Creed's sound is my sound. |
My dad always said I was hard-headed, that it would take something like that to wake me up spiritually, and I guess it did. My heart had gotten so beat up that I didn't have anything left to give. |
I'd fired anyone who was involved with Creed. I didn't want anything to do with the music business. The entire press and industry hated me, so what was the point? |
It just took all of that to come to a screeching halt, to get to the point of having nothing, for me to finally realize, Hey, what are you fighting with this for? Until then, I hadn't claimed my faith as my own; I had just grown up with it. |
Now, there are people that are Christian artists, because they have a purpose to be evangelical for Christ. I don't feel I've been called to that yet. Now, that could change. There's no telling what kind of call God will put on my life. |
And it took me, since I was 17 and left home, running from God, to now, as a 30-year-old man, when I honestly feel like I've come full circle and my heart's finally in the right place. |
When something like that happens, people want to try to find some dirt and make it more of a soap opera. But I think we both walked away with the door still open, if we want to do something together again. So yeah, I would call it a friendly break-up. |
There comes a point with any collaboration like that where you start having other interests creatively. I was moving in one direction musically, and as a guitar player, Mark wanted to move in another direction. That was essentially the reason we broke up. |
I think everything worked out the way it was supposed to. Mark's happier. I'm sober. There are still phone calls to be made, people I need to say something to. But everyone from Creed who I've offended or hurt, I ask for their forgiveness. |
No charges have been filed by the L.A. district attorney's office, and for that I am appreciative. I have said it before, but we all make mistakes, and the day will come soon enough where you no longer read of mine in the tabloids. |
I always believed in God and Christ, but I was in rebellion - trying to make my relationship with God fit into my life instead of making my life fit in with him. I was stubborn. |
You can sell millions of records, be showered with all this love and admiration and still feel despised and unwanted. That's what I felt. I've made a lot of mistakes I'm not proud of. |
I was emotionally and spiritually dried up, so I was just searching for God. |
Creed was ended by egos and people wanting to do their own thing and poor decision-making. |
I started making some proper decisions, getting things in order. It's kind of like cleaning up your house. I was looking for direction for what God wanted me to do - and that's when I got a call about The Passion. |
The Christian community latched onto a lot of my music, because there were a lot of things about my struggle they related to. But I didn't really want to come out and be identified as a Christian, because I didn't want to be a hypocrite, because my life wasn't right. |
I'm still going to make mistakes, but I don't have any problems with publicly professing my faith now. It just took me a long time to get to the right place in my relationship with Christ. |
My problems were not what ended Creed. |
I was a Christian in Creed, but nobody ever asked me. |
I was raised in a climate where I believed in God because I was afraid of going to hell - and I didn't think that was the right way to fall in love with somebody. |