Scott Stapp has always craved something higher.
As a kid, he had his first encounter with God while staring up at the clouds, searching for guidance in the upper decks of our earthly realm. As a teenager, he had sky-high dreams of becoming either a pro athlete or a famous rock singer, the second coming of his hero Jim Morrison. In his twenties, one of those dreams came true when Creed, Stapp’s firstever band, became instant rockstars upon the release of their debut 1997 album, My Own Prison.
Their second, 1999’s Human Clay, was an even greater commercial smash. It eventually earned diamond certification (a rare distinction for selling 10 million units achieved by heavyweights including Guns N’ Roses and Metallica) and calcified Creed’s status as arena denizens, radio-rock stalwarts and Grammy winners (for the song “With Arms Wide Open”).
The lead single from Human Clay was “Higher,” a scorching power-ballad with a chest-beating refrain, the type of chorus that’s left many-a dashboard covered in spittle from inspiring full-throated sing-alongs. In it, Stapp pleads to be taken higher to “a place where blind men see” and the streets are paved in gold. He’s singing, pretty explicitly, about heaven. But it’s also a broader metaphor about Stapp’s innate human desire to ascend to someplace better, purer, than where we currently are.
Over the last 25-plus years, for all his many career highs, Stapp has also weathered his fair share of personal lows, including substance abuse issues and arrests. But throughout his struggles, Stapp has never stopped reaching for something higher. By his own admission, his faith and perseverance have carried him through the darkness. And these days, Scott Stapp is basking in the light.
He’s in high spirits, a sober and dedicated father of four children and a grandfather to a new baby grandson. He’s just released his fourth solo album, Higher Power. It’s an eclectic work that explores faith, frustration, love and loss through a mix of grungey ballads and metallurgic bangers. It also features his first-ever duet (with rocker Dorothy) and earned him his highest-charting solo single to date (“Higher Power”). And Creed, who went on hiatus in 2012 and haven’t issued an album in 15 years, are reuniting for their first tour in over a decade — and it’s a big damn deal. Many of the dates sold out immediately, due in no small part to a new generation of enthusiastic Creed fans who weren’t even alive when My Own Prison debuted.
Creed, the post-grunge posterboys whose staggeringly popular music simultaneously made them a lightning rod for massive praise and many critics, are now a Gen-Z favorite. “Higher,” Creed’s defining song, has achieved meme supremacy on TikTok, where the towering chorus is used to soundtrack everything from clutch sports achievements to slowmotion videos of an ice block smashing on concrete. Its soaring energy makes even the most mundane actions feel like they’re being projected on a stadium jumbotron — and sometimes, they literally are.
When the Texas Rangers clinched the World Series in 2023, the team burst into a recitation of “Higher,” claiming it as an anthem of victory. A few months later, the song apeared in a fever-dream Super Bowl ad where actor Sir Patrick Stewart throws a football-shaped cartoon character (the titular Hey Arnold!) while Creed rip through “Higher” in the background. However, an even bigger seal of approval, underscoring Creed’s — and by extension, Stapp’s — return to cultural prominence, came courtesy of SZA, the Grammy-winning, Gen-Z-commanding pop star, who proclaimed her unabashed love for “Higher” in a viral Variety interview in late 2023.
“[Creed] rock! That shit is bomb!” SZA exclaimed, before praising “Higher” specifically: “Have you ever felt more inspired in your life? I’m in the car and I’m blasting ‘Higher.’”
SZA’s words resonated both online and in the house of Stapp. “It definitely made me a cool dad in my house with my teenage daughter and teenage son,” the singer quips. He was particularly happy to see an artist with as much critical esteem as SZA defend the band’s artistic integrity. It hasn’t always been easy being the face of Creed.
At the turn of the century, Creed’s music was so ubiquitous that they became an easy punching bag for anyone who had something negative to say about the state of rock music. The music press could be particularly vicious, but the critiques turned personal when Stapp’s substance abuse problems manifested in the 2000s. In 2006, it was widely reported that he attempted suicide after falling off a Miami Beach hotel balcony — a near-tragic event that surreally culminated with rapper T.I., who was staying in a room below, coming to his aid. But Stapp later clarified in his autobiography, Sinner’s Creed, that it was purely an accident stemming from an overindulgence in drugs and alcohol. He succumbed to what he calls “the pitfalls of what this crazy rock & roll life led me to.”
