[Icedmofo]

Truth is his voice was starting to go a long while ago, as in towards the end of the weathered tour.

He'd lost much of his range at that point, the problem really wasn't even a matter of singing technique, the guy was under a lot of pressure.

Do you have any idea how bad for business it is to cancel a tour date? Even a band as prominent as creed at the time would hesitate before doing this. So stapp kept singing even when he was sick.

Think about it, they set these things up MONTHS in advance and there is a LOT of money for a venue to host bands like creed, you cancel that and money goes away = very angry owners, perhaps even angry enough to not allow them back on a return tour.

Stapp sang through a lot of vocal problems he was having during the weathered tour. I guaruntee he had vocal nodes going on and kept singing anyway.

How quickly everyone forgets that to even be able to sing the concert they did at Alcatraz, scott had to have 3 shots of prednizone steroids DIRECTLY INTO HIS NECK. And he sang through that.

Are you really that surprised?

I've said my good and bad things about stapp, but seeing them perform in houston has really changed my attitude toward him and the whole idea of the creed reunion. The guys look like they are actually ENJOYING not only playing the new stuff, but even the old stuff in ways i've never seen even when they first wrote it and hadn't been jaded by concert performance, as well as performing specifically with eachother.

You can tell the the predominant lyrical writing of thousand faces came from Mark, and if you watch the houston concert, stapp downright acknowledges it and actually makes a human connection with Mark during the bridge and especially the ending. The part at the end where scott basically sings the reprise of the first verse to mark and they each patted eachother on the back was just heartbreaking.


So is his voice what it was? No. Why? Poor vocal health and technique. Should it influence your listening? No.

Scott has a lot of guts to get back up there and keep doing this after all the shit that he went through and stirred up not only with the band, but with his personal life and the music world in general. I respect the hell out of a guy who can get up and do it again.

Is he an egotistical prick? Maybe, maybe not. Is he sincere when he says some of the stuff he says? Is he pretentious? Sure. But guess what? Sometimes it's easier to look at the negative aspects of a person specifically in a narrow minded view because you can pidgeon hole them and make them easy to understand.

It's far harder to accept that egotism and pretentiousness may only be one facet of a person. That a person can be egotistical, pretentious, arrogant, and yet still a good person? Heaven forbid that people are three dimensional, they clearly CAN ONLY BE A DICK AND NOTHING MORE!!! ZOMG


I gotta tell you, to be a successful performer of any type, there is a certain amount of narcisism and egotism involved. Period. No performer is 100% devoid of that characteristic. Some people express it in an active way verbally (scott), some express it in performance (mark), but it's all stemming from the same root. It's what gives them the confidence to get up there and play music they've written themselves at the risk of being rejected, and not only do that but do it well and in an exciting manner, in mark it manifests into amazing showmanship, in scott it does the same but filters a bit into his normal personality. So what? Doesn't that make him more interesting? For someone so hated, there is an awful lot of buzz about him, and as they say in showbiz: The only bad press is no press.

I say give the guy a break, i respect everyone who says his singing is crap's opinion, but you try singing 8 shows a week, let alone a rock concert, and come to me unhoarse after just 1. Considering how long the man has been at it, it's a surprise his voice is there at all.


If you look at major rock bands that have come and gone, especially the ones with long careers, there is not a single vocalist who sounds the same now as when he started. Singing the way you do as a rock vocalist by nature changes musculature and sound, especially as you age. We tend to compare vocalists to other "great" ones, but the ones whose voices never changed typically have overdosed or shot themselves before there was ever a chance for that to occur.

Scott Stapp, Eddie Vedder, Robert Plant, James Hetfield, Aaron Lewis, Rod Stewart, David Draiman, Steven Tyler, you name it. Not a single one of them sounds the same now as when they first started their careers. People just find stapp an easy target, the only difference is he's more pretentious, but that is again jsut one part of his personality, and doesn't make him a bad person.


Scott and Mark wrote a lot of stuff in Human Clay and Weathered that trashed scott's voice because he could never sing that high to begin with and he did so by pushing and basically ripping up his vocal chords. At least respect the fact that stapp isn't trying to sing anything in the original keys because he has ADMITTED to himself that he CANT, and even in the lower keys he's admitted there are still notes he can't sing so he's changed the melody.

That directly counteracts any ego and pretentiousness he has developed. Do any of you have any idea how hard it is as a performer to admit when you CANT do something? Especially when you USED TO BE ABLE TO? and were FAMOUS for it?


Personally i'm excited to see where this goes, some of the material i've heard off full circle gives me chills. Are the lyrics/music the same? No, but neither are the people who wrote it or the people who listen to it. The world is a different place than it was in 1997 if you haven't noticed, so it stands to reason that the band will be different as well.


Resistance to change is just a narrow minded way to live. You might find that by waiting and accepting things for what they are rather than what they are not or what you wish they were yields a less aggravating listening experience.



Just my buck fifty. (i'd say two cents, but i talk too much)