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Oct. 11, 2022 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von
02:07:25
E412 Scott Stapp

Scott Stapp is a Grammy award-winning musician, best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the rock band Creed. He has also released 3 solo albums, including his newest, “The Space Between the Shadows”. Scott Stapp joins the show to chat with Theo about life since Creed, his long personal journey to sobriety, the pressures of fame and more.  Check out his music here: https://www.scottstapp.com/  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com Podcastville mugs and prints available now at https://theovon.pixels.com ------------------------------------------------- Support our Sponsors: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit   https://www.amazon.com/stores/CELSIUS/ShopNow/page/95D581F4-E14E-4B01-91E7-6E2CA58A3C29 MintMobile: Visit https://mintmobile.com/theo to get premium wireless from just $15 per month. Geologie: Visit https://geologie.com/theo to get 70% off with code THEO  BlueChew: Try it at https://www.BlueChew.com  with promo code THEO BetterHelp: Get 10% off your first month at https://betterhelp.com/theo ------------------------------------------------- Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: http://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Ben https://www.instagram.com/benbeckermusic/  Producer: Riley https://www.instagram.com/rileymaufilms/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today's guest won a Grammy in 2001 for Best Rock Song as a front man for the band Creed.
I'm happy to have him here today.
I don't know a ton about him, you know, and I'm curious as to what his life has been like and what life is like going through it as him.
Today's guest is Mr. Scott Stack.
Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I've been singing I love Stack Shine on me
So what is typically the premise of this show?
And that's a great question, actually.
The premise?
Because I just see highlight clips.
I follow you and stuff.
I just see the funny highlights.
And sometimes you're deep as hell.
Yeah, sometimes.
Some great, great words of wisdom.
I don't know what the that's a great question.
I wonder if we ever had a pre I think the premise is like just real conversation?
Yeah, I think I'm always just trying to like I'm kind of like a late bloomer, I feel like when it comes to like evolving as a probably as a man and as a human being.
Me too.
So I think somehow that ends up being a lot of the premise.
Yeah, I knew it up here, but I didn't put it into action.
You knew what, what was going on.
It would come out in my words, in my songs, but I wasn't living it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's so hard.
It's hard to get, I guess, into action, huh?
I mean, you guys, Scott Stapp sitting here, your band, how big was Creed?
How big was your band?
I tell you, during our peak, we were doing back-to-back nights at arenas and had just started putting stadiums on hold when we went our separate ways the first time.
And you guys separated?
Yes.
Wow.
Yes.
So you guys had all that kind of work like potentially on the books.
Yeah, we sure did.
We sure did.
And what kind of caused, like, what causes a band at that point?
Is it just, were you guys exhausted?
Was it just differences of opinion?
What kind of causes because it would seem like everything is kind of.
You know, it's so complicated.
Yeah.
I mean, for me, it was exhaustion from the run to get there mixed with just some poor decisions in order to keep the machine going.
Thinking I was taking one for the team and not understanding and knowing the consequences of those actions.
And then just, you know, people grow apart and everyone's dreams may not be fulfilled at that moment in time.
So, you know, but we got back together in 2009 and made a new record and it did really well and had a good run till 2012.
And then we're on hiatus again.
Was that second run, was it different than the first experience?
Was it like?
Oh, most definitely.
Yeah.
Most definitely.
The first experience was, you know, we were family.
We were brothers.
We were in college together.
We did holidays together.
We were all we had.
And the second experience, you know, everyone's successful, wealthy, and, you know, egos have grown.
Yeah.
And people change and people grow and people grow apart.
Success is scary.
It's kind of scary, I feel like.
Did you find that success became like for me, success became real scary?
I felt like if I got to a certain part of success and I didn't know that I felt this, but I thought like a lot of things in my life would, like problems I had and issues that I had going on, that they would just kind of go away.
Right.
And there was a part of me that was shocked that that wasn't the case when I found some success.
It almost, I mean, it really hit me hard that that wasn't the case.
Yeah, it definitely wasn't the case for me.
It created new problems and metastasized old ones.
Yeah.
And then the pressure of maintaining that.
You know, for me, the pressure of knowing that, you know, every show rested on my ability to go out on stage and sing.
And of course, we were a band and everyone, you know, had to be present to be there.
But I felt such a pressure.
And, you know, that weighed on me and not having a support system in place to help me took its toll and I didn't make all the right decisions.
But hey, who does when they're 24 and 25?
I don't beat myself up over it anymore.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah, I feel like that's a tough thing because I found that I would beat, I would, you're so hard on yourself to get, and that's what got you to where you were.
Right.
Probably.
Right.
I'm guessing it worked as a fuel.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I had a lot to prove.
Yeah.
You know, I left home at 17 and came from not a very good situation.
Where was that?
Just how I was raised.
And what area?
I mean, sorry.
El Popka, Florida.
Just outside Orlando.
A lot of missing people in Florida, dude.
There's a lot of missing people in Florida.
I feel like you can go up to somebody in Florida and be like, I became a Florida man headline.
Oh, yeah.
Did you really?
Yeah, absolutely.
Over time, man.
I mean, I think I fit the mold there every once in a while.
Yeah.
But, you know, you live and learn, man.
And I grew up and made all my mistakes that most people, I think, would make in high school with their buddies.
I made them in the public eye.
You know, I didn't drink or anything in high school, didn't go to parties.
And why was that?
It was very strict, religious household.
And so I didn't get a chance to make some of those dumb mistakes.
And so, you know what?
I made them in public.
And you know, and you know what?
They weren't just little ones.
They were big ones.
You know what I mean?
But hey, I look at that now and I say, you know, I wouldn't be who I am today, the father I am, the human being that I feel I'm becoming if I didn't make those mistakes.
So I look at them as a process.
I'm on a journey in life and there's no guidebook, there's no manual on how to do this.
So I was just flying by the seat of my pants back then, man, just doing it.
My heart was in the right place, but my actions sometimes didn't always line up with my heart.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, my heart's in the right place.
The rest of me is somewhere else.
Yeah, exactly.
What do you think kind of shit?
So coming out of that environment, you came out of like a religious environment.
Like what was it like?
Like, was one of your parents a pastor or something?
Like, how deep into the church were you personally?
It was very, very deep.
You know, church was our life.
It was Wednesday night, Friday night youth group, twice on Sundays.
You know, and I had an abusive upbringing.
You know, those that have followed me over the years know about it.
And I think the worst part of it was being abused in the name of God.
Like, what is it?
So like somebody reprimanding you with beating.
Oh, wow.
Ritually.
Wow.
You know.
Oh, man.
I'm sorry.
I remember getting beat every Monday night for everything that I didn't get caught doing or that I thought that no one saw or that went on in my mind.
And then, you know, relatively quickly, about an hour afterwards, after the beating, hey, you want to come watch some football?
It was just weird, man.
It was weird.
And the weirdness that creates in a young man, too, of like, you know, like when like it's okay to be close to somebody, how you can go from abuse to immediately like everything being okay.
That's all that stuff is so jarring.
It was very, looking back, it was very, it was very traumatizing.
It was, it was, you know, one thing good out of it is I was made to write the Bible for punishment.
And I would write the Bible and then have to write commentaries on what each chapter meant to me.
And so looking back, that trained me to be a writer, a lyricist.
It trained me to learn how to put my thoughts on paper in a poetic and unique way.
And all that knowledge, although I didn't live it for a long period in my life and still don't always, it came out in my lyrics, which went on to really connect with people.
And so, you know, I look at it, again, it is what it is.
And I wouldn't change a thing because it's all a part of the building blocks, whether it was good or bad that created the life that I've lived so far.
Was there something that kind of helped you get to some of that conclusion?
Because I still have, like, I'm sure you probably had resentments against your parents.
Oh, absolutely.
And I find like, you know, I still, I have resentment, you know, and it's not, it's so, it's like so deep sometimes.
It's like, I can let go of it like up here.
Yeah.
Like, but man, sometimes there's like something inside of me.
It's so locked.
It's like, it's hard.
Yeah.
You know, time does help, but not in every situation.
And, you know, one day for me, with each situation that I had held on to resentment for, I just woke up one day and felt it lift.
And it was just time and I think maturity and growth.
And then just realizing I just didn't want to worry about it anymore.
I didn't want to think about it anymore.
I wanted to let it go.
So I guess you call that forgiveness.
But I'll never forget.
And I'll never forget because I don't want to do that to my children or anyone that I come in contact with or be that kind of friend to the people that I care about.
You know what I mean?
But resentments are hard, man.
It's hard, bro.
Yeah, man.
And we can hold on to them forever.
And sometimes we can think that we've let it go and we haven't.
And they'll rear their head again.
But again, I think everyone goes through that.
I think it's just part of being human.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, it's like a sap sometimes resentment.
It's like, you know, it's, you know, sap is just so sticky.
Yeah, so fucking sticky, man.
And you really, yeah, you can't clean it all.
You don't even know where it all is.
No, sometimes you never get it off.
Yeah.
I mean, you can get it off, but it's just like, gosh, man, I'm still lair.
Still, still on my fingers.
Yeah.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
You know, and I think with resentment and your sap analogy, you know, I think we can always, if we focus on things that have hurt us in our life, or ways that we've been betrayed, abused,
mistreated, mishandled, taken advantage of, lied to, stolen from, all the things that can happen to us in life, you know, we can find ourselves getting right back into that emotion, even though we may have a period where we think we're free from it.
So it's all about, you know, what consumes your thoughts controls your life.
You know, so it's all about changing the way we think.
And I think for me, I had to make a conscious effort to do that.
I had to eliminate things in my life that reminded me of those situations and those people for a period of time.
I had to cut off things that were triggers to try to rewire my brain to not go there.
You know, every once in a while, you know, something will flash up and I'll be like, man, there's still a little sap in there.
It's still a little sap in there.
Man, I thought, I thought I cleaned that off.
Thought I got that.
So maybe, maybe, maybe we go to the grave with some of that.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
I mean, maybe we do.
Yeah, it's interesting.
That's one thing that's nice about being able to stay alive over time.
It's like you kind of start to get different perspectives of things.
100%.
You know, that's really been a gift I find as I get older.
What was it like?
So your band, so you guys, this band, you guys were a close-knit group.
Yeah.
You guys, wow, best friends.
That's crazy.
Best friends, yeah.
And you head into like basically just stardom, however it happens.
And that had to be, what did you notice within yourself that did anything like get like, cause I noticed when i booked started to become popular, my, for me, my ego started.
I didn't notice it was my ego.
I thought it was just like I'd gotten myself this far.
So I knew a lot of the best ways to, I felt like I knew the best ways to do things.
I felt like I needed to do it all myself.
That was a big problem that I struggle with.
Yeah, me too.
Like not letting, wanting to let other people help me, even though I needed help.
Me too.
Me too.
And I can own that now.
I can see and look back that although a few minutes ago I said, you know, I didn't have the support system, I did have a couple people that made a real valiant effort to communicate and get through to me.
But again, like you were saying, ego.
You know, I had done everything on my own since I was 17 years old.
Didn't take a dime from anybody.
Had lived in my car, had lived in an apartment with no electricity and in the freezing cold in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1991.
