"It's not easy to find a success story as genuine as Creed's in popular culture these days when considering all of the carefully scripted rises to glory and the falls that inevitably follow careers built on hype." That is how the official band biography of Creed starts, and indeed, Creed has had remarkable success. Their three albums, My Own Prison (1997), Human Clay (1999) and Weathered (2001), all were all major successes. Human Clay gained them a Diamond Awardhardly any rock band ever managed to sell more than 10 million albums. %Weathered% shot straight to No. 1 on the charts. It all started with My Own Prison, which the band produced for a meager $6,000 that they scrounged together themselves.
     With soul-searching lyrics that question religion and society, Creed's singer/songwriter, Scott Stapp, has struck a chord with people across the planet. He did so initially with guitarist Mark Tremonti, bassist Brian Marshallwho quit the band in 2000 (according to information from the record company, to pursue some interests of his own, but coincidentally after he trashed Eddie Vedder's songwriting abilities during a radio interview), and drummer Scott Phillips. This Tallahassee, Fla.-based quartet has garnered a devout following. Creed came on the scene in 1997 and proved that aggressive music could not just get the adrenaline pumping, but that it can also top the charts, even if it was produced with the minimum amount of money.
     Quite a few critics were quick to judge Stapp as arrogant when he predicted in an interview with Billboard that Weathered would make it to the top of the charts within the first week of its release. He was right, and he doesn't try to hide his satisfaction: "It was quite important for us because we were always the underdogs; nobody took us seriously. People kept calling us one-hit wonders, even after we had quite a number of hits under our belt. Now, when we get a No. 1 hit or album, it is a great satisfaction for us as a band and for the fans who always supported us."
     Stapp puts their success down to some rather simple facts. "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."
     They have been mocked as a one-trick pony and accused of riding on the coattails of grunge. They've been called sellouts, copycats and been accused of ripping off every grunge band, from Pearl Jam to Nirvana and Bush. Apparently, it never really fazed the band in any wayor if it did, they've got the good sense not to admit it. "It fuels our fire and our passion just to keep proving people wrong," claims Stapp.
     When Creed started to produce the soundtrack for the movie Scream, again they were quite heavily criticized because Stapp admitted having never seen any of Wes Craven's movies. "I'm not into horror movies; they're not really my scene," he says, "but they made us an offer we couldn't refuse and it was some sort of a challenge for us. We hired a couple of big names, added two of our own songs, and I think we came up with a rather good rock compilation. I think being a public figure turns you into some sort of scapegoat. Everybody who doesn't like us, or doesn't like our music, is trying to find a reason why they don't like it. Nobody wants to admit that they've got prejudices, so they try to find reasons for it. Of course it hurts, but it's just something that comes with fame; something you've got to deal with, like it or not."
     It seems quite a contradiction in itself that Stapp, almost in the same breath, admits that he'd rather get trashed than praised to death. "I prefer it if they try to tear us down. It motivates us! Think about all the bands that get praised all the time but somehow they never make it. I'd rather take some honest envy than be praised out of pity. It's very motivating. If you know you have to show them time and time again, it stops you from slowing down, from getting lazy. It's a great challenge, and no matter how much the critics hate us, our sales show us that we can't be as bad as they claim."
     It seems as if that statement is a little ditch toward Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, whose favorite pastime seemed to have been throwing insults toward Creed and especially Stapp. The reason for Durst's temper to blow was that Creed held the headlining spot at K-Rock's Dysfunctional Family Picnic in 2000. This led to a very public feud and Durst's permanent insults toward Creed, while Creed refused to take part in the mud fightwhich seemed to infuriate Durst even more.
     Considering all the troubles and insults Creed have been getting, was it really worth the effortdespite their sales and now-secure pension funds, or would they have preferred to be a bit more low profile and escape some of the negative attention?
     "Of course it is; we wanted it," says Stapp. "We're not one of the bands that claim, 'We didn't want to get discovered, we didn't want to get on the radio, we didn't want ...' We wanted to get discovered. We wanted to have airplay. We wanted to grow. That was our goal. But when you have to play the game, so to speak, it can wear on you. It can wear on you mentally, physically. But the positives keep you going. We can't complain. This is better than anything we've ever done and we hope it never ends, even if it can be tiring and exhausting."