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...