You know, sitting there taking cold baths, you know, in the winter.
And I was like, man.
When cold was cold.
Yeah.
It was cold.
Sleeping on towels.
So I was like, man, I came from that.
And no one helped me.
You know, I did that.
So it created an ego.
And I think it took an ego to go through that.
I think it took a sense of self-confidence to even endure those struggles in life, to be strong enough to live in your car.
Yeah.
And ego is, yeah, you got to have a fucking ego to do that.
You do.
You do.
You have to have the good side of it, like the healthy part of an ego to do that.
Like, I'm going to get through this.
I'm going to do this.
I got this.
Right.
This is just temporary.
You know what I mean?
It's so fascinating about the, it's like.
So there's a good side.
Yeah.
And then there's the bad side.
It's a duality of man.
Yeah.
And so we, you know, when the success came, man, it's hard not to get just inflated in ego.
Impossible.
I mean, you know, we were young.
I was young.
And the trappings of success were there every single day.
Yeah.
And, you know, I succumbed, man.
Oh, yeah.
The unlimited.
I mean, I remember even going backstage and seeing like one of them cheese plates or whatever for the first time.
Dude, I lost my damn mind, bro.
I'm about to pull my ears off my head.
I was so excited.
Just like things where you're like, damn, we did it.
You know, we made it.
Yeah, we made it.
We got four types of cheese and there's meat.
Yeah, dude.
Came and bear anyone?
And then like, yeah, and when things start to, it's just, it's really interesting, man, that the, how the ego kind of like is this, it's almost a trap kind of.
It's like helping you.
It's helping you.
It's keeping you going.
So you're like so motivated with it.
And then it kind of like.
And then it turns on you.
Yeah.
It's just crazy, man.
And then it turns on you.
And so I think, you know, it's, it's, it's something that, you know, thank goodness with maturity and time and being broken and shattered and having to rebuild, you know, my psyche and my mind and my body multiple times.
I think it put things in more perspective.
And I feel so detached from that person.
It's almost like it was another life and another human being.
I can't even get in the mind and understand that person anymore.
That's how far removed I feel from that.
And I don't know what that means psychologically, but it's definitely, you know, I have to motivate myself more and push myself more than ever because of that, you know, youthful ego that carried me through being completely shattered.
And was there like a moment where you felt like it became shattered?
Was there a time where you realized like, was it when you guys decided to take that break?
Was it like at a point where you, like, was there something you noticed for you even physically?
Or was it just something you noticed in your environment?
There were a few things, a few incidents in my life.
And for me, unfortunately, whenever I would make a huge mistake, it was always public.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
And so that was ego crushing.
Oh, yeah.
And then when I realized that my mistakes were hurting other people, that began to really sink in and make me say, you know what, I can't go on like this.
I've got to make a change.
And, you know, you can reach a bottom, but it's still not be a bottom if you're still digging.
And so even though I thought that I had reached a bottom three or four different times, I was still digging.
Wow.
You know, I was still digging.
Man, that ego was big, man.
It had to get chopped like a big tree.
You know what I mean?
And so I had just been pruning branches.
And so that tree had to get cut down.
And it did.
And it took all the way up until about eight years ago for that last bit of out of control ego that would enable me to make decisions and do things that were self-fulfilling without realizing the consequences they had on other people to completely go away.
And were you being mean?
It was self-destructive.
It was just self-destructive.
It was drugs and alcohol.
It was drinking.
Oh, you were drinking.
You were self-destructing.
Drinking and mixing it with some prescription stuff that was prescribed for the right reason.
But when I found out at the time it could be abused and then you mixed a little alcohol with it, how it made you feel, I was like, well, give me more.
If one is good, give me 20. You know what I mean?
They don't give out Grammys for both.
I'd have 50 of them.
Half of my friends would have a few for sure.
You know what I mean?
And I'm very cautious and careful about what I share because I have four kids.
Totally.
And I don't, and one day, you know, dad will sit down and explain things and share my life when I feel it's appropriate.
But I've become coach.
I coach my son Daniel's baseball team and have for the last five or six years.
And my youngest, Anthony, I coach him at home.
I'm not coaching his T-ball team this year.
And then I have a 15-year-old daughter who's a musician and plays guitar.
And then I have an older son, and he's the one that got the brunt of dad's failures.
So he knows.
We talk about it.
I mean, he saw with his own eyes.
He experienced, you know, while he was in high school and junior high, some of my public scenarios.
And so it definitely made an impact on him.
And we've talked through that and gotten through it.
But, you know, I think now is the time to just look at life and move forward and look at all of that as, hey, I'm not going to do it again.
And I'm going to be a better father because of what I've learned now than I could ever be.
And so that's where I'm at.
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Was it tough to get to, because sometimes I'll notice for myself, I'll be like, okay, I'm going to change it.
I'm going to change it.
I'm going to change it.
And I'll keep kind of re just, you know, you keep, I'll keep kind of riding the same, just as long as there's a little tread on it, you know, I'll find out, I'll ride it one more day, you know?
Did, was it having children?
Was it, or was there like a specific moment you were like, okay, this is really when I got to change, you know?
Yeah, about eight years ago, you know, when I was facing losing my marriage and my kids.
And you've been married just coming up on 17 years.
And that's just your only marriage?
No, I had one that was kind of a shotgun, Elvis, and Vegas.
Start to finish was a year.
I'll never forget the guy that married us.
He had a green suit with mushrooms on the outside of it.
And I think he was on mushrooms when he married us.
But, you know, I was very young.
And literally, like I'm saying, I met her, married her, and then it was over all within one year.
And so I don't really consider that one a marriage, if you know what I mean.
Yeah.
So I'm going to move that mic down just a little bit.
Yeah, move down.
So my wife now, Jacqueline, 17 years.
We have three children together, and she adopted my oldest son, Jagger, when he was six or seven.
You guys got a real family.
Yeah, we got a real family.
That's cool.
We got a real family.
Yeah, it's different.
It's good.
It's scary.
To me, that's always seemed like the scariest.
You know, that's the part to me that seems like, oh man, how do I get from the way I feel sometimes and what I feel like I'm capable of in relationships and to the idea that, okay, I could be a successful patriarch or whatever it is, like a leader of a family.
It's hard.
It is hard.
I mean, I constantly look at myself and realize, you know, all that I could be doing better.
You know, it's not the white picket fence in fairy tales.
Marriage and relationships, you know, it's an ever-flow of ups and downs and work and forgiveness and just extending a lot of compassion and grace.
And you don't always do that.
And, you know, so to have made it 17 years, I tell you, you know, my wife's a warrior for enduring the first, you know, eight, nine years of our marriage.
Really?
And then, you know, a warrior for bringing me back, you know, once I, you know, got sober and changed my life.
And so she deserves a medal of honor for what she went through.
But it's definitely the single most fulfilling family and having your own kids.
And it's the single most fulfilling thing in life more than any success I've had in music.
You know, when my little boy walks in a room and just lights up and runs to me and says, Daddy, and I love you so much, Dad.
You know, when I'm coaching my 12-year-old and, you know, we've had many moments where it's dad pitch, you know, and he's up there and I know where he wants to pitch, you know, so I'm putting it right where he wants it.
And he, you know, he rips a double and knocks in three runs.
And I turn and look at him and he's like, and I'm like, dude, those are moments you can't replace.
There's nothing like it.
Yeah.
At least for me.
And you never had it growing up.
No.
Yeah.
So I can imagine it almost must have double the effect because you're getting to have, I would imagine, I'm getting to be the father I wish I had.
Right.
And you're almost getting to live vicariously through your son in a way.
I would imagine maybe a dad gets to.
I don't know.
I never had any children.
In ways.
Right.
In ways, definitely.
Most definitely.
But just the unconditional love is just so beautiful.
And we can learn so much as human beings from the unconditional love that children give us until they're teenagers.
Then there's conditional.
Hey, Dad, we're going to start conditional love this year.
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
And it's an adjustment as a parent.
You kind of get your heart broken.
Oh, I'm sure.
I bet.
I bet.
But anyway, it's been the greatest achievement of my life.
I mean, because I tell you what, nobody who knows me would have ever thought that I'd be here today talking to you alive with the life that I've led and the family that I have.
Not a single person.
And so I'm a blessed man.
You were deep out there, huh?
Yeah.
Man.
Yeah.
And it was a product and no excuses, but it was a product of abuse.
It was a product of physical abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse.
Because what happens that kind of manifests?
I mean, I know what happens for me, you know, but for you, like, does it like manifest itself?
Or like, was it creating like things inside of you that you didn't know?
Like, how did it kind of, how did that stuff hinder you, you know?
Oh, it hindered me tremendously growing up.
I was very angry.
You know, and again, like we were talking about ego earlier, that anger turned to a fuel, you know, that I was going to prove them wrong.
Oh, yeah.
You know what I mean?
I just show them.
Yeah, exactly.
I know.
Exactly.
And as things go right in your life, the things that start to go good that you choose to do, it only just fuel, it's like, I'm fucking.
But eventually that backfires.
That can't be your fuel forever.
Right.
And sustain life because you crash and burn.
And so, but it did fuel me to get there.
Yeah.
And so, but it also now in hindsight, again, like I said earlier, it's completely impacted, you know, the way that I am as a father to my kids and what I won't do.
I've almost gone to the complete opposite where my wife has to tell me, you can't just be the kid's friend.
You have to be their parent.
You know what I mean?
So I've got to remind myself to be, I got to tell them no.
Well, you probably, I would imagine part of you wants to still be, there's a big part of you, I would guess, I notice it for myself, that still wants to be the child also in a way.
And I just notice it for myself.
Like there's a part of me that still wants, that never got to be the kid with the, you know, like the carefree kid kind of.
Yeah, you know what?
I got to experience that carefreeness, if that's a word, during Creed's successful run.
And because of not having that proper upbringing, I didn't know how to handle carefree.
Carefree meant just life is my candy store.
I'm going to do whatever I want.
And that didn't last too long without biting you.
Yeah, I guess because there's no real top on it, you know?
Like you don't meet like a guy, you don't meet a people always say you don't meet a cokehead in their 50s, you know?
I met a couple.
I met a couple.
Yeah.
Because it just burns you, you know, like the drugs and stuff after a while, it just burns you out.
Oh, 100%.
And it doesn't lead to any joy, you know?
I even notice it with dating.
Like if I just keep kind of like getting sexual with women that there's no case, you know, that it's not at a certain point, it's not fulfilling something inside of me.
Well, it changes your entire perception of women.
Yeah.
You start viewing all women like those women that you were promiscuous with.
And it's a lack of respect.
And so you almost have to retrain your brain once you come out of that fog and come out of that dark place on how to view everyone in your life, but specifically women on how to view women.
And realize that not all women are that way.
Most women aren't that way.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Yeah.
It gets kind of like if you have girls that are like kind of trying to meet up with you after shows and make out or whatever or be sexy or whatever, then it's like you start, you kind of get tricked into thinking that a lot of women are just like that, that all women are like that.
And so then you like, I think that just becomes your lifestyle.
And I can only imagine for rock star, it's like.
