{"id":27860,"date":"2024-07-29T05:30:38","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T09:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27860"},"modified":"2024-07-23T07:57:25","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T11:57:25","slug":"creeds-goosebump-moment-of-writing-one-last-breath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/29\/creeds-goosebump-moment-of-writing-one-last-breath\/","title":{"rendered":"Creed’s ‘Goosebump Moment’ of Writing ‘One Last Breath’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This feature appeared previously in <\/i>SPIN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Launched in Tallahassee, Florida in 1994, Creed broke through in a big way with 1997\u2019s My Own Prison<\/i>, a debut album that would eventual shift more than six million units in the U.S. alone. The band\u2019s second album, Human Clay<\/i> sold nearly twice as many copies. And Creed kept the winning streak going with 2001\u2019s Weathered<\/i>. That record would spawn no less than six singles, four of which soared into the Top 20 in the U.S.<\/p>\n

As a measure of the Grammy-winning band\u2019s enduring popularity, Creed\u2019s 2004 Greatest Hits<\/i> went Double Platinum (more than two million units sold). That album received a vinyl reissue in May. And Creed\u2019s success has sustained into the streaming era: their five most popular songs have a combined one billion<\/i> (that\u2019s one thousand million) streams just on Spotify. The group has sold a staggering 54 million albums to date.<\/p>\n

After a decade-long break, Creed\u2019s classic lineup \u2013 lead singer Scott Stapp, guitarist Mark Tremonti, bassist Brian Marshall and Scott Phillips on drums \u2013 is back in action, touring to receptive audiences across the country. Stapp believes that Creed appeals to listeners who value a callback to a \u201csimpler, more conservative, more family-values time; I think we\u2019re hearkening back to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the popular singles from Weathered<\/i> was \u201cOne Last Breath,\u201d a song of searing emotional intensity. More than two decades after its release, Stapp and Tremonti reflect on the song\u2019s creation, resonance and enduring popularity.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Chuck Brueckmann<\/p><\/div>\n

Pressure to keep going<\/b>
\nScott Stapp:<\/b> I didn\u2019t feel any particular pressure to write a particular kind of song. I don\u2019t 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, \u201cOne Last Breath\u201d fit exactly where I was at the time. I don\u2019t think the pressure was so much about, \u201cWe need to write another hit.\u201d The pressure was constantly being put on us to just keep putting out records and keep touring. And at the time that we wrote [the songs on] Weathered<\/i>, I was burnt out. The ride to the top and everything that we did along the way was really taxing on me. I wasn\u2019t 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 \u201cOne Last Breath\u201d articulated exactly where I was in my mind and in my spirit at the time that we wrote it.<\/p>\n

Mark Tremonti:<\/b> 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. \u201cOne Last Breath\u201d was genuinely sung by Scott and genuinely played by us, because we were feeling the emotions that we put out in that song. It\u2019s one of the most truthful songs that we performed.<\/p>\n

Scott Stapp:<\/b> We named the album Weathered<\/i>, because that was exactly where we were as a band at that time. The band was splitting apart. My struggles, and Brian [Marshall]\u2019s struggles with other issues outside the band really defined where we were as a group. And it was about as honest as you can get. It was not something that we planned or thought of ahead of time; it just came out. And that\u2019s how we always wrote as a band. I know that sounds clich\u00e9: to be \u201chonest and authentic in your songwriting,\u201d but that\u2019s exactly what were.<\/p>\n

Shutting out potential influences<\/b>
\nMark Tremonti:<\/b> I never usually use any kind of outside influence on songwriting. I was listening to such different music than what we were writing: dark, heavy speed metal. That didn\u2019t flow into the Creed stuff. It\u2019s funny how folks can have such different backgrounds as far as musical influences, and then once you get into a band, you know what fits that music, and you know what\u2019s gonna work for the bigger cause of that band. I learned that lesson earlier on when I was bringing in my heavy metal riffs; the guys would just look at me like I had lost my mind!<\/p>\n

Scott Stapp:<\/b> When we would go out on the lake or something, the music we listened to was completely different than what were writing. I was listening to Tupac and Bob Marley and Eagles! I remember us talking about not paying attention at all to what was going on musically; all of us were listening to either stuff that was not genre-specific, or classic rock. I did have an intent: I did not want to be influenced by anything that was near to what were doing. So I was vibing on left-field stuff.<\/p>\n

Mark Tremonti:<\/b> It\u2019s funny: we\u2019re talking about \u201cOne Last Breath\u201d and how it reflected where we were at the time, but Weathered<\/i> also has \u201cMy Sacrifice,\u201d which is such an uplifting, anthemic song. That was one of the earliest songs we had written for that record; we were even playing it at soundchecks on the Human Clay<\/i> tour. So if you look at that era, you can kind of see the band\u2019s emotional time lapse between \u201cMy Sacrifice\u201d and \u201cOne Last Breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goosebump test<\/b>
\nScott Stapp:<\/b> The lyrics for \u201cOne Last Breath\u201d came from the bottom of our hearts. I can remember having Mark\u2019s guitar picking looped over and over as I was writing the verses. Mark and I have always been connected as creators; we have a chemistry. When he or I would come up with lines, we were so connected spiritually and emotionally and mentally \u2013 as friends and as writers \u2013 that we would articulate for each other. We were on the same wavelength. [A specific lyrical line] may have come from a different place, but it was still one voice, and it was very special. And always straight from the heart.<\/p>\n

Mark Tremonti:<\/b> We would all get this singular mentality on what worked for Creed. We liked songs that moved people, that meant a lot to folks. It wasn\u2019t just party music. When we first came out, the music scene was a lot of upbeat rock, fun music: bands like Semisonic, Marcy\u2019s Playground and Third Eye Blind. All those bands had emotional songs as well, but I think our stuff was a little more somber. And if you listened to the radio back then, we had one of the only moodier, darker songs on the radio. And I think that got folks\u2019 attention.<\/p>\n

Scott Stapp:<\/b> We would get excited after we wrote a song because we felt<\/i> it. We used to have this saying: \u201cDoes it pass the goosebump test?\u201d If it didn\u2019t give us goosebumps, we didn\u2019t want to put it on our records. And with \u201cOne Last Breath,\u201d we felt it. We knew it was special to us. We knew that we had written something that inspired and resonated with us. And when that happened, we knew it was going to resonate with our fans.<\/p>\n

Mark Tremonti:<\/b> It\u2019s funny how a song that we\u2019re talking about from 22 years ago is now getting played during the NBA playoffs. And if I\u2019m not mistaken, \u201cOne Last Breath\u201d is our top spun song. It\u2019s the unsung hero of the band.<\/p>\n

Scott Stapp:<\/b> Our songs have deeper and deeper meaning to me as I get older and have more life experience, more context and more depth of emotion. I think my definition of being \u201cdown to one last breath\u201d at 28 is a lot different than at 50. So as I perform them, these songs continue to feel fresh and new because I have new experiences to draw from emotionally. I wouldn\u2019t take back at all how we approached writing songs \u2013 the seriousness and the sincerity \u2013 because it\u2019s connecting people as human beings and articulating the human experience. I think that has been a part of us standing the test of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This feature appeared previously in SPIN. Launched in Tallahassee, Florida in 1994, Creed broke through in a big way with 1997\u2019s My Own Prison, a debut album that would eventual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[5463,5464,5380],"class_list":["post-27860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-creed","tag-mark-tremonti","tag-scott-stapp","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27862,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27860\/revisions\/27862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}