Creed’s career was similarly tumultuous. After going on hiatus in 2004, the band reunited for a three-year stint starting in 2009, but by then, the musical landscape had shifted. The post-grunge era Creed conquered was long in the rearview, and glitzy pop-rockers like Imagine Dragons were about to become America’s next insurmountably successful (and critically divisive) rock torchbearers. The band split again in 2012, and Stapp’s substance issues persisted into the early 2010s. But it’s 2024 now, and the scales have tipped back in Creed’s favor.
The revival of nu-metal sounds and aesthetics over the last couple years has stepped forward a few paces — and now we’re witnessing a moment of collective nostalgia for what came next in rock history: The era when bands like Creed, 3 Doors Down and Daughtry ruled the airwaves. Fittingly all three of those bands are hitting the road later this year for the Summer of ’99 tour, Creed’s first since 2012. This renewed interest in Stapp’s life work couldn’t have come at a better time for the singer, who’s been enjoying the first extended stretch of stability and happiness in his entire life. He’s had a tough go of it, but right now he’s thriving, and he doesn’t take any of it — from the TikToks and SZA shouts to Creed’s reunion or his own Higher Power — for granted.
“I’m grateful for the life and the gift that I’ve been given to be an artist and musician,” Stapp tells Revolver with a warm sincerity. “This resurgence of Creed, almost to the point where [we’re] as big or bigger than we were at our peak in 2002 … To have that happen all these years later, is just a gift. And I’m so full of gratitude and appreciation. There’s no expectation in me. There’s just humility and gratitude at this stage in my life.”
Stapp’s journey thus far has been filled with sublime highs and humbling lows. From his turbulent childhood and Creed’s lightning-fast ascendance, to persevering through recovery and reconnecting with his higher power, this is his life story.
WHEN AND WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
SCOTT STAPP I was born on August 8th, 1973, at Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando, Florida.
DO YOU HAVE ANY SIBLINGS?
I do. I found out when I was 18 that I had two half-brothers from my biological father that I never knew and never met. And then I have two sisters.
ARE YOU IN CLOSE CONTACT WITH ANY OF THEM, THE HALF-BROTHERS OR THE SISTERS?
Well, one of my half-brothers died. The other I have not been in contact with. No, I never knew them. And then my sisters, we haven’t been in a lot of contact. Everyone’s doing their own thing in life.
SO YOU GREW UP WITH YOUR BIOLOGICAL MOM, BUT DID YOU HAVE A STEPFATHER IN THE HOUSE?
My real father left, whom I only had positive memories of, when I was around four or five. And then when I was 10 my mother remarried an Air Force captain who was also a dentist. I was adopted maybe two years later, and my name changed from Anthony Scott Flippen to Scott Allen Stapp. I’m going to change my name back to Anthony Scott. I just haven’t gotten around to it. Because I kind of feel like it wasn’t my choice. That’s why I named my little six-year-old boy Anthony.
WHAT SORT OF RELATIONSHIP DID YOU HAVE WITH YOUR MOM GROWING UP?
My mom worked a lot. She was a single mom, and so I spent a lot of time alone. I got up in the morning, she was already gone to work. So as early as I can remember, [I was in] first grade, walking to school, eating my breakfast there at school; I was on the free lunch plan. And she wouldn’t really get home until late, so I kind of roamed the neighborhood in the streets, just playing outside until it got dark, until the streetlights went on. And then she got remarried and things changed quite a bit.
HOW DID THEY CHANGE?
Well, I went from being left to myself pretty much all the time to being in a very controlled environment. A very, very harsh, strict, disciplinary environment.
YOU’VE BEEN OPEN THROUGHOUT YOUR LIFE ABOUT YOUR FAITH IN GOD. WAS RELIGION A BIG PART OF YOUR LIFE GROWING UP?