And it just seeps into your psyche, into your being, because that's your reality every day.
And so when you come out of that, it definitely is a process to kind of relearn love.
Yeah.
Relearn how people are in the real world, not the fake world of rock and roll superstardom.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can imagine that.
Did you have like, what about like the Christian effect?
Did that have an effect that what was that kind of like going into your music?
And how did that kind of play a role as you, because, you know, like we kind of think of God or of Jesus as like kind of like the he's the ultimate sacrificer, you know, he's really the way.
And did you ever, because once you build enough of your own complex, you don't even need a God anymore.
Well, I tell you what, one thing I have learned is that God will use you despite yourself.
You know, I feel that when God has a calling on your life, there's nothing that you can do to get in the way of the plan that he has.
No matter how hard you've tried.
No matter how hard you try to screw up God's plan for your life, you can't.
Now, you may make it more difficult for yourself, and you may have to suffer more, but God will use you despite yourself.
And also, you'll be humbled.
And that's happened many a times.
But I've seen over the years that no matter how many times I tried to screw up God's plan for my life, I may have went the long way to the end goal, but always got to the end goal in terms of reaching people and keeping that message within the music of hope and pointing people towards something greater than themselves.
That's a great point, man.
The music, despite whatever issues you were dealing with, your music always gave people a sense of hope.
And pointed people to God.
Yeah.
And that was a promise that I made God in my little tiny apartment with a, not even an apartment, it was a bedroom with a mattress.
Oh, I used to share a dude.
I shared a room with this fella and we were just friends, you know, and at this lady's place.
And she made us, she had a golden retriever.
She made us, because she had to go to work early.
We didn't have jobs.
She made us put a shirt like on the golden retriever each day.
So like, it was just, I don't know, it was pretty sad.
That's, that's interesting.
It was not, it was nice because I've never spent some time around a dog, but it was also sad to be like just there all day just watching TV.
Just like.
What color was the shirt?
It was different colors.
Oh, every day?
Yeah, they had like six or seven different ones, you know.
Wow.
But it was.
Where'd she get them?
I don't know.
It was just like a man's t-shirt, like a small, and we would put it on it.
It was kind of a long dog.
Right, right.
But yeah.
Anyway, I don't even know I told you that.
But yeah, I think.
Shit, I forgot what we're talking about.
It happens.
Yeah.
So we were talking about how, you know, the music still had its message.
It had its message.
And I had, and I've shared this before years ago and in my book, that, you know, I made a promise to God, you know, in my room.
And I said, I promise no matter what, that I will always put You in my music and in my lyrics, in some way that I will always point whether I'm living it or not, because I know the songs will live on no matter what I'm doing.
Now, I know that doesn't jive with a lot of people, but I knew my frailties, I knew my weaknesses, I knew I couldn't live the life at that time that someone who was a Christian artist was supposed to live.
So Creed was not a Christian band.
The guys, in fact, when the press started noticing that there was some religious and Christian themes in our music and brought it out, the guys were like in shock, like, what are you writing about, man?
What is this?
This is not what we signed up for.
You know what I mean?
And I get it, man.
It wasn't part of their rock and roll dream.
Oh, they were like, we don't want to be in a Christian band.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And to be honest with you, I didn't either because at the time, that's not the life that I felt that I could live, nor did I want to.
I chose a different path.
But I honored my promise.
Did that feel like a lot of press?
Because then the media almost made it seem like, oh, this is a Christian band.
So then that adds a whole, did it add a whole nother level of pressure to seem like a Christian in the, or like to have a.
We didn't.
Right.
I mean, we talked about it.
I mean, you know, the guys were not happy because exactly what you said, they didn't want to live with that pressure and that burden.
That was not something they signed up for.
They signed up to be in a rock and roll band, man, and everything that came with it.
Yeah.
And Christian bands always have like that one, like they've always put a cage on that one dude on the stage.
That's insane, bro.
You know what I'm talking about?
Like if you go to like a church, like there's always like the band up there, which is cool.
Are you talking about the drummer?
Yes, bro.
Okay.
They always cage up.
Plexiglass.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why do they cage him up?
I don't know, man.
That just, I don't, I just, it makes me feel always like he did something bad and they put him in there.
Like, I just don't, I don't know.
There's just something about him.
Hey, you know what?
We all do stuff that are bad, man.
Yeah.
We're all human.
Well, then each week they should put it in there.
Exactly.
There should be a cage around all of us each week.
Oh, that's true.
That's really true.
So that added some pressure then, but you had to talk with your band members that like, so were they upset with you about that?
There was a time when they were.
Yeah, absolutely.
Wow, 100%.
And also, you know, they knew that I wasn't living it.
So they were like, well, why is it in there?
That's not you.
And I'm like, because I have to, man.
I know it's right.
This is what I felt called to do.
Because when I was little, when I was younger, I felt called to be a pastor.
I preached my first sermon, all right, in front of probably a thousand people in a youth group when I was 12 or 13 years old at Calvary Assembly of God in Orlando, Florida.
And so that's, it's interesting.
And so that was always in me.
And so I went to the complete polar opposite of what a preacher is, but still in my writings could not escape what I knew was right or what I felt was right.
And that is to point people to God, to point people to something greater, to point people to a spiritual life in the spiritual realm, which I knew was real, which I had felt as a child.
And I've felt on stage thousands of times and continue to to this day.
So I can't deny it because I know it's real.
I felt it.
Right.
Yeah, I've had some spiritual experiences in my own life when I've turned my life over to a higher power or asked a higher power, asked God to come into my life and help me.
Right.
You know, that have blown my mind.
Yeah.
Really.
It's really crazy when the connection with something, because I didn't trust anybody in the world, you know, which is normal of a lot of people in recovery and stuff.
And so that's why they get you with God.
They kind of like lead you to God or to a higher power of your choice.
Right.
You can pick your own.
Right.
Because only something unworldly, unlike earthly would I be willing to believe in.
Right.
Because it feels like everything in the earth or every human in the earth has let me down.
That's what part of me feels like, whether that's true or not.
Well, that's what we do as human beings.
We let each other down whether we mean to or not.
I know.
It's crazy.
You know what I mean?
And I think that's why in recovery, they do point you to a higher power because not only do we let other people down on a regular basis, we let ourselves down all the time.
And that's what led us to having to join a recovery group, a recovery program, because we had let ourselves down so bad.
And so the only way to come out of that bottom is to look up.
And, you know, I think we've been kind of programmed to believe that God is up there somewhere in the universe.
And so that's why we use those analogies of looking up.
But I believe God is all around us.
He's in everything if you look for him or her, however you want to describe it.
I describe God.
I see God as a traditional God, not the dogma that I was raised on, you know, this punishing hellfire and brimstone.
You know, if you say a curse word and get hit by a car, no matter how good you lived your life, you're going to burn in hell.
I mean, that's how I grew up.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe that I can love my children more than my God can love me.
And so the same grace that I can extend my sons and my daughter, the same unconditional love, no matter what they do, I'm never going to stop loving them.
Okay.
I don't believe that I can love more than God.
I believe my love is a fraction of how God loves us.
And so when I got to that place, it really freed me of a lot of guilt and shame.
And responsibility almost in a weird way of like unnecessary responsibility.
No, I still have a tremendous guilty conscience when I make a mistake.
I will torture myself.
I will have sleepless nights, even if no one knows but me.
Beat yourself up.
Yeah.
And I just have to go through it and I have to endure it.
That's just my nature.
why do we do that, Scott?
Because a lot of them, like my listeners over the years and people that like this show, they always will often comment, even when I see some of them in person, hey man, you're too hard on yourself, you know?
And I don't even know if I notice it, you know, it's like, but when I hear you say that, you know, and I know it's common amongst people that have been in recovery and gone through, you know, certain types of struggle with certain types of addiction or addictive natures.
Why is that?
Why are we so, why are we so hard on ourselves?
Well, I mean, for me, now it's emotional relapses.
And I'm sure you've heard that expression and that saying, you know, so the relapses aren't, you know, going out and getting a bottle of jack and an eight ball.
You know, the relapses are character flaws, character defects.
Oh, yeah.
And I tell you, you know, when I have those, I'm, you know, they destroy me.
And I'm working on that.
I'm working on giving myself as much grace as I extend, you know, my children.
Yeah.
Because that's my frame of reference is my kids, because that's the purest form of love that I can understand and comprehend.
And so I'm trying to recently, with some things that have gone on in my life, is I'm trying to learn to extend the same grace and love that I do to my children, to other people that are in my life and myself.
And it's hard.
It's difficult.
Where do you think that comes from, that being so hard on yourself?
Do you have any?
I'm just wanting to give any different insight that I've had in my life.
I mean, for me, I think I was programmed that way because of, you know, as a child, you know, the abuse that I endured in the name of God.
And would they whip me and talk about God?
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Strip me naked and beat me from the back of my neck to the bottom of my feet.
And my life was on a timer.
Your siblings too?
Yeah.
Oh, man.
My life was on a timer.
I've never shared this, but I would get woken up and then a timer would get turned on five minutes.
If that timer went off before where I was supposed to be next, I'd get beat.
And then the timer would be on where I was supposed to be next.
If I wasn't finished with my breakfast and in my bathroom brushing my teeth, I'd get beat again.
But, you know, I think that is, for me, part of why I rebelled so intensely.
Part of why I still, when I make mistakes, they're so, they're big ones.
You know, I skip the little ones.
I go straight to the big one.
You know what I mean?
It's like, I'd rather make, you know, man, when am I going to get to the point?
You know, I'm 49 years old.
When do I get to the point where my character defects when they manifest are small?
But at least they're not, like I said, you know, jack in an eight ball.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I think that right there explains why you'd be so hard on yourself if you had five minutes to do this, you had five minutes to do that.
The way that that gets baked into your own psyche as a child and you don't even know it.
Right.
And then also, you know, the spiritual abuse, you know, being, you know, in touch with the spiritual world as a child, you know, how creative we are and how we have fairy tale friends, you know, as a child.
And then you throw in the Bible and that mindset when you're developing and your brain is developing and that becomes reality.
And so you're reading the Bible and you're understanding, at least from my life, and it's real.
You know, David and Goliath and angels, you know, appearing in the middle of the night, that could really happen.
That's real.
God is real.
He's right here.
And so when you make a mistake, man, it's just so, you know, you feel such guilt because, you know, you're going to burn in hell.
And that's just baked into you.
And so I think that that can create what we're talking about, you know, why we're so hard on ourselves, even when we're separated from that type of belief system.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
It's just built.
I'm built.
That's the foundation of my psyche.
Yeah.
And so.
Right.
It's not just your religious relate.
It's not just your religious intellect that's created there.
Your own intellect and recipe of who you are is established outside of the religious part of it or not.
Right.
And I still have those rebellious moments, even at my age, where I'm just like, screw it.
I'm going to do it.
And those are the character defects that I continue to work on.
But I tell you, the guilt and shame that come with that, you know, I guess it's there to make me a better person.
You know, and I guess that's what we're trying to be.
But I tell you, you know, those expressions, you know, three steps forward, you know, two steps back, you know.
Paul Abdul.
Yeah.
There you go.
I think it was.
