A couple of years in the past, Mark Tremonti went to his supervisor with a imaginative and prescient of getting “Creed reintroduced to the world.” Tremonti, the lead guitarist for Creed, had success acting on the ShipRocked cruise along with his post-Creed band Alter Bridge, and so he figured that the purveyors of such hits as “Greater” and “My Sacrifice” might additionally draw a crowd at sea.
The pandemic capsized these plans, which have been delayed additional by different commitments. Frontman Scott Stapp has pursued a solo profession, along with his fourth album scheduled to be launched in March, whereas Alter Bridge, which Tremonti began with Creed bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips, simply launched its seventh file final yr.
However Creed not too long ago introduced that it’s going to embark on a nationwide tour starting subsequent summer season, its first in additional than a decade, along with headlining two cruise festivals within the spring. It seems the band didn’t want a ship––or perhaps a stage––to reintroduce itself to the world. By the point the reunion tour was introduced, Creed was already within the midst of an unlikely revival, due to a pair of surging groups that embraced its music with arms huge open (sorry).
The Texas Rangers began blasting Creed within the clubhouse to raise themselves out of a midseason funk, and stored it going during their inconceivable World Sequence title run. And because the Rangers have been powering by means of the postseason in October, the Minnesota Vikings––on the behest of beginning quarterback and avowed Creed superfan Kirk Cousins––turned “Greater” right into a locker room hymn and promptly went on a five-game successful streak. “The Rangers have been enjoying Creed they usually’re rolling within the playoffs,” Cousins mentioned after the Vikings’ win over the Chicago Bears final month. “It might have made the distinction. Who is aware of.”
If Creed helped propel the Rangers and Vikings, then the 2 groups have in flip supplied a raise to a band that peaked practically a quarter-century in the past, when the Clinton years gave technique to a second Bush presidency and Survivor was the most important present on tv.
“Right here we’re on this second the place the followers have spoken, we’re again, and wow,” Stapp informed me. “The Rangers and the Vikings are rocking ‘Greater’ to get hyped and involving a stadium full of individuals in a sing alongside.” The timing of the reunion tour, he mentioned, “was too excellent to have ever been deliberate.”
Tremonti agrees.
“You couldn’t ask for a greater advertising and marketing technique than having a World Sequence baseball workforce utilizing your music to get them a championship,” Tremonti mentioned “It couldn’t have been extra serendipitous.”
A veritable drive in rock music across the flip of the millennium, Creed produced two chart-topping albums and gained a Grammy between 1999 and 2001, leaving the band with a permanent connection to that interval. Creed was all over the place in these days––on Letterman, Leno, and Saturday Night time Dwell––as songs like “With Arms Huge Open” performed relentlessly on the radio. The band was the penultimate performer on the notorious Woodstock ’99 competition, simply earlier than the Pink Chili Peppers took the stage and shit hit the fan. Ultimately, Creed broke up, leaving its music principally confined to karaoke bars, supermarkets, and the recollections of growing older millennials and Gen Xers. However in 2023, relics of the Y2K period are ripe for excavation, whether or not by TikTok archaeologists or, apparently, skilled athletes in want of a nostalgia-fueled spark.
“It’s sort of only a random factor that everyone began singing to sooner or later, and it’s sort of constructed on itself,” Rangers star and World Sequence MVP Corey Seager mentioned final month, offering a neat description of a meme’s birthing course of.
For the Rangers and Vikings, what started as pregame superstition amongst gamers shortly unfold all through each organizations and their supporters. “Greater” made its means from the clubhouse and locker room to the stadiums themselves, as followers of the Rangers and Vikings celebrated wins with Creed karaoke. And because the music led to extra successful, the groups’ dedication to Creed solely deepened. Rangers gamers devised handshakes impressed by totally different songs, turning the fandom into one thing befitting a secret society. Within the Vikings’ case, Creed turned a spiritual expertise. Earlier than a house recreation final month in opposition to the San Francisco 49ers, Vikings security Harrison Smith stopped a teammate from turning the amount down on “Greater” earlier than a workforce prayer. “He mentioned, ‘Guys, that is the prayer,’” Cousins recounted after the sport.