I had an encounter with God when I was nine years old. I remember being very distraught and not understanding why my dad, who I loved so much and had so many amazing experiences with and was my hero, wasn’t there anymore. No one ever told me. I just woke up one day and he was gone.
I remember seeing my friends in the neighborhood have a mother and father, and I believe I was even kind of picked on for not having a father. It hurt and [having a father] was something that I yearned for.
And I remember at nine years old laying in the grass looking up to the blue sky, and I asked God, “God, since I don’t have a daddy, will you be my daddy?” And it was in that moment from the heart of a child … that my connection with God was born. It wasn’t born in a church. It was born in a unique connection with just a boy wanting a father and having nowhere else to look but to God.
DID THAT CONNECTION WITH GOD REMAIN OVER THE YEARS AS YOU GREW UP AND BECAME A ROCK STAR?
One hundred percent. Even through my darkest days, even in my worst periods of living a life that an outsider would look at as completely disassociated with God, I was still connected with God. Some of the decisions I would make that weren’t very good — that were the complete antithesis of what someone would consider a Christian lifestyle — were made with the deal of me rationalizing it to God.
Saying, “Well God … in the Bible, King Solomon wanted wisdom, and I do, too.” And in order for him to gain that, he had to experience all these things and go down all these dark roads … I guess what the church would call sinful experiences. And then while I was experiencing all those things, it developed into something that was very detrimental to my health, my life, my friendships and my relationships. But I was still in communication with God. I would talk to God every day like I’m talking to you. If someone was a fly on the wall, they’d probably be like, “Why is that kid talking to himself?” But I was in conversation with my higher power, with God.
WHAT TYPE OF KID WERE YOU? TROUBLEMAKER? STUDIOUS? WELL-BEHAVED? WILD?
Well, prior to my mom remarrying, I was a very, very active child [with] no filter. My intent was never bad, but I was a very high-energy kid. So I found myself in the principal’s office quite a bit because of impulsivity and speaking out of turn and standing on my desk and doing a dance to make everybody laugh, all that kind of stuff.
I have memories of seeing an in-school counselor who would just constantly be doing tests and showing me flashcards and asking me weird questions. And I thought it was better than doing math. … But once my stepfather came in, life abruptly changed, and then I was under his iron fist until I left home at 17.
HOW DID MUSIC COME INTO YOUR LIFE?
One time I was in the principal’s office and the music teacher came in and said, “What are you doing in here?” I said, “Well, this is my classroom. This is where I have to do my work every day.” She walked out, I guess she spoke to somebody, and then came back in: “Anthony, after school I want you to come to [the band] room and see if you want to be a part of the school of music and sing songs and be in plays.”
I was nine years old, and next thing you know, I’ve got all the solos in the upcoming school play. The first song I sang in front of an audience was “Yesterday” by the Beatles. I’ll never forget the response I got from all the parents in the auditorium. That moment is when I began thinking, I love this and I want to keep doing it — it’s natural for me.
YOU PLAYED BASEBALL IN HIGH SCHOOL, TOO, RIGHT? DID YOU CONSIDER A FUTURE IN ATHLETICS?
Yeah, I played baseball and basketball in high school. I absolutely was on the path. I wanted to go to college, and I was getting scholarship offers for baseball and academics. They were kind of parlayed together.
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE MUSIC OVER SPORTS?
Well, it just kind of worked out that way. My sports career came to an end. I had scholarship offers from Vanderbilt, University of Pennsylvania, Wake Forest and Emory. And my [stepfather] said, “I think you need another year of development. You’re young.” Because I graduated at 17. He wanted me to go to this small Christian college in Cleveland, Tennessee, called Lee College, [for a] developmental year before I went to one of the bigger schools to play [baseball].
So, I went there and had an experience smoking weed with the president of the university’s son up in the mountains of Tennessee. When we got back, somehow, they knew. It was a small Christian college, and I guess that was a no-go. Instead of lying to the president, I told him the truth, and [they] asked me to leave. So, from there, I ended up discovering the Doors through the Oliver Stone film [1991’s The Doors]. And that further cemented: Well, [sports are] over, but music is always here, and that passion is still here.