What was her?
Two steps forward.
Two steps backward.
There you go.
That's right.
You know, she lived in South Beach across the bay from me when I lived in South Beach.
Yeah.
I always wondered what went on at her house.
I wonder if she was just practicing dancing all the time.
I'm sure she was just walking in place, it sounds like.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't know.
That's interesting.
You have to all have duels.
I think she was dancing with Disney characters.
I bet she was, dude.
Well, I think she had an addiction for a little while, so I bet I think she was on Somas.
And I took two once, and damn, I drove my car right into a Donald Duck.
I know that.
You know, everybody, you want to look young.
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You know, I saw myself the other day.
I saw a, not a drawing of myself, but it was like a, what's that?
It's like a piece of glass that does like a drawing of you.
Me, I saw reflection.
I saw my reflection in the mirror the other day.
I said, damn, I got to get younger.
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But, you know, we've got to get to the point where we all realize that we're, you know, we're all just striving, hopefully, to be a better version of who we were the day before.
Yeah.
And I forget that, and I get caught in the weeds of life.
But ultimately, at the end of the day, that's what I want.
That's who I want to be.
And I always share with my fans when I'm doing like acoustic storyteller stuff.
You know, I'm like, hey, listen, I know this song is about this, but let me remind you, sometimes I write about where I want to be, not where I am.
Sometimes I write about where I've been and how I know or what I believe will get me out, but I'm not out yet.
I'm just living trying to do this deal just like you.
I'm just trying to survive and do it the best I can.
That's this podcast.
I mean, that is this show.
I mean, that's a lot of this podcast audience in a nutshell, I think, is people just having a human experience and trying to figure it out the best that they can.
And we just got to love each other.
I know.
It's fucking hard.
It is people.
You're like, damn.
I know.
It's hard to love Rodney.
You know, it's like her, you know, damn.
Brenda's out here.
You're right.
You're right.
It's dicey.
It's so easy to say and so hard to do.
I know it is.
And when you start saying it and when you start speaking that into existence in your life and in your mind, the universe or God will test you and will give you, at least I've experienced, will put you in situations where you've got to practice what you preach.
And it's hard.
It's hard.
You know, without getting into details, I'm facing it right now where I'm realizing, hey, oh, that's what love is.
That's what loyalty is.
That's, wow, man.
And it's given me a whole new respect and admiration for people that have, you know, the one or two people that have shown me that during my time, I look at them in a whole new way because it's not easy.
The grace that they've shown me.
Yeah.
Especially people like, I think that go through recovery and are learning.
It's just such a late learning process.
It is.
And the world has, our society has such a, it doesn't, it thinks you should have learned a lot of these things earlier.
And yes, we think we should have too.
I feel, you know what, I've said that all the time.
Man, I should have.
I should have learned this stuff.
If I only had a supportive family like Tommy, if I only had a mom and a dad that were like Joe, you know, then I wouldn't have had to go through these circumstances that I'm going through now because I would have had the right people to intervene.
Right.
Right.
I think about that too.
And it can be negative, though, after a while because I'll get in like a self-pity.
Yep.
Yeah.
And self-pity leads us nowhere, man.
Oh, it's such a, that is a trap.
Yeah.
God, self-pity is a trap.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
I don't have time for it anymore.
Oh, that's good.
I don't have time for it.
Yeah.
That's such a good thing to notice because I was in it for a while and didn't notice.
I thought, oh, something's wrong with me.
I got to figure it out.
Something's wrong with me.
I got to figure it out.
I didn't realize that's just a trap that self-pity sets.
Yep.
You know?
100%.
100%.
I mean, we can't, you know, I realized a while ago, I'm not a victim.
Now, when I was a minor, I was a victim.
Right.
I couldn't control that situation.
I had no choice.
But as I became an adult, I volunteered for everything that I did.
Okay.
I'm not a victim.
There were consequences to every decision that I made.
And I can't blame anymore.
I have to own it and I have to accept responsibility for it.
And that's hard because, you know, because you can look at people sometimes and say, well, hey, I never would have done that to you and you did that to me.
And then I did this because you did that to me.
And so if you didn't do that to me, I wouldn't be in this situation right now.
You know, but we all have a choice.
No matter what people do to us, we have a choice on how we react to it.
And I don't know if you've heard that expression, but this has been the story of my life for a long period of time.
Well, you effed me.
So now I'm going to go F me.
Oh, you know, you know what I'm saying?
You screwed me over.
Now I'm going to go drink five bottles of jack and get all this other stuff and go screw myself up even more.
Yeah.
So, you know, and that, and that's, that's.
You did, you did that.
Yeah, I did that 100%.
That's how I dealt with my problems for a number of years.
So I dealt with my pain and I'm going to do this to me.
Why is it?
What is that thing?
I don't know, man.
It's insanity.
I'm going to do it to me to show you that only I hurt me.
I don't know.
It's subconscious.
Right.
Yeah.
It's something that I didn't even know I was doing until I got away from it and had a chance to look at it because it makes no sense.
You know, why would you go do more damage to a situation and to your place in life because you're hurt by somebody else?
That's insanity.
It doesn't make any sense.
Right.
But that's the pattern I got into for a long period of time.
I'm thinking on it.
I'm trying to feel on it and think on it at the same time.
And I'm feeling like, oh, well, I'm going to show you the only person that hurts me is me.
And I'm not saying that that's you.
I'm just trying to think of like why a behavior like that would happen.
Well, I think for me, it may have been to numb the pain.
I was such a sense, I'm such a sensitive person that I get hurt so easily that when I feel betrayed or feel hurt, I don't want to feel that way anymore.
And so I would numb it.
And so in numbing that with substances and with alcohol, that's how I was screwing myself even more because the consequences of what that numbing would bring into my life.
So it was an insane cycle.
And at some level, I do the same thing now, just not with substances.
You know, I'll be hurt.
I'll feel it so deeply.
And my way now is to isolate, shut down.
And it just, all the ways that I've handled it just makes the problem worse.
It doesn't make it any better.
You know, so I'm really, really trying to learn to, on a daily basis, especially with people that I love and even people at Starbucks who like tell you to F off because you bumped into them with your arm.
Yeah.
Man, what are they going through?
They must have got something going on in their life.
You know what I mean?
Right.
To have some compassion, have some grace.
Compassion.
And then just put myself in other people's shoes.
Yeah, but not be so hard.
Yeah.
Like I can totally relate to that.
Like to isolate.
These are the things I'm going to do.
Something's uncomfortable.
Something hurt me.
I'm going to do these things.
I go hide.
Yeah.
That's what I do.
I go hide.
I go hide.
And it makes sense as a child.
Yeah.
It makes sense.
A child behavior.
It's a very childlike behavior.
Yeah, man.
It's a very childlike behavior.
It is.
But it's hard.
Some people don't understand.
It is hard to get those things out of your system.
It is, it's like the wiring is that.
It is the wiring.
And it's probably something I'll be battling.
Yeah, for one.
We'll battle always.
Yeah, always, for the rest of my life.
And I think just sitting here talking about it with you is going to help me hopefully move forward, even if it's an inch.
Yeah, I'll take that inch.
Thanks, man.
Yeah, I think even, you know, like I know a lot of, I know there's a lot of guys that deal with that, that thing.
Why do I still practice the behaviors of a child when things in my life get tough?
Yep.
100%.
100%.
So eight years ago, things got rough.
How were you, did you, were you like- Were you in a motel?
I had a massive relapse.
Oh, so you'd had some sobriety for a while at that point.
Yeah.
You know, I was white knuckling it here, there, and trying to do it on my own.
Never listened to anyone who had, you know, long-term.
It's hard to listen to people.
Yeah.
Thought I could handle it.
Didn't really want to be sober.
I wanted to be normal.
Why can't I be normal like everybody else, man?
I'll figure it out.
Yeah.
Why can't I have a couple glasses of wine?
Yeah.
You know, why can't I have a few beers?
You know, oh, it was only when I brought this into my life that alcohol then turned into some huge issue.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, but if this isn't there, then this will be fine.
And so I would try.
Yeah.
And I realized that as soon as I brought the alcohol back in my life, it led to this.
And then this led to this.
And so it was just this death spiral.
Yeah.
Crack a mole or something.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, I ended up like Hunter Biden in October.
I didn't end up like that.
You know what I mean?
I've had some, yeah.
Yeah.
And then, you know, so I jumped in my truck during my last relapse and drove from Florida.
Florida man.
Yeah, Florida.
I was a Florida man in my truck and decided I'd drive to California, you know, in little circles all over the United States.
I mean, it made sense in the state that I was in in my mind.
Oh, yeah, right.
Until I ran out of money.
And, you know, being the loving family that I have, you know, that was the only thing they could think of to do was to cut me off.
You know, make sure I had no access so I wouldn't continue to spiral.
To your own money.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, you got to do that.
You got to do that if someone's on death wish.
And, you know, I appreciate that.
And so, but anyway, you know, I did that.
And during that process, on the road, man, I just put on the GPS and somehow I ended up in places that just make absolute no sense whatsoever.
You know, my wife asked me one time, she goes, you know, when you were on that trip, why were you in San Angelo, Texas?
I was like, I have no idea.
And then she's like, and then why'd you go from there back to Mississippi?
And I'm like, I have no idea.
I was just following the GPS, you know, so I guess it would reroute.
You know how your GPS will reroute sometimes.
And so and I don't even know why I was headed to California.
I think you had a Lewis and Clark edition.
Yeah, I think I did.
I actually believe I had one of the most intense and incredible spiritual experiences of my entire life.
I've never really got into the details of everything that I went through on that trip in my psyche.
But everything coming at me and everything that was going on, you know, it really did a number on my brain.
And I'll never forget it.
You know, I had some experiences that were, I think, akin to what some people feel like they have when they go to Peru and do, what's that drug?
Hiauasca or another, you know, mesculine or some spiritual experience.
I had that kind of experience.
You know, There was a moment where I felt and I saw an angel on the hood of my truck.
And I was following that angel wherever it was taking me.
And I had a bunch of stuff I had thrown into the back of my car.
I had like three Dolly paintings.
Dolly Pardon?
Dolly.
Oh, Salvador Dolly.
Right.
Wow.
And somehow I end up at a Catholic church somewhere in Mississippi or in Louisiana.
Yeah.
And I just felt like I should pull over and give those Dolly paintings to that church.
So I'm carrying them in and there's no one there.
It's like the middle of the night and I set them down and then the priest walks out and I said, hey man, I don't know why I'm here.
I think God brought me here to give you these paintings.
And he goes, man, our school's about to shut down because we don't have funding.
Wow.
Thank you.
And then I just took off.
And now he eventually got in touch with me like two or three years later and returned them once, you know.
But I once they got back on their feet?
I think once he realized or at least had heard that maybe I wasn't in my right state of mind at the time.
But even to this day, I feel like I was supposed to be there.
I've never shared that with anybody, but I feel like I was supposed to be there.
I feel like I was supposed to give him those.
I don't know why I feel that way inside, but I do.
Well, the act of, it's also the act of giving something that means something to you, giving it away to somebody else, sharing.
I think all those things are like sometimes clues that we can get out of actions that we get led to do.
