[RockGoddess]

As typed up by Glen5MD and posted at AlterBridgeBand.net:

On december 29th, 2002, Creed's Scott Stapp stepped out onstage in front of 15,000 people at Chicago's Allstate Arena and promptly sank to the floor, where he remained for the next hour.
Shortly afterwards, four horrified punters attempted to sue the band for damages, telling Cook County Court that the frontman of America's most successful band had spent the gig "rolling around in apparent pain or distress, so intoxicated and/or medicated that he was unable to sing the lyrics of a single song".
It was at that point that Creed's guitarist Mark Tremonti, whose entire family had been at the show, decided he'd had just about enough of "Scott F*&%i*@ Stapp".
"He just became impossible on that last tour," shudders the guitarist, who's sitting with his new band Alter Bridge-namely former Creed cohorts Brian Marshall and Scott Phillips, plus a new singer, Myles Kennedy-in a darkened corner upstairs at London's Mean Fiddler. "He couldn't manage his moods. He was the hardest guy in the world to get along with. We'd built up this massive amount of success and we were watching someone day by day pull the bricks off. It's not something I'd want to deal again. Ever."
Hence Alter Bridge-the magic combination of Creed's powerful, rumbling dynamics, and the sudden knack of writing great, classic rock songs with massive choruses and Kennedy's Chris Cornell-esque vocals...but crucially, minus the preaching of yore that irked so many.
Ah, yes. The preaching. It seems to have irked Alter Bridge's ex-Creed contingent somewhat, too-especially as it may not have been backed up by his actions...
Stapp claims his behaviour that night was brought on by prescription anti-inflammatory drugs. Is that true? Or was it something stronger? There's a long silence. The band exchange glances.
Mark: "You know, what happens behind closed doors...(long sigh) All I know is that, when you see someone acting like that, you know they're not acting like a normal person. He says the thing in Chicago was a combination of his medication and a shot of Jack Daniel's, but...With Scott you never knew if what he was saying contained an element of truth, or if it was just a bare-faced lie."
At this point bassist Brian Marshall enters the conversation for the first time. He looks Kerrang! squarely in the eye.
"Scott Stapp," he spits, "is a pathological f*&%i*@ liar."
If ever there was a band with an image problem, it was Creed. Their bombastic post-grunge anthems helped them shift 30 million albums in less than six years-an astonishing feat. Yet Stapp's fondness for Christ-like poses and spiritual subject matter led them to being pigeonholed as a Christian rock band. In the conservative heartland of Middle America, that was an invaluable marketing tool. Everywhere else, it just made them a laughing stock.
Thing is, lots of bands find themselves as critical pariahs-Nickelback, Alien Ant Farm-but the venom reserved for Creed, in particular Scott Stapp, was something else. This was a real, passionately-felt loathing that even mainstream, non-rocking America joined up for:American alt-comedian Patton Oswalt used to do a routine about his vision of heaven. It involved eating at his favourite restaurant-and every time he took a bite, Scott Stapp got punched in the face.
Rock fans were in agreement:the guy was a tool. Turns out the rest of Creed thought so too.
Mark:"He had this personality where he'd want to rule the room. We tried to deal with it for years, but it just got worse. He didn't even like music. He used to yell at us for listening to CD's on the bus because he said music was supposed to be our job, not our hobby!"
"There was a genuine dislike for Scott Stapp," nods brian. "And we all took the brunt of it for years."
Mark:"We were always having to defend him. We had to keep saying, 'No, he's not really like that'. It got to the point where you just couldn't defend him anymore. He had issues with so many people-our management, our label, everyone. You couldn't talk to certain people because Scott had an issue with them. It wasn't just friends either. Even my family got involved. When that happened, it was just like...that's it. You can't go there."
He doesn't sound like much of a Christian.
"Well the whole Christian thing was an assumtion people made. It was just that Scott wrote the lyrics, and he mainly wrote about Biblical things. So people thought (adopts dumb redneck voice), 'If he's referring to Gabriel in one of his songs he must be a good ol 'Church boy'. But what happens when you go to bars and get in fights, you know? All that stuff was swept under the rug."
Yet you wrote all the songs together. You must have had some kind of chemistry.
"We hadn't been a team for a long time. We met up for three weeks to write (Creed's final album) 'Weathered'. And that was the only time we wrote together in five years. It was impossible because he never came to soundchecks. Yet he would take credit for music that I had written. and too see credits go to someone who doesn't put in a hundredth of the effort you do...it's very irritating."
So who ended it? You or him?
Mark:"Scott's very good at trashing you to other people and then letting it get back to you. I heard this same thing that he'd said from four different people, so i was like, 'Look, this is over. I can't deal with you anymore'. He called me a few months later and wanted to get together and write. I told him I had a new band and that Creed was over. That was October 2003. I haven't spoken to him since."
Before they could become Alter Bridge, Tremonti and Drummer Scott Phillips first of all had to mend relations with bassist Brian, who actually hadn't been a member of the band since 2001. He'd been booted out by Stapp and forbidden to have any contact with his former colleagues. In fact, Alter Bridge's debut rehearsal was the first time Tremonti and Phillips had been in the same room as their old best friend for nearly three years.
Brian is reluctant to discuss his sacking. But it's clear from the way he speaks that there were some truly dark things going on.
"There was a long history of Scott and I not seeing eye-to-eye. It just built up and built up. It was unbearable. For me, I had a lot of personal issues at the time."
Scott once told MTV:"Brian left the band because if he didn't I don't know if he'd be here right now on this earth". What do you think he meant by that?
"I think he's referring to my mental state. I was dealing with a lot.
Your talking about drugs, right?
Long pause.
"I was doing things out on the road I probably shouldn't have done. I was no angel out there, thats for sure." He looks up. "But you know what? Scott wasn't the angel he claimed to be either."
Later that night, after an ecstactically received end-of-tour show-and one that suggests Alter Bridge are twice the their former incarnation was-there is the kind of ecstatic joy that comes with relief. There's the feeling that they're finally free.
Meanwhile, Mark and Brian are at the bar, buying people drinks and regaling Kerrang! with more-sadly unprintable- Creed stories.
"It's like when old prison mates or war vets get together and talk about the old times," explains Mark. "When you watch someone like that throw away all that you've worked for...it was just hell."
"But it's funny," he continues, signalling to the barman for another round. "As much as we want to leave all this in the past, it feels almost therapeutic to get it out."