His own prison

These days it's really hard to feel sorry for Scott Stapp, disgraced former lead singer of Creed, after his latest round of scandalous headlines. I always love when famous people, like politicians and entertainers, blame the media for their misdoings. Yeah Scott, it was the media that made you get arrested for public intoxication on your honeymoon at LAX last month. The same goes for the fight with bar fight with the band 311 last fall.
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It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to figure out that if you are famous and act like complete drunken idiot in public, it will be reported. And the hits keep on coming and coming (in all senses of the word). Stapp's dumb ass lost a homemade porn he made with Kid Rock and four strippers and low and behold, it wound up on the internet. Didn't Paris Hilton teach no-talent celebrities anything by her mistake? To make matters worse, one of the strippers is suing Stapp for invastion of privacy and in her suit claims, "For all purposes, she is the star of the females in the video." That's a pretty loose interpretation of what it is to be a star, but I guess anything goes in Hollywood.
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You know it's bad when Kid Rock calls you an idiot. If the concept of 'no such thing as bad publicity' holds true, it's really a good move for both of them considering how mediocre their careers are at the moment. The nicest twist is that the homemade masterpiece was filmed in Kid Rock's trailer -- trailer? No, you don't say! I bet is has a Budweiser black light poster in it and a La-Z-Boy with built in drink holders in the arm rests. Stapp claims that "someone" is trying to ruin his "career", but the damage done begins and ends with him. To have the lion's share of self-righteous Wal-Mart Christian music with cliched Zeppelinesque guitar and then to fall down those mighty stairs is humorous because of the irony and the ego that doesn't face up to mistakes made.

In the 40 seconds of tame footage released on the internet, Stapp sits in a chair with a stripper on his lap and says, "It's good to be king." Jesus would be so proud Scott.

Both sides of the Creed story were presented in a recent article in Rolling Stone. Even before his antics I always thought Stapp, or Sapp as I like to call him, was an arrogant ass. After reading this article I actually felt sorry for the rest of the band for having to put up with him. Stapp can continue to blame the media, his enemies and other dark demonic forces that cause him to act like a raving drunken lunatic. As long as its someone else's fault, it will never stop and for the entertainment press, these stories are tabloid dreams come true.

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Here are a few excerts from the Rollling Stone article:

From Rolling Stone,

MARK BINELLI
Posted Jan 12, 2006 2:33 PM

• "I'd always said, 'I'm not going to be one of those arrogant, asshole lead-singer guys,'" says Stapp. "But I really let that media stuff affect me. I developed a bitterness, and then I would walk into interviews with a chip on my shoulder. And I started drinking like I never drank before. I might have come across as holier-than-thou, but I was really just a messed-up kid looking for answers who fell back on his faith. It all hurt me, though. I felt like I was the reason these guys' dream wasn't happening. I think their rock & roll dream got screwed over by my lyrics."
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• Things came to a head at the infamous Chicago show. Says Mark Tremonti, former Creed guitarist, "Fifteen minutes before we went onstage, I saw Scott, staggering, slurring his words. I looked behind him, and there's a bottle of Jack Daniel's, half-drunk. I didn't even look at him again until we were onstage, because I wanted to wring his neck. He got all the words wrong and walked offstage after five songs. I had to get on the mike and say, 'Sorry, I'll be right back.' Backstage, Scott is laying on the couch with his eyes closed. I said, 'What the hell are you doing?' He was like, 'Oh, I'm sorry, dude. I thought the show was over.'"
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• Upon returning to the stage, Stapp removed his shirt and shoes (but not his socks) and lay on his back. Says Kelsey, "At one point, he was walking backwards while singing and fell over a monitor. You could see his socks flapping in the air."
  "He was singing the words of 'Arms Wide Open' to 'Higher,' and the words of 'Higher' to 'Arms Wide Open' -- two of our biggest songs!" says Tremonti. "I don't blame the crowd for being pissed. That was the most embarrassing hour-and-a-half of my life."

(03/06/05 -- post script: One of my favorite shows, "Best Week Ever" used this same headline in reporting the same story. While I think my post was more informative than their 30 second segment, I will share the duel credit of coming up with the same idea.)