Sometimes it's not even about that exact action, but just the feelings that it or the it's not about the exact thing, but it's about the action.
You know, sometimes it's a reminder of the value of it.
Yeah.
I mean, at the time, I felt like I was on some type of spiritual or in the middle of some type of spiritual experience.
Now, do you, was that like a, were you, did you think you, were you having like a breakdown then, kind of, you think?
I think so, yeah.
Yeah.
Because things were coming out of my body.
Um, and uh, you know.
Pain, you mean?
Like things from well, well, prescriptions.
Oh, I see.
So you were going through withdrawals.
You were going through a lot of stuff.
Yeah, I was going through a lot of stuff.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And, you know, and it took me on this path.
And I think my core and my subconscience, when it's in crisis, always turns to the spiritual realm, turns to God.
And so that's what got me through that situation because I felt like I was on some kind of mission.
And I think that ended up saving my life during that, you know, two and a half, three week road trip.
And then I ended up in California and, you know, blessed my wife for finding me and helping me, you know, get into, you know, a treatment center to get sober.
And that's where I finally got it.
And that's where I was like, enough.
I'm done.
I'm done.
Yeah.
And it's the deep breath of, I'm done.
And man, when you get to that point of I'm done and you really mean it in your core, nothing's taken you back.
You're done.
Yeah.
And it's such a superpower to have because I smoked for years and chewed tobacco for years.
And I realized I can't do this anymore.
So I'm done.
And I quit.
Once you get that I'm done with something, you can apply it in so many areas of your life to make changes.
And I found that to be a principle that I live by now.
Nothing's making me go back.
Nothing.
Nothing.
You know, it's like, that's pretty interesting because it's hard.
A lot of times I wonder how much I've accepted like the first step in a lot of these programs, you know, that I am powerless over whatever to be anything.
We are.
And that I am willing to let a higher power help me.
Like how much completely, like, or do I still have some reservations inside?
You know, it's like, that's why when you say I'm done, it's like, oh, it even me just made me take a deep breath.
It was like, damn.
Yeah.
To be done, to be, I'm done with this pain, with this circle of me trying to treat myself.
I'm just, I'm done.
I'm done.
I'm done.
And that can, that mindset and that saying can apply to anything in your life that's toxic.
You know, it can apply to relationships.
It can apply to work environments.
It can apply to anything.
It doesn't have to just be drugs or alcohol.
Yeah, oh, totally.
You know, anything.
And it can be a mindset.
It can be your health.
You know, it's just, I'm done living this way.
And then you change.
And how much relief that part of you inside of you feels when it finally hears it and knows that you mean it.
And then once you do it and you've got some time under your belt, you start feeling strong.
You start feeling a sense of strength.
Integrity.
And personal integrity.
And you start reclaiming parts of your life that you've lost.
But it's different.
It'll never be the same.
You know, that youthful, idealistic, innocent view of the world is gone.
It's hard to let that go.
Mine was robbed.
It was just taken.
From when you were young, you mean?
No.
Oh, even just from drugs and alcohol as you got older.
Yeah, as I got older, because I still, for a long period of my life, even though I should have learned in my childhood that I couldn't trust anybody, not even my parents, I went into the world with just, you know, eyes wide open, no pun intended to the song arms wide open.
Yeah, totally.
But trust in everyone.
You know, I can't tell you how many business managers that I trusted just because they had a couple kids lived in the suburbs and had a suit on who robbed me blind.
Damn, really?
You know, yeah, man.
I mean, you know, it's, it's again, things we talked about earlier, things that I felt like I should have learned years ago.
And then you're hard on yourself about it because you're like, damn, what do you feel stupid?
Don't you know that?
Oh, you feel stupid.
You feel stupid.
And you look back and you reflect and you go, why?
I'd never do that now.
I'd never do that now.
I see so clearly now.
I see all the red flags now.
Why couldn't I see it then?
And, you know, that's life.
Yeah, it's life, like you're saying.
And we got to like focus on what we can control and focus what's in front of us and be grateful for where we are.
And take it one day at a time.
That is such a powerful thing that can apply to everything in your life, no matter what you're going through, not just drugs or alcohol.
Yeah.
You know, I often say to people, man, I can do anything for 24 hours.
You know what I mean?
I think I could endure some extreme torture if I had to for 24 hours.
Now, don't test me on that.
But I'm just using that as an example.
So once you get to the point where life becomes so sized down or smaller, it's manageable.
Right.
Because when I think, man, I went through this breakup.
I'm not going to, I'm going to feel like this for two years.
I'm not going to handle this.
Of course, I can't handle that.
I can't handle two years of feeling this way in one day because that's all I can actually feel it in right now.
So I have to put it in with thinking, can I handle this today?
Today.
Right.
Can I handle that I might have made some mistakes today?
Can I handle that I drank last night, I didn't want to.
Can I handle that for today?
Instead of thinking that for the next two years, I'm going to not live up to the goals that I set.
And whatever pain you're enduring in life, hey, I just got to get through it today.
It's not going to last forever.
One day the sun will rise again.
So whatever you're going through, just make it small, get through today, and then wake up and do the same thing all over again.
Can I get through today again?
Yeah.
Exactly.
And then it adds up.
You had you guys' band, Creed gets thrown in over the years with like, there always become things that get so big that then they kind of get not kind of put on a list of that it's like not cool or something.
Like Nickelback got put there.
Dane Cook got put there.
There was a list that came out just recently of like the 10 uncoolest bands.
Nirvana was on the list, right?
That's crazy.
It's crazy, right?
That's crazy.
But there's a thing that happens in society.
Yeah.
I notice it, where something gets so big that a generation later, it becomes like a thing where it's not cool.
Right.
You know, of course it's not that cool anymore anyway because it's time is like, you know, it was in a certain era of time and stuff.
So it's still, but you know what I'm talking about?
It kind of gets like, no, I know exactly what you're talking about.
And it's funny.
I've talked about this before.
You know, I went from being on the cover of magazines with the headline, you know, Scott Stapp is this summer's rock and roll savior to, you know, the worst band of all time.
Or you know, people say cream.
People say like Nickelback Dane Cook.
People say use these things.
They were like, hit like a level of stardom.
Right.
Well, you know what?
What is that?
It wasn't America.
It wasn't the people of the world.
It was the press and it was the critics who and the media who have this or have had this control over the hearts and minds of the population, you know, and program in your mind, you know, what's acceptable, what's not, what's cool, what's not.
And they can turn on you in a dime if you don't play by their rules.
Yeah.
Or if you get so big, they fear they can't control you anymore.
And so that's what happened.
There was a shift, especially when, you know, the Christian narrative came out.
And there is some deliberate, you know, all throughout my music, Christian references and references to salvation.
And those were intentional.
But when you're doing that in the devil's playground, when you're doing that in secular music, yeah, and on every level, you know, with the press, personally, you know, and, you know, so there was a takedown.
And now it's coming back around.
You know, I'm proud I'm a meme.
Yeah.
Oh, it's cool.
How many people get to be a meme?
Fuck.
You know what I mean?
And it was so funny when I saw, or not when I saw one day I was driving my nephew and my son, my oldest son, Jagger, to either school or some practice or something.
And they were giggling in the back seat.
I was like, what are you guys laughing at?
And they just kept laughing.
And then all of a sudden I hear, and then my nephew just busts out laughing, you know what I mean?
And my own son, who I wrote the song about, is making fun of me, mimicking my voice.
And I was like, what?
And now this was before everyone else was doing it.
You know what I mean?
Like, you know, because the last 10 years, it's really become like a thing, you know?
And I never thought that, you know, thank you.
I'm glad.
Man, how many people get to have that and be a part of a generation?
Yeah, people.
And tie into a new generation.
Man, I'm blessed.
Thank you.
And now my daughter wants to wear creed shirts to school and she's learning Mark Trimani guitar riffs on her Les Paul.
It's cool.
Yeah.
Well, I think it's going through that system.
I think it's like there was that like, yeah, just if for some reason, it's like that roulette ball landed on you guys.
It should seem like.
And this is from an outsider's perspective.
And then, but now it's like, I told a lot of people you were coming.
I was excited and all of them were fucking stoked.
You know, so it was cool.
It was like, man, oh, I want to know like what his journey's been like, what's going on.
so yeah, I think, like, you're saying, it's like to even be able to have any still relevance to see your daughter, to see people wearing your shirts with, like, you know, I'm sure she's 15, bro.
Yeah, and it's crazy how these young people have like a different respect for music.
The 90s are making a comeback.
Yeah.
And it's just, it's just crazy.
And, and, and again, I, I have such gratitude for that.
Um, and also I have a sense of humor about the mimicry and the jokes and the jokes.
Um, I do it myself.
Yeah.
Um, because it's funny.
Some of them are funny, man.
I got a sense of humor.
They're good.
Because what I found that happens is it starts, it started that way, but then people started digging in and going, well, what are people, what are they, what are people making fun of?
Right.
And they start listening to the music, and then that's when it gets out of my hands.
And I say that God used me despite myself.
And then the music goes boom.
And I remember hearing, I think it was, who was it?
It wasn't Jimmy Kimmel.
Who's the other guy?
Corden or whatever?
No, no.
Oh, wow.
I can't believe my mind just went blank.
I mean, it's huge.
No, black hair.
Oh, wow.
Black hair.
Not Reggie Jackson.
No, not Reggie Jackson, man.
It's a late night show.
There he is.
Jimmy Fallon.
Oh, Jimmy Fallon.
Yeah, thanks for the reminder.
Sorry, Jimmy.
My mind went blank.
Dude, you're incredible.
But he was talking one time on his show, I think, when his wife was pregnant or they just had a baby.
And he had been a creed mocker for a time because it was funny.
It was good for stand-up.
And he went to get diapers, if I'm remembering the story correctly.
And Arms Wide Open came on in Walmart or Target, wherever he was, and he finally got it.
It finally hit him as a father, but he had to become a father to connect with the track.
And, you know, and, you know, I'm blessed that the music has been able to do that over the years.
Yeah, you know, that is really interesting.
You never know when a song is going to come because it's playing.
Your music's playing.
People's music is playing all over all the time.
And you never know when that track is going to hit you the right way or hit somebody the right way that keeps them off of a bridge, that keeps a needle out of their arm, that keeps their mother's love in their heart, that keeps their new love for their child inside of them, you know, and makes it blossom.
And I'm hoping that that's why I'm still here.
Right.
That that's why God's kept me alive.
Yeah, a lot of guys, look, if you look back through like, I'm thinking of like Shannon Hoon.
Do you know who that is?
Yeah.
Chris Cornell.
Yeah.
You look back through.
Chester Bennington.
Yes.
You look back.
Kirk Cobain.
Yeah.
A lot of the guys from a little before you, some of them, in your era, just from 90s and 2000s.
Yeah, early 2000s.
A lot of guys died.
And I should be one of them multiple times.
There's not a single reason on planet Earth that I should be alive right now.
It's a miracle.
And I have to remind myself of that and be grateful and show gratitude.
And I forget that all the time.
Yeah, it's hard.
You know what I mean?
I forget that all the time.
