Scott Stapp spoke to the “Appetite For Distortion” podcast about how he has been spending his coronavirus downtime. He said (hear audio below): “Well, it’s gone through phases. Initially, I just hunkered down with my family and my kids and just dove into daddy/husband mode and just really took advantage of the opportunity I had to spend this extra time with my kids and my wife. I was also promoting a new single right at the beginning, so I was still working but from home. Technology affords us that ability — some of us — to be able to continue to do Zoom meetings, Zoom interviews. In lieu of visiting radio stations, I was doing Zoom calls and phone calls. And then, after that phase passed, I continued, of course, with the kids and looking for projects. We started a little farm and built a chicken coop and had chickens and ducks, and raised them from little chickies to now they’re big chickens. They’re free range, but they’ve got a place to go at night that’s safe. So that was a project we did. We had other projects — just trying to stay busy.”
The Grammy-winning songwriter, solo artist and voice of CREED continued: “Of course, there’s a little itch, trying to figure out, what do I do? I wanna work, but I can’t. We found a way to socially distance through Zoom and [stage] a mini-concert and put that out for the fans. And then I think everything started to sink in even deeper with what was going on in the world, and songs began to come, especially over the last couple of months. A lot of writing, a lot of singing into my cellphone as melodies, a riffs, as other ways that I create songs come to me, I document them and then go back and begin to write.
“So it’s really kind of been an evolution, and I think I felt the same concern, the same worry, the same fear at times, the same frustration as probably has at some point,” Stapp added. “I know everyone has it at a different level, as I’m fortunate, in my life, to be able to weather not being on the road for six to nine months. It’s tough, man. It’s definitely not been easy.”
Stapp is known as frontman for CREED (over 50 million albums sold worldwide), and for his work as a solo artist who released the platinum-certified “The Great Divide” (2005) and “Proof Of Life” (2013), which featured his first solo Billboard No. 1, “Slow Suicide”.
In July 2019, Scott released his first album in six years, “The Space Between The Shadows”.
Stapp went through a highly publicized, drug-inflamed meltdown in 2014, after which he entered into an intensive rehab program. Stapp also lost custody of his three children during this period, while also missing a court hearing and allegedly threatening to kill President Obama.
After completing rehab, Scott spent the following year in intensive therapy. Although he was initially diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it was later determined that it was severe depression that led to addiction. Now nearing six years of sobriety, Stapp spoke to Men’s Health about health and fitness in 2019 when his comeback album was released, saying, “I hate to use the word, but I guess it has become my new addiction.”
