Creed is having a second. Truly, if we’re being exact, it’s having innumerable moments, again and again, all throughout the web.
On Instagram, the band has been repurposed as a comedic machine for dunking on President Joe Biden; on TikTok, shitposters imagined what it might be like to elucidate the butt rock legends to an alien race; and on X, Creed is a simple punchline for commenting on political theater. All of the whereas, these memes are collectively accumulating tens of millions of likes, views, and shares.
It’s protected to say that if Charli XCX hadn’t already made 2024 a “brat summer season,” then this—so far as memes are involved—can be Scott Stapp season. And Stapp, for his half, appears to be absolutely conscious of it. “I’ve seen so many [memes],” the Creed frontman says. “Some are hilarious and I discover myself simply laughing, and a few are actually heartwarming when it comes to how a lot time and vitality the fan has put into creating the video.”
The wildest a part of all isn’t that Creed is being memed to dying—it’s that the band is seemingly being memed again to life. In 2024, Creed quietly clawed its means again from web punchline to actual, honest-to-god, record-selling rock band. By June, the band discovered itself again within the charts—the highest 40 no much less. Final month, the band’s Best Hits was climbing in gross sales.
Because of its surprising resurgence, Creed is even again touring, taking part in sold-out reveals with fellow postgrunge staples like 3 Doorways Down. On prime of that, they’re promoting tickets for enviornment gigs for upwards of $100. For the tremendous Creed-core, there’s the band’s second-annual Miami-to-Nassau “Creed cruise” in 2025, which lists top-tier tickets for an eye-watering $4,300. These tickets, by the way in which, are offered out.
Certain, previous music finds new audiences on a regular basis, typically with a bump from the web—however Creed isn’t different bands. Creed is a band that hasn’t launched a brand new studio album in 15 years and has spent most of that decade and a half because the butt of web jokes. By trade requirements, Creed was, at the least till lately, six ft underneath.
“Again in 2020, Creed hadn’t toured since 2012, so we have been type of intrigued, I feel can be the phrase, to see the curiosity and to see the songs having new life and resurgence and renaissance,” says Creed’s agent, Ken Fermaglich, who has been with the band for many years.
All of that begs a pair apparent questions: Why right here and why now?
In line with YouTuber Pat Finnerty, whose channel “What Makes This Track Stink” ritually roasts bands of Creed’s ilk, the equation for Creed’s comeback is an easy one: time + cringe = reputation.
Creed, Finnerty says, are actually previous the 20-year mark after which most aged bands can really feel new once more. “However then there’s the meme factor—you see all these memes of like ‘this band sucks,’ however now, to make use of the parlance of our time, ‘this band fucks,’” he provides. “They’re switching it from ‘this band sucks’ to ‘this band fucks’ and it’s truly funnier for them to get into it.”
