. That's about as far from Mark Tremonti as it gets.
Scott Stapp: Once you reach a certain point, you kind of want to venture off and work with other people. I think that's totally normal. When a band breaks up — and I put "breakup" in quotation marks because it's something that didn't even really need to be said; we could have both gone off and done our solo projects without ever [announcing the breakup of Creed] ...
MTV: Is that why you canceled the interview we had scheduled in June?
Stapp: I just didn't agree with making the announcement, and I didn't want to be a part of the mind-set that was behind it. It happened, and it is what it is. People want to find drama and figure out what happened, so you feel like you have to give people an explanation. My explanation is that it's just natural to want to go and [work on solo material] at a certain point.
MTV: Mark and Scott Phillips said your differences were personal as well as musical. No one could get along with you.
Stapp: That's not true. There wasn't a fight. There was just no communication [between us]. I had all these health problems, and I isolated myself, and to be honest with you, I didn't feel like anyone cared about anything but making money and touring.
I have a son and my goals have changed. I didn't want to tour 280 days a year. I wanted to spend more time with my son. I'm divorced and his mother's not involved in his life, so that's what's important to me.
MTV: You had health problems beyond the injuries you sustained in the car accident in 2002?
Stapp: I was basically on [anti-inflammatory] Prednisone for the last six months of the Weathered tour, and it bloated me up like a beached whale. I looked like fat Elvis. I had a nodule on my vocal cord, too.
MTV: What is Prednisone?
Stapp: It's like a steroid. It reduces all inflammation in the body. Without those shots I couldn't sing. And without putting the blame on anyone, I was put under a lot of pressure, regardless of my health issues. I didn't want to let anybody down. I'm a team player, and I was taking one for the team.
I found out later that you're not supposed to take it for that long. Afterwards [one doctor] said I risked damaging my voice forever and ending my music career. Quote unquote "rock doctors" do what they need to do if they're making money off you. It also made me very depressed and made me feel isolated to the point where all I did was sit in the bus and go onstage.
MTV: Didn't you think your bandmates would've understood your situation?
Stapp: I'll take the blame for not bringing those guys in, and saying, "Hey, look at my X-rays." I didn't do that. I should have, but at the end of the day, that's not why the band broke up.
MTV: Besides musical differences and health issues, what else led to the split?
Stapp: As Mark and I were moving in different ways creatively and exploring other options, certain people surrounding the band, but not in the band, took that situation and put a negative spin on it and used it for their own benefit. It's crazy what certain individuals will do. They want to get so close to someone in the band that they will drive a wedge between them and someone else in the band in order to be closer friends with them.
MTV: Who are you talking about?
Stapp: Just many people. I don't want to really point any fingers. I can take the blame and say I didn't do enough to fix it.
MTV: Did all this come about on the last leg of the Weathered tour?
Stapp: Mark and I started moving in different directions artistically after [2000's] Human Clay tour. When you're young guys and you don't know how to deal with what you're feeling inside, it's easy to focus on other things that are pulling you apart. I bet that every friend in the world, if they wanted to focus on the negative, they could.
|
|
|
|
Photo: Frank Veronsky
|
|
|
|
|
E-commerce on this website is brought to you by MTVN Direct Inc.
|
