We’ve Got A File On You: Scott Stapp

10:20 AM EDT on October 11, 2024

Matt Akana

We’ve Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc.

Scott Stapp is a serious man. Earnest might be an even better word. The first time I interviewed him, in 2017, he discussed being inspired by Bono. But when I pointed out that Bono had moved away from the earnestness of The Joshua Tree — an album that had a major impact on Stapp — and embraced irony on Achtung Baby and Zooropa, he said, "I think it's just not in me [to do that]. I think I have a particular style to my lyric writing that's natural and authentic and it's just who I am and the way that I write, and I just continue to go with that. I never overthink it or have a plan, I just write what I feel. And have continued to do that my entire career."

Creed, the band that made Stapp a star, released three albums between 1997 and 2001. My Own Prison, Human Clay, and Weathered have sold almost 30 million copies all together in the US alone. The band went on hiatus in 2004, reunited in 2009 for Full Circle, and separated again in 2012.

Stapp began a solo career almost immediately after leaving Creed. He released the song "Relearn Love" on the album The Passion Of The Christ: Songs, with the Canadian alt-rock band the Tea Party backing him, and in 2005 put out his first solo album, The Great Divide. (Meanwhile, his former bandmates Mark Tremonti, Brian Marshall and Scott Phillips formed Alter Bridge with singer Myles Kennedy.)

Stapp has released three more solo albums to date — 2013's Proof Of Life, 2019's The Space Between The Shadows, and this year's Higher Power. He also sang on the second album by Art Of Anarchy, 2017's The Madness, replacing original vocalist Scott Weiland. And in 2021, he recorded the single "Light Up The Sky" with electronic artists Wooli and Trivecta.

Higher Power was recorded between 2021 and 2023 and released in March of this year. Two of its songs — the title track and "Black Butterfly" — have been hits at radio, and the third single, "If These Walls Could Talk," is a first for Stapp: a duet with a female singer, Dorothy. Later this month, the two will perform it together at the Grand Ole Opry. (Stapp has lived in Nashville since 2016.)

But he's been spending most of 2024 on the road with Creed. The band reunited in April for the Summer Of '99 Cruise, which traveled from Miami to the Bahamas and back two weekends in a row, and also featured performances by 3 Doors Down, Buckcherry, Tonic, Fuel, Vertical Horizon, The Verve Pipe, Tantric and more. That was followed by the Summer Of '99 Tour, which ran from July through September and saw the band play 40 sold-out shows with 3 Doors Down, Finger Eleven, and Daughtry, Switchfoot, Tonic, and Big Wreck on different dates. In November, they'll be back on the road, playing another two dozen shows before year's end.

Earlier this week, I got on the phone with Stapp to talk about Higher Power, his earliest solo work, collaborating with Carlos Santana, playing Frank Sinatra in the movie Reagan, maintaining sobriety and mental health on the road, and more.

Higher Power (2024)

You've got this new solo record out, which you started work on in 2021, but now with it out, you're kind of balancing solo work with the Creed reunion. So do you think the new record is getting the attention it deserves?

SCOTT STAPP: Man, I've been really blown away by the attention that the album has received. And I think that the chart numbers for this album have really spoken to the reaction from the fans concerning the record. Radio has been embracing every song I've released to date. And initially, I can't mislead or not share that I was concerned that it would get overshadowed by [Creed's resurgence]. But it's actually, I think, enabled me to bring more awareness to the record, kind of riding the Creed wave. And all the attention that Creed was getting. I think a lot of the fans who weren't paying attention began to pay attention. And I've been grateful and blessed by the reaction so far to the record.

What were your goals, artistically, going into it?

STAPP: My goal going into the record was just to create in the moment and let the songs come from where I was in the moment of creation in real time, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. And, you know, during the time I was creating the record, I had no timeline. I went into the studio when I felt compelled, when I felt that I had something within me or ideas that I had already started to write down and that I needed to create and develop and document and make into a song. And so there was no preconceived plan or goal with this record. It was just how things were done in real time in that moment and what was required for the song and, you know, what musical bed I felt that the lyrics and the emotion and the context and the theme that the lyrics had created, what kind of musical bed needed to surround that? So that's why I think it's a pretty diverse sounding record. It's cohesive, but it has diverse layers and textures, from "Higher Power" to the last song.

The song "If These Walls Could Talk" that you have out as the current single is really interesting because it's a duet, which you haven't really done. And you know, it's a little more country. But what I think is interesting is the way country has been importing rock and rap in the last few years. Like, country now is basically anything that people are listening to in a truck, and that's rock, that's rap, that's everything. So tell me about that.

