================================================ Subject: Re: Rolling Stone article From: "Lee Reed" To: Date: Thu 7 Feb 2002 02:51:49 -0500 ================================================ thought i'd share, since i'm sure many of you are like me, and can't believe the cost of magazines today...(hopefully, it makes the line limit) >http://www.rollingstone.com/features/featuregen.asp?pid=501 >Creed's Stairway to Heaven>The tumultuous past and glorious present of >Scott Stapp and America's biggest rock band > By Chris Heath > You either love us or you hate us," reflects Creed's guitarist, Mark >Tremonti. He's not quite sure how it's come to this. Creed have been busy >making themselves the most commercially successful rock band in America - >their first two albums have sold more than 15 million copies and their >latest, Weathered, has sold 4 million in a little more than two months - >but some people are clearly annoyed. > "We haven't really done anything to anybody - we've always just had >a positive message," he says. He wonders whether that's it. "There's just >people who don't want anything positive to come out of this world," he >suggests.> > Mostly, Creed have used the barbs that come their way - from music >critics, for example, and from people such as Fred Durst with whom they've >had an extended feud - as inspiration. "They're just writing another song >for us," Tremonti says.> > Many of Creed's fiercest songs are ripostes to their detractors; >when they take the stage on their current Weathered tour, they launch into >three of these in a row ("Bullets," "Freedom Fighter" and "What If"), >though they'd not even noticed this until I pointed it out. Sometimes, >however, just for a moment, the nastiness hits home. > On a Sunday night in January, three days before their tour was to >begin, Tremonti was relaxing at home after rehearsals when the call came. A >friend in New York was reading the message boards on Creed's Web site. >There was breaking news: Creed's tour bus had been in an accident. > At first, Tremonti laughed. After all, he was at home. But then he >checked the Web site, and the posting said that both he and drummer Scott >Phillips were fine but that Creed's singer, Scott Stapp, had been seriously >injured. "My heart stopped," he says. He and Phillips had driven themselves >back from rehearsals, but he knew that Stapp might well have ridden back in >the tour bus. > He called Stapp's cell phone. No answer. He called the tour manager, >who called the bus driver's cell phone. No answer. "I'm freaking out," says >Tremonti. > While all this was happening, Stapp was at home, playing with his >three-year-old son, Jagger. He wondered why his phone kept ringing, but he >didn't wonder enough to answer it. These days, his phone is always ringing >and he is always wishing it wasn't. If Creed's manager, Jeff Hanson, also a >neighbor and close friend, calls after the ordained cutoff time and >mentions business, Stapp will say, "It's after five" and put the phone >down, and Hanson will know to call back and talk about other things. >Sometimes Stapp lets Jagger answer the phone, because Jagger knows what to >do: "He goes, 'Hello, leave us alone' and hangs up." Stapp recently threw a >persistently ringing cell phone into a lake. > By the time everyone finally spoke to Stapp, they already knew that >there had been no bus crash. It had been a ghastly joke. Whoever had posted >the original lie on the message board had returned to gloat. Signing off, >he had offered, by way of affiliation, "Fuck all y'all - limpbizkit.com," >unaware of quite how sick and successful he had been. > It is not surprising that it was Stapp who their latest hater chose >to imagine injured. Though Tremonti, 27, is equally Creed's creative core, >writing all the music and the occasional lyric, and Phillips, 29 this >month, is fully involved, Stapp seems to be the focus of people's emotions. >The version of Scott Stapp's life that anyone who has taken an interest in >Creed knows was most famously told in VH1's endlessly rerun Behind the >Music. > The basics are this: Scott Stapp was brought up by >Christian-fundamentalist parents, and throughout his childhood he had a >father who forbade rock music in the house and made him copy out long >stretches of Psalms and Proverbs whenever he failed to uphold his father's >strict rule book. > Eventually Scott left one night, at seventeen. Much of his writing >with Creed has been a reaction and response to this extraordinary and >oppressive upbringing. It is a good story, and in a loose sense it is true, >but the real Scott Stapp story is much more complicated, and perhaps offers >a more detailed and smarter road map to the man he's become and the group >he sings in. > On their final day of tour rehearsals - the day after the bus crash >that wasn't - Creed gather midafternoon at an auditorium in Lakeland, >Florida, an hour outside Orlando. The mood is a little tense. > When I arrive, Stapp is onstage, strumming some chords on a guitar >from one of their new songs, "Don't Stop Dancing." He asks Tremonti to >correct his fingering. (Stapp hasn't played guitar on previous tours.) >Behind them are the four immense Roman Colosseum-style pillars that >dominate the stage set. These look like stone but are made of flimsy >see-through mesh that hangs down in folds. Stapp sits down and chats with >his friend, Yankees pitcher David Wells, who is sitting on the drum riser. >Nothing much is being achieved. "Hours of time and minutes of seriousness," >Tremonti says, sighing. > Wells asks Stapp for directions to his house, and teases him for not >knowing which turn off the freeway it is. "You've been there four years!" >says Wells. "You've got to know your surroundings." > "I can't leave my house, dude," says Stapp with a shrug. "I can go >from my house to my car, from my mom's house to my car. I can come here. >Going through the drive-through's a pain in the ass now. I'm going to put >on a sombrero, go, 'My name is Hector. . . .' " > After rehearsals end, I drive with Tremonti in dangerously heavy >rain. They live, all of them, in smart gated communities near Orlando where >the lawns are mowed and the golf is plentiful; Tiger Woods and Ken Griffey >Jr. have homes nearby. > As he drives, Tremonti explains that Creed provide the big-arena >rock show people have been missing. "They come and see us because it's the >old-school rock," he says. The show should be in the tradition of "bands >like Kiss or Nugent that blew everything up." He says that the Roman >Colosseum idea came from their instruction that it should look "large and >massive." > I point out that as soon as one sees stone pillars on a rock stage, >one can't help thinking slightly of Spinal Tap. > "Right," says Tremonti. "A little bit. It's just not being afraid to >go 100 percent." > Or, um, 110 percent, I suggest. > "Yeah," he says flatly. "One hundred ten percent. You know, if it >was done on any lower scale than it was done now, it would look like Spinal >Tap. But I think we've gone big enough to do it right." > So, I clarify, it's Spinal Tap ambition, except you've pulled it >off> > "Yeah. We've done Spinal Tap, but we've pushed it as far as they >should have." He nods. "We're a glorified Spinal Tap," he says, playing >with the words rather than meaning them. He wonders aloud whether we're on >the right road for the I-4 freeway. He's not sure. > Excerpted from RS 890, Feb. 28, 2002 _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com To unsubscribe or change your preferences for the Creed-Discuss list, visit: http://www.winduplist.com/ls/discuss/form.asp