I read that [Doors singer] Jim Morrison went to Florida State University … so I thought musicians grew on trees then if Jim Morrison went there. So, I went there and got into contact with a friend from high school and told her that I was there solely to start a band. And she said, “Well, Mark Tremonti from Lake Highland goes here, and he plays guitar.”
And I said, “That’s right. He does play guitar.” I remembered that in high school [at Lake Highland], the one party that I went to, I was walking down a hallway and outside of a sliding glass window was Mark playing guitar. I said, “Hey, man, I didn’t know you played guitar. I sing and write songs, too.” He goes, “Cool, man.” I was like, “Yeah, that’s cool.” Then I shut the door. And so I [eventually] connected with Mark [at Florida State University], and the rest is history.
YOU’VE ALSO BEEN OPEN ABOUT YOUR TURBULENT MENTAL HEALTH JOURNEY AS AN ADULT. WHEN DID YOU FIRST REALIZE YOU WERE HAVING MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES?
My issues are all surrounding alcohol and drug use. As long as I stay away from alcohol and any road that that leads me down, I’m good. The sad times, the depressive periods that I’ve had in my life, were all situational.
THE REASON I ASK IS THAT YOU REVEALED IN 2015 THAT YOU WERE DIAGNOSED WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER.
One thing that you learn in the recovery process, or in treatment, is you can’t diagnose somebody with any kind of mental health condition, especially at 40. If you’re bipolar, that’s something that manifests by age 25 or sooner. And so when you’re using alcohol and then when you’re using a depressant and then a stimulant, it can look like you have a mental health condition that you don’t have. The symptoms are the same.If you’re using alcohol and painkillers, that’s low. But then if you’re accompanying that later on that day with stimulant abuse, then you’re high. So from the outside, looking at that, not knowing that that’s causing these swings, of course you could think that [it’s bipolar disorder]. After I became sober and got to the other side of that, the final diagnosis was PTSD. And that’s just something that accumulated over years of trauma. That wasn’t something that I was born with. That was something that life dealt me after living the life that I’ve lived and the experiences that I’ve gone through.
BETWEEN THE TIME CREED FORMED IN 1994 AND THE ALBUM MY OWN PRISON WAS RELEASED IN 1997, WHAT DID YOUR LIFE LOOK LIKE?
I was working at a restaurant. I was a cook. And Mark was doing the same thing. He was a cook at Chili’s, and I was a cook at Ruby Tuesday. And I was going to school, paying my way through school, and then we were practicing and rehearsing. I was working because I had no support from my family.
HOW DID IT FEEL TO GO FROM A COLLEGE STUDENT WORKING HIS ASS OFF TO SUDDENLY BEING IMMERSED IN THIS ROCK-STAR LIFESTYLE ONCE MY OWN PRISON CAME OUT?
My mindset at the time was that’s just how it was supposed to happen. I thought you were supposed to make your record, get a record deal, and then it was supposed to blow up and you were supposed to go and play arenas and stadiums. That’s what happened to all the bands that were my heroes, so my expectation at the time was the same thing was going to happen to us.
DID YOU FEEL YOU WERE AT A PLACE PERSONALLY TO DEAL WITH THAT LEVEL OF SUDDEN FAME?
Absolutely not. Looking back, it was basically the same way I was taught how to swim by my grandfather. He just threw me in the pool, you know what I mean? I went from living in a three-bedroom apartment with four dudes sleeping on mattresses to all of a sudden doing interviews on MTV, playing on late-night shows, making music videos and playing in arenas. I was completely not emotionally or mentally [ready]. Nor did I have the support structure around me to really handle it appropriately or have the right guidance or counsel to help me navigate through it without succumbing to the pitfalls that I would find myself in later
WHAT DID YOUR FAMILY MAKE OF YOU WHEN YOU BECAME A ROCK STAR?
We really didn’t have a relationship after the Lee College experience. … So it probably shocked them. They weren’t a big supporter of anything really I was doing, especially the music.
WERE YOU HAPPY ABOUT THE SUCCESS THAT CREED WAS HAVING?