STAPP: So I think if you go back and listen to my first Creed record, My Own Prison all the way through the Weathered album, my first three Creed records, I think you will definitely hear that. It's just been a style that I've created in since the beginning of my career. You listen to "My Own Prison," which we wrote in probably 1995, and you can definitely hear that if that song came out today, you would probably note the same comparison. The same with the song called "Weathered."

For me, after we wrote "Walls," the song that came to mind to me that I felt like, "This kind of reminds me of this song," was "Shallow" by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper from A Star Is Born. I felt it was more in that vein. And I think with my voice, and particularly with Dorothy's voice, I think it really cements that song as rock-leaning. But I definitely hear what you're saying. It definitely has some of those elements of modern country. I almost feel that it's a song that can be brought across multiple formats, rock, mainstream rock, even pop, you know, just the same crossover appeal.

And so in no way I attempting to, you know, intentionally create something for the format, for country. It just — the song came out that way, and the way we dressed it sonically and musically. You're right, it probably could fit into the modern country scene at this point. But I haven't ever had any intent except to be a rock artist. Because that's the music that I like.

Debut Solo Single "Relearn Love" From The Passion Of The Christ: Songs (2004)

Your solo career started with the song "Relearn Love" from the Passion Of The Christ record. What do you remember about making that first track as a solo artist, and what the feeling was?

STAPP: Well, prior to writing that song, I had written a lot of the songs that were on The Great Divide, but I guess that was kind of my first, now that I think about it. At the time, it was exciting. I was working with artists that I had respected. I had a band called the Tea Party from Canada who heavily influenced Creed early on in our career. They introduced us to open tunings, which really impacted our songwriting early in our career in 1997, when we got to meet them and did a show with them, I think at the EdgeFest in Canada. And I always wanted to do something with those guys. They flew to Miami and I wrote that song together with a producer called 7 Aurelius who became a friend of mine that I met down there. And, you know, it was an exciting time in life to kinda step outside of something that had been so comfortable, which was my creative and writing relationship with Mark Tremonti, and begin to try something new and experiment with other musicians to see what would come out, and having that opportunity to be associated with Passion Of The Christ and to write that song for that soundtrack. I'm forever grateful.

Covering "Fortunate Son" With Santana (2010)

You also you recorded a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" with Santana in about 2010. Were you actually in the studio with him, or was that a remote thing?

STAPP: That was a remote thing. I did that in my studio in my house. Santana and his people sent me the music bed, and then I did the vocals over top and sent the file to [producer] Howard Benson.

Did you ever get to talk to him? Because I've spoken to him, and it's always an interesting experience talking to Carlos Santana. He's a very mystical dude.

STAPP: There was a message that he sent through his team to me that was very flattering, very complimentary, and very spiritual. And I remember being just humbled that he knew who I was, he knew about my music and could sense and feel the spiritual aspect of me as an artist. And he identified with that and encouraged me through his team. So that was a pretty cool thing. I wish I got to hear it from him directly. But just getting that message from his team that Carlos wanted to share something with me was really incredible at the time, because he's such a legend.

Playing Frank Sinatra In The Ronald Reagan Biopic Reagan (2024)

You played Frank Sinatra in this new movie, Reagan, which I have not seen. But I'm curious about your part and your experience doing it, because my impression of of you and of Sinatra are very different people. Like he was kind of like a twitchy guy from Jersey and you're, you know, sort of a chilled out Southern guy. So tell me about the whole thing.

STAPP: The same gentleman who was a part of the team with Mel Gibson that produced Passion Of The Christ, Mark Joseph, also is the producer of Reagan. And so we go way back to that experience. And that's where I met Mark. And so he reached out and and asked me if I wanted to be a part of Reagan. And I absolutely wanted to.

It's just a cameo performance. It's not a full-fledged role. It's a cameo where I'm performing a Frank Sinatra song that actually was originally recorded by Bing Crosby, and then Frank Sinatra recorded it later. I recorded the song; it's going to be coming out on the movie soundtrack. I stayed true to Frank's melodies, but I in no way was trying to impersonate him. I just wanted to do Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra's family, if they hear the song, I wanted to do them justice [so] that they would be proud to hear a rendition done. I was really just blown away by the whole experience of being on set. Even for my little cameo, it was a tremendous production and involved, you know, 150-plus people and scenes and whatnot. So I'm just honored to be a part and honored to be in that film and to have that small cameo.