Were there times where you, did you ever overdose?
Did you ever get to the point where you were...
Oh, it's so scary, isn't it?
You know, yeah.
Being high on drugs.
Yeah, and I had some accidents that I should not have survived.
And, you know, thank the good Lord that I have because I wouldn't have my two youngest boys.
They wouldn't exist.
They wouldn't exist.
Wow.
And then, you know, my others would not have a father.
And so I'm just grateful.
And I still get to make music today and still get to put out new stuff and people still show up.
And I have gratitude for that.
I don't take it for granted like I did in my 20s because I did.
I took it for granted.
I did.
I did.
I became someone who just felt like I was just in the moment so much that I had no perspective.
I had no 10,000 foot view on my life and the people around me.
And I ended up taking my friends for granted, my career for granted.
And, you know, it's crazy, man.
I wish I could go back with what I know now, but I can't.
So all I can do is take what I have now and apply that same principle and that same mindset and what I've learned and move forward and just, you know, let things be as they are.
Well, you've gotten to have amazing experiences, which is kind of what is kind of an exceptional thing about life overall, is to be able to have, you know, knowing who gets to be a rock star, you know, who gets to be a father.
A lot of people can't even be a father.
You're right.
You know, like you've gotten, and so few of those trajectories of stardom last like our lifelong.
It's like for all of us, for anybody of comedy, you know, I always already think about like, well, have I already hit my peak, you know, like in my, you know, it's like, and that may be it.
It's still at least you're thinking about it.
At least you're self-aware.
So, so you're, you know, as you're still rising, because you're still rising, bro, in my opinion.
Well, thanks.
And the fact that you found sobriety and this mindset that you have and how smart you are and the introspective mind that you have and the heart that you have, man, that's a gift to the world.
You know, I say all the time to my wife, and I've said it to some friends, man, people who can make people laugh are healers.
They're healers.
And you're a wounded healer like I am.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
But I appreciate your gift and what you do so much because laughter heals.
You know What I mean?
And so you got to cherish the gift that you have and never take it for granted, bro.
Yeah.
Because you're doing, you're, you're doing, you're not, it's not just funny and here today, gone tomorrow.
All right.
You're making an impact on people's hearts and you're bringing healing into their body.
And then you speak truth into their life when you get on that roll, man.
And so don't stop, brother.
Don't stop, man, because you're changing lives and you're saving lives.
And, you know, don't take it for granted if I can share that with you because I'm a person who did and I don't want to see that ever happen to you, man.
Thanks, God, man.
I appreciate you saying that.
Yeah, I think back, like, I think, yeah, I always wanted to feel happier when I was young.
And so I couldn't do it, like feel happy myself, but I could make other people laugh.
So it was like, I almost like would live vicariously through when other people were laughing.
It would be like, oh, man, it was like the closest I could get to feeling like happy, you know, in a weird way.
But I appreciate that message, man.
It's sweet of you, dude.
And I, and I appreciate you, you know, coming in and sharing some of your own experiences, you know, because I think we're talking about and have talked about some things that other men are thinking about and that are part of their lives, you know?
Well, let's not kid ourselves, man.
Life is real and it comes at us every day.
You know what I mean?
It's a gangster.
Yeah, total gangster.
I mean, it wears boots and it wants to seek and destroy.
It does, huh?
It really, really does.
And we've got to put on our armor every day and suit up.
And in me sharing this with you, I'm reminding myself, this is what I got to do.
And so, you know, man, but we got to enjoy it somehow.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a lot of facets to it, you know.
What do you think it was about those times when you look back on those, like, you know, on Kurt Cobain, on Shannon Hoon, when you look back on Lane, I'm trying to think of Lane Staley.
Lane Staley.
When you look back on those musicians, do you think it was a time?
Because those are all guys who lost their life, I think to addiction, maybe.
It might be safe to say that in that realm.
Pretty sure.
Was it a time?
Was it a...
I think it was a time.
I think that there was a generation of artists and musicians that romanticized their idols that they grew up listening to.
You know, Jim Morrison was one of those.
And so I thought that a guy, a lead singer in a band and a rock star was supposed to do everything that Jim Morrison did.
Not even thinking that it's what killed him.
I thought I was supposed to do that.
It was my rite of passage.
And so I can't say that that's what everyone else thought.
But definitely the rock and roll lifestyle was something that I thought was just part of the job description and had no foresight or knowledge that it could kill me.
Yeah, I guess there is.
There's that, well, I have to be like a rock star.
What a fucking pressure.
It sounds great until you get there and have to do it.
And that's what I love about a lot of this generation of up-and-coming musicians and artists in all genres is sobriety is cool.
Being responsible is cool.
Showing up is cool.
Being on time is cool.
Putting on a good show is cool.
And so hopefully that's the impression that the next generation will see.
And that's what I try to tell these young up-and-comers that I run into.
But that's what I'm seeing on the streets in my business.
Yeah, same as in comedy.
You see a lot of great comedians are sober or a lot of working comedians are sober.
I don't know how people could do it not being sober.
Looking back, I don't know how I did it at times.
At the end, in order to get there, I couldn't do it had I been in some kind of pervasive active addiction.
But at the end, I was, and I look at that, and I'm like, I don't know how I did it that last couple of years, but I definitely didn't do it well.
Were there any amends that you had to make?
Did you burn any bridges with friends?
Did you have to go back and do that kind of stuff?
100%.
Wow.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that's 100%.
That's powerful.
Yeah.
I mean, it's what you have to do to clear the wreckage of your past.
It's what you have to do, I think, to move forward.
You know, I just use recovery lingo.
You get it.
But to those that aren't in a recovery program or know the lingo, in order sometimes to move forward and grow as a human being, you do have to clear up the past, especially with the people that you've hurt.
And also, I had to forgive and get rid of resentments.
And like you were talking about, a couple of them took a long time.
I mean, I can name a, I'm not going to name a couple, but a couple of them just resolved like during COVID.
Wow.
You know, and I almost like, I don't want to thank COVID for happening, but it sure did push me into a deeper spiritual journey and a deeper place of self-awareness and growth than I would have been had it not happened.
And it definitely allowed me to have the time and the space mentally and emotionally to resolve some of those resentments that I just could not let go of.
Wow.
It's funny you say that.
I didn't really realize that for myself.
I kind of hit a couple years ago.
I kind of had burnout.
I'd been working so hard.
And also I'd had a lot of stuff from my childhood that I'd never dealt with.
And it was, that stuff will find a way out of you.
100%.
It will find a way to this.
I mean, it is like a champagne and those bubbles will find their way to the top.
100%.
And it was killing me.
It was killing me.
I mean, I was miserable.
I remember sitting in my garage, like, I mean, wishing, thinking that I might, this might kill me because I can't handle how I feel.
I can't stand myself and I'm addicted to my, and I'm, and, and I'm all I think about at the same time.
Right.
And so it just felt, you know, it's not a poor me story.
It's just like that I didn't realize if it weren't for COVID, if I'd have been able to have some of those moments, you know, you got to look at it like this.
It's, it's like a butterfly in a cocoon.
You were cocooning, man, at a next stage in your life.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And who knows what goes on in that cocoon, but that's what went on in your cocoon.
And then you came out of it.
Yeah.
Now I feel like I'm slow.
It's taking some time.
It's taken a lot of work.
It's taken connecting with other people.
Yeah.
So that's a big problem for me.
Is it?
A big problem for me is at my age and just with how my life is, is developing friendships.
Now, I used to be, I used to have a million friends.
Yeah.
You know, I used to, making friends was easy.
And now it's gotten to the point for me where I have my family.
And so I think for me, I need more men that are my friends, that I'm accountable to, that we have good times, we do guy stuff, but also that we hold each other accountable and inspire each other.
You know what I mean?
Because that's the kind of people you want in your life.
Yeah.
So people that can try to be honest with you here and there.
And also inspire you and also make you want to be a better man.
Yeah.
And, you know, I need that in my life.
And so.
We'll have to go do something, man.
So you want to be friends?
I don't know if that'll help.
Yeah, look.
I don't know if it'll help either one of us, but I think we can try.
We can.
Who sang that song, Better Man?
Can't fuck?
That was Pearl Jam.
Oh, yeah.
That was the band that every band that came out after Pearl Jam with a singer that had a semi-baritone voice got compared to.
Hootie and the Blowfish was called a Pearl Jam rip-off.
Really?
Can you believe that?
No, but if you go back and look at the articles, you'll find them.
Wow.
You know, and they're nothing like Pearl Jam.
Creed is nothing like Pearl Jam.
We're more of a metal-based band because of Mark Trimani's influences and what he brought to the table musically than we ever were.
But because of the tone and the timbre, you know, you get the comparisons.
And hey, what an honor.
What an incredible band.
What an incredible band and a band that's really lived on and stood the test of time and still selling out arenas and stadiums today, man.
What was like a big influence to you, maybe?
Growing up?
Yeah.
Musically?
Yeah.
The biggest influence on me musically was you two.
Yeah.
In the way that I approached how a band should be and also how I approached my songs and how I wanted to make people feel.
Because I remember there was like a two or three year period in my life where I could not get the Joshua Tree out of my cassette deck in my Dotson B210 mustard yellow with honeycomb rims.
Yeah, it was 1973, baby.
That thing comes with an erection, bro.
It was fire.
It was fire.
And I went down and got a Mac stereo and Radio Shack.
Oh, Radio Shack, bro.
Put that in there, man.
And I was bumping.
And that's all I listened to.
That's all I listened to.
And that music, it saved me during a period of my life.
It inspired me.
It made me feel a certain way.
And so when I began songwriting, I knew I had a good song when I knew it made me feel like you too made me feel on that particular album.
And so that's who I always strove or strived to be and wanted my music to make people feel.
It's interesting, man.
Yeah, I think.
Because we sound nothing, sorry to interrupt.
We sound nothing like them.
Right.
What album was that?
You too?
You bring that up?
Joshua Tree.
Let's see.
A Joshua Tree album.
How did you get the album?
How did you first hear about it?
You heard about it on the radio?
A friend of mine had it, and I lied to my parents and told them they were a Christian band.
Wow.
You snuck it in.
I snuck it in, man.
Oh, yeah.
And if you listen to the lyrics on that record, you could convince your parents that they were a Christian band if you played them certain snibbets here and there.
In God's Country, there's one already.
There you go right there.
Hey.
But that album is probably, in my opinion, one of the greatest albums ever written.
Got to listen to this.
And check it out if you haven't heard it.
I found a cassette tape.
I was working in Arizona.
I found a cassette tape.
It was the Beatles Abbey Road, right?
And I'd never heard the Beatles.
Like, I didn't know.
My mother, I think, would sometimes listen to some clean the house and listen to Brian Adams and make us sing the songs while she did.
Brian Adams.
Everything I do.
Oh, I love that song.
What if it was a stiff movie?
It made me cry when I saw the movie.
Oh, really?
I mean, it's the movie.
The Robin Hood movie?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And that song with Kevin Costner.
Oh, with Kevin Costner.
When it comes in in that moment after you've watched the whole movie, your eyes have to water right there.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
I would just be scrubbing Comet on the kitchen floor.
