Creed's debut album is a breakthrough album, it's something most bands don't experience but this album is the beginning of a powerful band that just exploded with an album, after an album and that's the story of "My Own Prison".
Music is life...
Our story begins in the Tallahassee prairie in California USA, somewhere in the mid nineties. When the grunge scene started to fade away and something else develops in the music world, it gets the name Post Grunge. Our two teen heroes Mark Tremonti and Scott Stapp which are at the same university and working as cooks in local restaurants, discover they have a common interest/talent. They both love to listen to music but also to create and write.
The two start working together, playing and making music. They decide to dedicate their lives to music and form a band, they enlist Brian Marshall on bass, Scott Philips on drums and Brian Brasher on rhythm guitars (he will short after). The five riders start performing as a cover band in clubs, bars and even restaurants and occasionally thread original songs.
They are still not cohesive in terms of musical identity and also have no name, they decide to randomly choose a name from a local newspaper and fall for an article titled "Naked Toddler", they adopt the name for several appearances until they choose the name "Creed" suggested by Brian inspired by his previous band name .
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Our heroes lead the band, Mark is in charge of the music and most of the melodies (even some of the lyrics) and Scott brings his own additions and lyrics. They do not know what the future holds but they are sure it is their way and they go for it with all their might. They set up an impromptu rehearsal room in the living room of Phillips' house and begin working on the songs. Scott said that while writing, after they created 6-7 songs they did not really form their musical identity until the song "Grip My Soul", a song that was not released on any album or single, but it is the song after which the band members looked at each other and understood their musical identity, they realized that this is what they want to be. After that formative moment they wrote another 10-13 songs and start compiling a list for the debut album.
Someone opened the door...
The emerging band continues to perform wherever possible while inserting original songs between the covers. A guy named Jeff Hansen, who owns a club where the band appears and was very impressed with what he heard and decided to help the young gang. He connects them to a producer and multi-instrumentalist John Kurzweg, who is also a very cheap one and decides to invest $ 6,000 in the band. John invites the band to record at The Kitchen Studio, his home studio among the toys, beds, armchairs and other furniture in his house and everyone starts working. Indeed this combination works, a chemistry is created between the band members and the producer and after the members hear their music recorded for the first time they realize that they have something special here.
They record 10 songs and release the album "My Own Prison" under their independent label Blue Collar Records, Mark's brother, Daniel Tremonti designs the cover. He chose a picture he took in a photography class in which his good friend sits bent over in the corner of an iron wall. Scott loved the picture and feels very connected to what it is generating and how it reflects the lyrics on the album. They took the materials and with a loan from Brian's father they printed 5,000 copies. They distributed the copies in shopping centers and stores, and within a month they managed to sell the entire quantity.
Music spreads faster than fire...
The album begins to resonate and a number of major record companies begin to take an interest in the band. The Wind-Up Records label is sending its new apprentice Diana Metzler to Tallahassee to look into the matter. She comes to the show where the band already has a pretty large local fan base and she is simply dazzled by Scott's stage presence and Mark's sound. She flies them to New York and within a week she signs them to the label, the young apprentice's first signing. Mark said that Scott and Brian took old pins, scratched themselves and signed the contract with blood !!
The album is remixed and remastered and re-released on August 26, 1997. Diana along with Hansen who has meanwhile become the band's manager sends the album to various radio stations around the city in order to leverage the fan base that has already begun to establish in the city. The first single that also bears the name of the album starts playing on local radio stations and the music starts to spread. A radio station in the neighboring city of Georgia decides to play the song "Pity for a Dime" and the buzz is gaining even more momentum, the station invites the band to perform in the city. Scott said it was a moment he will never forget, they came to the club, went on stage and instead of performing in front of 600 people they discovered 6,000 people in front of them, at that moment they knew their dream was coming true !!
The explosive chain lights up...
The first single begins to spread beyond the small town, surpassing even the neighboring cities and reaching many cities across the US, taking over the top of the charts. After the two comes out one of the band's great songs "What's This Life For" written by Trimonti following the suicide of one of his high school friends. Indeed, he too continues his predecessors and conquers the tops of the charts across the US. The last explosion in the chain "One" comes out almost a year and a half after the release of the album and not only does it conquer the various charts but it enters the famous Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album stays 110 weeks in the Billboard 200, sells over 6 million copies and wins a place in The 200 best-selling albums of all time in the United States.
Listen to the album on: Spotify, Apple Music