[evyllsummer]

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Let me say this,and argue it if you want, but by researching, you will find this is true: Creed was one of, if not THE most successful rock band in the world for an nearly a decade.

well, research will show that, strictly speaking, it was about 6 years...still a remarkable achievement...

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Now to make matters worse, you are right in the middle of taking this band to the top, touring your f'ing ass off, and you find out you have nodules on your vocal cords. Think that is no big deal???

David Coverdale had surgery to remove a nodule, and he did some amazing vocals afterwards for the self-titled Whitesnake album...

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So instead of taking a break after the tour and helping him when he needed it most, they left him high and dry. Because of M O N E Y... Good friends they were.

I could argue with this, but I'm not going to, simply because that just comes down to whose side of the story you believe...however, I will point out that Stapp has changed and/or modified his story a lot over the last year, and the story from Brian, Mark, Flip, and Brett has been VERY consistant...

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Take any big band... Journey for example.. The general public might possibly be able to name Steve Perry as the lead vocalist, but probably cannot name the rest of the band. If you replaced the drummer for Journey, with a drummer that could maintain the Journey style of drumming, I don't think anyone would notice (excluding the musicians that are into that stuff). Replace the bass guitarist, same deal. Lead guitarist, majority of the time, same deal. But you replace Steve Perry????? Then Journey is gone. This happened with Skid Row. They went through many musicians over the years, nobody noticed. Then one day Sebastian left. Skid Row was over.

well, I think that time and place have a lot to do with popularity as well...when Journey reunited back in '96, they weren't selling out stadiums like they did in, say, '86...besides, it was Schon's band BEFORE Perry arrived, and it's STILL Schon's band...they enjoyed more success with Perry, though...Skid Row, well, their popularity was waning long before Bas left, as Subhuman Race was met with underwhelming numbers, and their lineup didn't change at all from the first album UNTIL Bas left (as Subhuman Race was the last album on which Bas performed)...and the fact that Windup has been putting quite a bit of effort into associating Creed with Stapp (something that Mark resisted quite a bit, to WU's dismay) only to find the results FAR less than rewarding MAY be an indicator that Creed's popularity might have been waning as well...not that it should matter...Creed was very successful, and they enjoyed their time...and, popularity shouldn't be an indicator of what is good and what isn't...

I do agree with your posit that the average (or casual) listener won't be able to distinguish between Stapp's band and Creed...I can say this because I wasn't a Creed fan, and TGD sounds like Creed to me...

Also, the Journey fanbase has actually been fairly consistant from the last Perry album to the current lineup with Augeri on vocals...doesn't hurt that Augeri sounds just like Perry...now that I think about it, Schon's other side project Soul Sirkus has Jeff Scott Soto on vocals, who ALSO can sound a lot like Perry when he wants to...

as for Skid Row, they were marginalized as "hair metal" or "cheese metal", so they were on their way out once the Seattle sound reset the norm...love the album Slave To The Grind, though...Bas was incredible on that album, and Subhuman Race was quite good as well...

I agree with the big point that you're trying to make, though, Brad...as MOST of the audience aren't going to be musicians, it's the singer's job to connect to the crowd...those who aren't musicians and aren't there to pay attention to the guitar, drums, or whatever, are going to be listening and/or watching the lead singer...if the singer's words don't connect, the band will have a rough time making it...