And you wanted to fall in love just like that, didn't you?
Fucking coughing Wendex and no other.
Our fucking my sister getting beaten in the kitchen.
Oh, I feel you.
I feel you.
And we used to listen to the Traveling Wilberry she would play.
And she would play what else?
One more album that she would play.
Oh, Muddy Waters.
Muddy Waters.
That's a diverse collection.
It was good.
She was good.
Yeah, she had some taste.
She did have some taste, man.
She did.
And I remember, but I found the Abbey Road cassette tape one time when I was working in Arizona and I put it in my player.
And I would know exactly how long my cigarette would last through a certain amount of songs.
Wow.
How long it would take me to drive from one place to another place.
I would play that.
That was some serious OCD.
Yeah, I was dialed in.
You were dialed in, man.
Fucking point.
Yeah, I loved that.
There was something I loved more about that time before this phone, before social media, where it was like the cassette tape.
It was like everything was a little more purposeful.
It was like, I'm playing this.
It's going to take me a second.
I have to play this song, even though I'm not playing it musically, but I have to put it in the thing, get the thing there where it is.
And you listen to the whole thing.
At least I did.
I listened to the whole thing.
Like when I would sneak down to my friend's house and listen to Death Leopard Pyromania, which was another huge inspiration on me.
I remember being nine years old and photograph came on MTV.
And I couldn't watch MTV at my house, but I was down at my friend's house and his parents were gone and photograph came on and there was this cool rock and roll singer and he had, there was this hot chick in the video.
And I'm up on the on the coffee table with a tennis racket playing air guitar.
And I'm looking, I'm like, I want to be just like him.
You know what I mean?
And so that was another band that inspired the rock star side.
God heard you.
And yeah.
That crazy.
Yeah, man.
It's crazy sometimes the things we speak out that you don't know if if the if the universe is listening.
Yeah, man.
It is.
We've got to be careful what we say.
I know.
Because it may it may come true.
You know, I mean, the greatest, I think the number one thing that changed my life is I was so bad in school and elementary school that they didn't know what to do with me.
So they pulled me out of class.
And my desk.
It's kind of an elementary.
Yes.
It's not even that.
I know.
My desk was in the principal's office because I spent so much time there.
They just put a desk in there.
So that's where I went every day.
And so the music teacher comes in the office and my birth name is Anthony.
And so she said, Anthony, what are you doing in here?
And I was like, well, this is where I have to come to school.
And she goes, really?
Why?
And I was like, because I cut Jenny's ponytail off with scissors.
And because I did.
I don't know why I did.
I just did.
She needed a crown.
And I like to stand up on my desk and dance when a teacher would turn her back.
Oh, you like to act out.
Yeah.
And, you know, and I just, I guess I prevented others from learning.
And so she came in and she said, hey, I want you to come to the gym after school.
And I want to see if, are you interested in being in chorus?
And I said, well, I can sing like, and I started singing to her all the songs that were eye on the radio.
Like Phil Collins was really big when I was in elementary school.
Yeah.
I remember riding on the bus and that song was playing.
And I was just like, yeah, and I'd be singing it at the top of my lungs.
And whatever was on the radio, I could mimic.
Oh, I see.
And I would mimic.
And so I had kind of a sense of pride in how I could sing.
And so when she brought that up, I was like, yeah, absolutely.
I'll come.
And so I went to the gym after school and tried out.
And she was like, well, I like how you sing.
And she gave me my first solo when I was nine years old at the school play was Yesterday by the Beatles.
And I sang that song and the crowd cheered.
And I believe that was the beginning of the calling being manifest into my life.
And I owe it all to that music teacher who asked me what I was doing in the principal's office every day.
Wish I could find her.
Yeah, that's interesting, man.
It's interesting how the little way, the avenue that it comes to the surface, you know?
Well, it's weird.
It's like it's all scripted out.
You know, somebody the other, who was I talking to the other day, they said that life, it's all already been written and we're just living it out.
I wonder sometimes.
Kind of crazy.
I wonder sometimes.
It's wild to think.
I knew whenever you had spoken, you and I had spoken on the phone before you came in the other day, just, you know, to make sure each other were human beings.
Right.
And you had talked about just kind of some wild experiences at church, just some of that church vibe growing up.
What was some of that like?
I just want to go into a little bit of that just so I have a little bit of a concept of what that, what the tangible world of that.
I had some very, very strange experiences.
Because this is down in Florida now.
It's down in Florida, man.
This is where the Lord goes on vacation sometimes.
Absolutely.
Jesus is there right now.
He's riding rides at Disney World.
Yeah.
You know, come to me, you know, all the children.
But, you know, they were speaking in tongues.
It was prophesying.
You know, Benny Hinn?
Yeah.
Okay, we went to his church.
Really?
He prophesied over me when I was like nine years old.
I'll never forget it.
I'm trying to find the tape because I know that they filmed.
Yeah, there's got to be one.
They filmed his whatever, but my parents visited his church.
And this is strange.
This is a crazy story.
He called everybody forward, all the kids.
And he was doing his deal where he walks by and touches your head and you fall down.
Bring a picture up of Benny Henn there, Dad.
Yeah, bring him up.
Let's see this man.
I remember they used to do, my dad used to drink and watch him.
There he is.
There's a man.
Oh, boy.
And I think I've shared this story maybe one or two times.
We got the diamond.
Or maybe I wrote about it in my first book.
What was the book called Disawni?
It's called Sinner's Creed.
Now, it was a little censored because it was with a Christian publisher.
A lot censored.
A lot of stuff that I let, you know.
But so I went forward because all the kids went forward.
And I was determined that this man was not going to push me down because I was convinced that that's what he was doing.
And so I was standing right next to a pew and I had my left arm on the pew and I positioned my back foot, you know, like where I was bracing myself.
There ain't no way I'm falling down.
And man, everyone's dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping.
And he gets up to me and he stops.
No lie.
And he says, this young man's going to affect millions of people's lives.
And then started speaking in tongues and did his hand like that.
And I fell right to the floor.
No way.
Yep.
I'll never forget how I felt, too.
I felt like when I woke up, tears were coming down my face.
And I felt like I had just rinsed my insides out with Listerine or scope.
That's how my insides felt.
I'll never forget it.
It's a true story, man.
And I'm telling you, man, I tried with, so I don't know what, how he does it or, you know, they call it the Spirit of God, but it happened.
And it happened that day and I felt it.
So I had experiences like that happen to me as a child.
Did you believe that it did you believe that it had an effect on any of your, did you, do you believe that you remembered that over time or that part of your life?
Absolutely.
Wow.
Absolutely.
I think it affected my ego.
And I think it was a part of somewhere back there, a part of my drive.
Because I believed when I met Mark and we started the band, you were not convincing me that we weren't going to be the biggest rock band in the world.
I knew it.
I already knew it.
Right.
Nobody else did.
And there's a story in my band will tell you.
We had this drummer that kept not showing up for, or a bass player who kept not showing up for band practice.
And so I fired him and I said, you just missed out on being in the biggest rock band in the world.
And this is before we even played a show.
Wow.
That's my crazy crutch.
I was crazy.
I was that guy.
But you have to maybe be that guy.
I was crazy and I believed it.
It was arrogant.
Definitely an arrogant thing to say.
But I believed it.
I believed it in my heart.
Somebody has to believe it, though.
And the guys, I think that conviction and that drive, I think was contagious.
And it happened for us.
The odds of that.
Yeah.
Well, I also think that that goes to, you know, a lot of people talk about, you know, manifestation and speaking things into existence and whatnot.
And I don't know about where I sit and what I feel about all that stuff.
But if I look back on my life, a lot of that played out.
You know, a lot of that played out.
It sounds like it.
You know, it's powerful.
I think about all the time that I spend talking or running things in my head that are unhelpful to me, not necessarily negative, because I do do much less like berating myself or things these days.
I'm not as hard on myself.
I can notice when it's popping up.
But how much if I just woke up into the world and said, this is what I want, you know?
This is what I would love.
How few times have I done that in my life?
Spoken out into the living, existing world.
And then take action.
But also then get a feeling of what the actions to take are.
Yes.
And believe it.
And there was nobody that could tell me at the time different.
I had blinders on.
And if you weren't in tune with my vision, I couldn't see you.
Wow.
And, you know, it's crazy.
I was that crazy guy.
I absolutely was that crazy guy.
And then I ended up being that crazy guy in public quite a few times.
Yeah.
But, you know, I think it takes a little bit of crazy, like you had alluded to, to make it and to do what you got to do to make it.
Yeah, it's hard.
It's hard to make it.
Yeah.
It's hard to make it.
It's hard to sustain.
And it's so much once you have some like, because you want to get the most out of yourself.
You want to get the most out of the opportunity.
For me, you get scared of what steps you're supposed to take or what's supposed to be next kind of.
That's one of the first things that happens.
I remember I got this, I don't say it was like a God complex for a while, but I got like this, like guys would call into the podcast that were struggling with stuff.
And I started thinking, man, God's using me.
I absolutely had the same thing.
To help, like, I'm some, and it was, it was awesome because I think some of it might have been true that God was using me because I had a voice and there were people who struggled with the same stuff I did.
But then part of me started, it was like, this is impossible.
I can't help every single person.
I can't.
Well, I think part of part of why I had that complex for a number of years was because my abusive stepfather had that complex.
And then the types of churches that I went to imprinted that complex on you.
Really?
Yeah.
I mean, you don't, I mean, just with everything that they would tell you about your destiny and about the plan.
And, you know, God has these enormous plans for your life and he's going to use you to change the world.
I mean, I'd be delusional if I thought that I was the only one Benny Hinn said that to.
I bet he said it to all of them.
Right.
You know what I mean?
So if you say it to everybody, you're going to get one right.
You know what I mean?
So I think growing up in that time of Jim Baker and Benny Hinn and the evangelical movement, the Assembly of God movement, they were imprinting that destiny on young people's minds.
So for everyone that did go on to do something that impacted their community or their state or the United States or the world, if they were raised in that environment, I'm sure they dealt with a little bit of a God complex if they grew up the same way and was programmed is what I call it the same way that I was programmed growing up.
Yeah, programming's wild, man.
Did you guys ever have Animalia come into the thing?
Did y'all ever do like a, because I went to one church where they had I went to a church that, did you ever see the guy?
They, it was the Crystal Cathedral?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
Remember that one with Robert Schimmel?
No, not Robert Schimmel.
No, Schuler?
Schuler.
Yes.
Yeah.
With Schuler.
Absolutely.
So those doors opened up on the back of the church.
I went, I would go there sometimes with this older lady that I knew, and I met her on this boat, actually.
But so we would go, and one time there's a lady sitting next to me.
The doors open up, a butterfly comes in, lands on this old lady's face.
I mean, just lands right in her makeup.
And I said to her, I said, hey, you have a butterfly on your face.
She goes, oh, that's my son.
She said he died in a car accident like 14 years ago.
And today's his birthday.
And sometimes he comes and visits me when I come here.
Wow.
It was just a crazy experience.
But I remember that that was a church where I took, where it was on television and stuff.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Anyway, I feel like we've talked about a pretty good bit, man.