I was living the dream, man. I went from [being] 18 watching the Oliver Stone film, falling in love with the Doors and wanting to be just like Jim Morrison, to playing with the remaining members of the Doors [in 2000]. I was a lifelong Dallas Cowboy fan and ended up doing the Dallas Cowboys halftime show [in 2001]. Every dream that I had as a child — in terms of music and where it would take me — all happened.
I was loving it, but it all happened so fast that by [Creed’s 2001] Weathered album, I needed a break … During the Weathered tour is when I started breaking down, and it all started with a car crash. We were getting ready to go shoot the “One Last Breath” video, I was in traffic at a dead stop and got hit from behind by a car doing about 55, 60 miles an hour. And I’m in the emergency room, my manager shows up and basically says, “Man, we’re going to lose 100 thousand dollars a day. Whatever the doctor’s got to do to get you to the set, we got to do.” And I had that athlete mindset: Take one for the team, put me in coach, shoot me up [with prescription painkillers] in the locker room at halftime. So I took a handful of pills and went and shot that video. And then there was a tour following [that].
So it was a culmination of a lot of things that started to create a downward spiral, and I saw it coming … I don’t think everyone was really looking at the long-term. Everyone was looking at it like, this could still end tomorrow. And then my personality was to continue at all costs, even at the expense of my health. You combine that with the other things around me, it just wasn’t a good situation. I really can’t blame anybody. It is what it is. I’m just thankful to be alive here today and talking to you.
YOU AND YOUR WIFE, JACLYN, HAVE THREE CHILDREN TOGETHER. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT YOURSELF BEING A FATHER?
I’m thankful for everything that she’s been in my life and the beautiful children we’ve created together — because all of that combined has given me the fuel and the reason and the motivation to make the changes that I needed to make in my life. [To escape] from the pitfalls that this crazy rock & roll world led me into. It’s been a gift and a blessing.
My whole philosophy in going into fatherhood was clearly stated in the song “With Arms Wide Open.” I didn’t want to pass down the same things that I felt like shouldn’t be passed down that happened to me. I wanted to break “generational curses.” And so, I just tried to do my best to show up for them, let them know that I love them every day, and just be a good dad in the best way that I know how. I’m thankful for every one of them because they’ve definitely made me want to be a better man.
HOW DID YOU WANT TO APPROACH YOUR NEW SOLO RECORD, HIGHER POWER?
I don’t go into records with any kind of preconceived idea of what I’m going to create. I create in moments of inspiration, and each song is indicative and reflective of what I was experiencing at the time I was creating the record. So it’s really hard to answer that question from the standpoint of what was I trying to do going into it — because I wasn’t trying to do anything. I had no gun to my head. I had no timeline, there was no pressure. I just set up studio time when I felt compelled to write and create.
I end this album with [a song about] where I hope to be at the end of this phase in my life, how I hope to feel. And I really feel like that song [“Weight of the World”] is not only to comfort me, but [for] presenting to the world in hopes that it does the same for them, and also my kids.
WITH CREED REUNITING THIS YEAR, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE REVISITING THOSE SONGS AND ALL THE MEMORIES OF CREED FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE MAN YOU ARE NOW?
It’s incredible, man. I still connect with those songs. I continued to carry the flag for Creed for years and played those songs as a part of my solo set. There’s a chemistry that Creed has together when we’re onstage and play these songs. I’m excited for it to happen and excited to play it for the fans that have clearly let us know that they want it.
And so I think the thrill of it all is going to create the energy necessary, but also you got to learn to pace yourself. All the extracurricular stuff that we all did back in the day, being in our early twenties, in our early thirties, that’s all gone. We’re all living very healthy, fit lives. When we’re off the road, man, I’m in bed with my kids at 9 p.m. and I’m up at 5 a.m. Health is important.
As my album says, I stay connected to my higher power because when I’m connected to God and my higher power, good things happen. When I deviate from my path, bad things happen. So I’ve got the key to unlock the door. It’s just a matter of staying focused and just enjoying this ride and pacing myself because it is going to be a marathon — but it’s going to be a good one.