Cousins suffered a season-ending Achilles tear within the Vikings’ win over the Inexperienced Bay Packers final month, however the music didn’t cease. Following the harm, the workforce acquired journeyman quarterback Josh Dobbs, who stepped in instantly and helped lead the Vikings to a come-from-behind win over the Atlanta Falcons in his first recreation. Dobbs was savvy sufficient to play the hits after the victory, posting a celebratory TikTok video accompanied by “Greater.”
The Vikings misplaced for the primary time in additional than a month final Sunday night time, falling in a heartbreaker to the Denver Broncos. It stays to be seen whether or not the band will proceed to offer the season’s soundtrack, however historical past means that Minnesota gained’t be the final place the place a workforce summons Creed for inspiration. The Philadelphia Eagles turned to a “Greater” energy on their run to the Tremendous Bowl earlier this yr, enjoying the music at practices in the course of the playoffs.
It comes as no shock to Stapp. From the start, he mentioned that Creed “at all times appeared to attach with athletes and sports activities groups.”
“Our songs had been labeled as inspirational, anthemic and good exercise music with massive riffs that didn’t sacrifice melody,” Stapp mentioned.
Along with bringing the band extra publicity, Creed’s revival this autumn has raised Tremonti’s standing inside his circle of relatives. He lives in Orlando along with his spouse Victoria, their daughter, Stella, and two sons, Pearson and Austen. When the Rangers invited the members of Creed to make a shock look at a recreation final month, Tremonti knew he needed to deliver his youngsters, who he mentioned are diehard sports activities followers. The entire expertise has made him, nicely, a rock star at dwelling. “They lastly suppose I’m cool as a result of so far as music goes, they wouldn’t know who half the those who I tour with are,” mentioned Tremonti, 49. “However with the athletes, they completely adore it.”
Born out of the post-grunge motion within the mid-90s when Tremonti and Stapp have been attending Florida State College, Creed’s legacy has lengthy been coloured by public mockery. There are honest causes for that: Stapp’s quivery baritone, paying homage to Eddie Vedder, begs to be impersonated; the lyrics, Christian rock–adjoining, invite parody. Creed is a band that’s far too simple to hate and solely beloved paradoxically, a distinction shared by its early 2000s up to date, Nickelback. As The New York Instances as soon as put it, Stapp and his bandmates “have been rock’s favourite whipping boys by means of the late Nineties and early ’00s,” panned by critics “for being too earnest, too pompous, too enticing, too pop, too spinoff of Pearl Jam or simply too inescapable.”
A lot of the hate directed on the band is over-the-top, in fact. You don’t have to love Creed as a lot as Kirk Cousins, however you need to be snug admitting that “Greater” is an authorized banger. The band, to its credit score, doesn’t get too bent out of practice concerning the criticism. “It’s one thing that we accepted,” mentioned Tremonti, whose solo profession has included a Frank Sinatra tribute launched album final yr to learn the Nationwide Down Syndrome Society (his daughter was recognized with Down Syndrome in utero).
Since 2004, he’s carried out in Alter Bridge with Marshall, Phillips, and lead vocalist Myles Kennedy. “I’ve sort of gotten to stay on each side of the fence. I’ve received to do the Creed factor the place it was a really well-known band that had a ton of followers, but additionally a ton of individuals that might make enjoyable or no matter,” Tremonti informed me. “However then I received to do the opposite factor with Alter Bridge and my solo bands the place it’s a lot much less recognized. You promote much less information however you’ve gotten these diehard followers and the critics reward it. And so it’s sort of, What would I fairly do? Promote tons of information and never get the crucial reward or get the crucial reward and never promote the information? They each have their perks. They each have their ups and downs.”