Do you think?
We sure have.
I've talked about things I've never talked about.
Really?
Yeah.
I've never shared some of this stuff.
And I think it's cool that we've opened up these doors because it can give me a perspective.
It's given me a unique perspective on how my mindset was at the time.
And we're all a product, I guess, of how we were raised.
Yeah.
And what was put inside of us at our formative years.
I know.
And then we're all battling the, it's like, it's like, and then we get away and then we get to a point where we're like, well, who am I outside of this?
Right.
Do I believe this because it was put in me since I was a child?
Or am I choosing to believe in this because it's really my choice?
And that's where for me, I decided to go the polar opposite direction for a time and paid the price.
You mean the polar opposite direction, what, not doing music?
Not living that lifestyle.
Oh, yeah.
Not living a lifestyle that I was raised in the Christian world.
Oh, I see.
But did it make sense?
Kind of like, you know, I used to rationalize with God in my prayers and I'd say, well, God, how am I supposed to help a drug addict if I don't become a drug addict?
Oh, wow.
How am I supposed to help someone struggling with alcohol if I don't drink?
And I used to rationalize that and literally, this was my prayers.
How am I supposed to help someone with a problem with women if I don't date?
If I don't date out and get out and be that guy.
And that was my rationale to God.
God, I'm doing, you know, God, I'm doing this because I want to help people.
That's some bull crap, isn't it?
Right there.
Yeah.
Well, it's just interesting how we could, I'm trying to think if I can relate to that.
I can certainly relate to it.
I'm sure a lot of people can, of like knowing what I'm doing isn't good for me or right and continuing to do it.
Yeah.
You know, I absolutely did that.
But for me, having the, the, you know, the indoctrination that I had.
How can I do this if I don't have the experience with God?
Right.
Wow, that's interesting.
Right.
And I used to use the reference of Solomon in the Bible in my prayers with God.
I was like, I was like, God, you know, you made him the wisest man on the planet.
And he went out and did everything against you and experienced everything under the sun, you know, worship other gods, did every drug, you know, did other religions and whatnot.
And so I would use Bible stories that I had been referencing to discuss with God.
Right.
As like, well, God, how am I supposed to do this?
You know what I mean?
And this is when I was younger and thought that I was supposed to be, you know, a preacher or have some kind of spiritual calling in my life, which I ended up on the flip side having happen anyway.
I did end up having an impact for God through my music.
Even though I ran the complete opposite direction.
That's how we were talking about earlier about God will use you despite yourself, at least I believe.
But the excuses that I used to make for sin were incredible.
Well, and also the fact that you thought that you had to, you know, like, which I mean, of course, you do if you have a relationship with God, then you're going to have to have some communication with him.
And even through all that, even through the darkest times in my life, I still would be communicating and talking with God.
Even though I was living as far away from a life of someone who's a Christian or someone who is in the church or someone who knows right and wrong, I would still be in communication with God and trying to rationalize what I was doing.
It was really, really, really, really.
Was it painful?
Really dark place.
I bet.
Really not a good place to be in and a place that I never want to go back to.
Yeah.
Yeah, because you're almost playing hide and go seek with who you really want to be and stuff.
Well, you're not being authentic.
Oh, dude, I remember I would be, what I hated was just praying, God, if you just let me live through this night, if I was really messed up, you know, high on drugs, I'd be like, if you just let me live through this night, I'll never do this again.
And I mean, praying that harder than I'd ever prayed anything.
And you believed it.
Oh, I believed it.
But then once you came in, I would see, yeah, it would be certainly, yeah.
Well, it's crazy how quick I'd forget about that deal I made.
Right.
100%.
It's interesting, man.
Being alive is interesting, man.
And having unique journeys is interesting, man.
And you certainly had a lot of that.
What's your passion now, Scott?
Like, where do you find yourself with music?
Where do you find yourself?
Obviously, being a father is very important to you.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a big passion of mine is just being a father and being involved in my kids' lives.
Of course, music.
I love the creative process.
I love writing songs.
I've realized that that is probably one of the most fulfilling things in my life is that creative moment Where inspiration comes and then the excitement afterwards.
You know, it's something I crave and that I want on a regular basis.
You know, the fame and everything that comes with that is not something that's even on my radar.
It's not something that motivates me or something that I seek.
I just seek to be creative and chase, that's my new drug.
You know, that's my new alcohol.
Chase that inspiration and then also feeling it on stage when I perform.
But it's interesting about fame to go back to like how much you guys have.
I mean, you could only have so much.
Like there's not even any other levels of, you know, fame even feels like this thing where it's like you can get more.
But it's like, there's only so much you can have.
It's like your recognizable name.
Like your band was one of the biggest bands.
You played at the Super Bowl.
Like I ended up being a prisoner in my own home.
Couldn't go anywhere.
Really?
Yeah.
Just because of.
Yeah.
I had to have 24-hour armed security.
Really?
Yeah.
Live in.
There were death threats coming from religious extremists, and there were death threats coming from Satan worshipers or people who thought I was the Antichrist.
It was crazy, man.
I didn't know how to deal with it.
And so it was not what I thought it was going to be from that standpoint.
Now, on the road, in the arenas, you know, on the television performances and the big stages, it was incredible.
It was everything I had thought.
It was manageable, yeah.
Yeah.
But off the road, it was a very lonely experience.
And it probably creates a lot of paranoia, too, I would bet.
100%.
You don't even notice paranoia growing.
How much do you think?
Well, I remember when those death threats came in and my management told me that they were credible.
I remember walking off stage one time and having this massive anxiety because there were all these red pin lights pointed at my heart.
And so we banned laser lights from arenas because I was so traumatized.
How do you deal with that?
I mean, I still had a mattress shared with my bass player in Tallahassee.
You know what I mean?
In an apartment that was like a thousand bucks a month.
And we're playing arenas.
I'm not prepared for that kind of stuff.
So I didn't handle it too well.
God, you know?
Was there ever a point where like any of the Satanists came at you, like actually like broke into your home or, you know, or lit a sheep on fire?
I did have someone, and I lived in a gated, secured community and had live-in armed security at the time.
And someone did get over the fence and did show up at my door, barefoot in a dress.
Man or woman?
Woman.
She had a stack of papers to prove to me that I was the father of her four children.
At the time, I was probably 26, and her kids were like 22, 19, 18, and 17. So I was their father.
So maybe the 17-year-old.
And Jim Morrison was our father.
So we were brother and sister.
Wow.
Yeah.
Did you sit down and talk about it with her for at least a minute?
No, I had to close the door and call security.
Because, I mean, I had my baby son in my arms.
Oh, yeah.
You know, it was, so it was scary, huh?
Yeah, it was definitely an interesting story and situation.
Was it scary how fast you went from being just like a guy who is playing music and has his own goals and dreams and your band does to this other echelon thing?
Like, did that happen extremely fast?
Extremely fast.
Wow.
That's unbelievable.
Yeah.
Because you can't go back.
There's no, I mean, that's an elevator that you can't really go back.
And we loved it.
I mean, we loved it at the time.
But looking back, I was not emotionally capable or built or prepared to handle everything that was thrown at me.
I can totally relate to that.
You know what I mean?
And so because of not having those tools, I just bounced around and handled it the best I could.
And I wasn't good enough at times.
You still did a great job.
I mean, it may have not been, yeah, I guess in the ways that it wasn't good enough, it wasn't good enough as what, like a co-worker kind of stuff?
Just how I dealt with things.
Yeah.
You know, in excess.
Yeah.
And a lot of that, I think, was to, was to initially, you know, to mask, you know, whatever fear or anxiety or insecurity or just wanting to have a good time, all of that.
Oh, totally.
And, you know, didn't end well.
You know, I mean, it's gone good overall.
Overall, but I'm sure there was a lot of stuff there.
But I'm just saying, you know, it can definitely play with you.
And I think, you know, I'm not the only artist who would tell this story in any genre.
Right, right.
Because who's really built for that?
You know, so young?
I mean, I'm sure there are some, you know, like, and they still struggle.
Well, especially not, I don't think guys like you and me, I think that are probably have similar traumas from you being, when you say you don't have, you're not emotionally built, that's totally locked in related to.
I still feel that way, man.
Yeah.
I still feel like today that I'm, I look at, I'll look at other families and I'll look at other dads and I'll be like, man, I'm still not where I need to be.
Really?
I'm still, yeah, I'm still not, at least I feel that way about myself.
I'm still not emotionally and maturity-wise where I need to be and where I want to be.
What did your kids say about you?
What do my kids say about that?
What would they say, you think?
Would they agree with that?
I don't know.
Just curious, kind of like, you know, like what a kid's perception would be of what the dad thinks of themselves, you know?
I think my three at home would say I'm a good dad and I love them and they feel loved by me and that I'm present and I'm there.
And I think that's all I can be.
It's a lot.
Yeah, I'd love.
A lot of people would love that.
I'm trying to think of those ones.
Oh, was there...
No, I got to work with the Doors.
You got to work with the Doors?
Yes.
With Jim Morrison?
I did.
No, no, no, he had passed, unfortunately.
But the remaining member of the Doors, which is just like, I mean, it's crazy to imagine that I got to go rehearse in LA for a gig on VH1 with the remaining members of the Doors and then record some songs with them, play with them on television.
And I'm, you know, just thinking back, I was 18 watching, you know, the Doors movie at a buddy's house and Jim Morrison and the band, you know, they were an idol to me.
And then years later, getting a chance to jam with them, I mean, it's just, it's insane.
It's insane.
It's crazy.
But it was an incredible experience.
It was good.
Was there an artist that you wanted to play with that you didn't get to?
You two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dude, I went to an MTV like movie award something one time.
I get out of the car that I'm in and people are like going insane, right?
And I thought it was for me, right?
And then I realized that I'm walking right next to Bono.
And I'm like, ah, shit.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And in about four seconds, I got to be Bono, though.
Like, I had no idea.
You got to feel the love.
Oh, people are going crazy.
I was like, this is, I'm doing good.
That's awesome.
And I looked, then I realized it was him.
That is awesome.
Yeah.
That is awesome.
Yeah, that would be exceptional.
Who knows, though, man?
Who knows what the future holds, right?
Who knows, man?
Yeah.
Anything is possible.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
Scott Steph, I appreciate you so much coming by, man.
Yeah, I'd love to.
We'll have to catch up sometime.
Yeah, man.
We're not farming.
You got my number.
I got your number.
Yeah.
We've text.
So don't be a stranger, man.
Stay in touch.
I'd love to.
Grab a meal or just spend more time just chatting about this kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Appreciate your time, man.
Good to be here.
Thanks for having me.
You bet.
Now, I'm just floating on the breeze.
And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind.
I found I can feel it in my bones.
But it's gonna take ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite, and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
The answer may shock you.
Sometimes I'll interview my friends.
Sometimes I won't.
And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
You have three new voice messages.
A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.
I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.
So great.
Aye, Suiar.
Easy deal.
Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.
Charmaine.
Hi, I'll take a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry.
Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.
Oh, no!
Oh!
I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.
Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club.
Second rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club.
Third rule, like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts or watch us on YouTube, yeah?
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