In a new interview with Spin, Creed’s Scott Stapp opened up about the pressure of writing a hit song.
The guitarist explained the pressure of writing their hit album ‘Weathered’ and how they felt writing it. He said:
“I didn’t feel any particular pressure to write a particular kind of song. I don’t think we ever thought that way; we just wrote what we felt. We just got together and created whatever came out, and we put on a record if we liked it. And for me, lyrically, ‘One Last Breath’ fit exactly where I was at the time. I don’t think the pressure was so much about, ‘We need to write another hit.’ The pressure was constantly being put on us to just keep putting out records and keep touring.”
The band’s hit song ‘One Last Breath’ came at a time when Stapp wasn’t ’emotionally prepared’ and burnt out. However, in his words, it exactly described how he felt while making that song:
“And at the time that we wrote [the songs on] ‘Weathered,’ I was burned out. The ride to the top and everything that we did along the way was really taxing on me. I wasn’t prepared emotionally, mentally, or even physically to handle it, and it was catching up with me. I went down some wrong paths in choosing how to cope with that pressure, and that was starting to come back to bite me. So ‘One Last Breath’ articulated exactly where I was in my mind and in my spirit at the time that we wrote it.”
Mark Tremonti’s Comments
In the same interview, Mark Tremonti also added a few words about the pressure and how ‘One Last Breath’ was released at the ‘darkest’ time for the band:
“That song came out at the perfect time because Creed was going through its initial stages of breaking apart. It was probably the darkest time for the band. ‘One Last Breath’ was genuinely sung by Scott and genuinely played by us because we were feeling the emotions that we put out in that song. It’s one of the most truthful songs that we performed.”
New Music Is Coming
Last July 19, the band announced they were back together and would headline the Summer of ’99 cruise in April 2024. Then, on October 30, 2023, they shared news about The Summer of ’99 Tour. After last year’s tour dates, they revealed the ‘Are You Ready? Tour’ in February.
Besides touring, the band is also planning new music. Tremonti mentioned in an interview with Rock Feed that they started working on new songs after a 12-year break. He said fans have been asking for new music for a while and explained how the process has been going:
“It’s been something that people have been asking us for years about new music, so it’s just a matter of us getting back together be in the same room because it’s always a matter of timing for us. This cruise was 3 years in the making now so everything happened so quickly, it was so rapid fire, it was stuff that’s actually get music done for the surround of things. I’m sure the next time we get back out we’re going to have to have new music. Everybody’s been asking for it.”
You can hear ‘One Last Breath’ down below.