For Bright Eyes frontman Conor Oberst, Creed sounded too much like Pearl Jam – in a bad way.
Not everyone can like everything. Conor Oberst, for example, once tried to dissuade his label from signing Creed.
Conor Oberst: Creed opponent from the very beginning
Creed is very popular on Spotify with over eleven million monthly listeners. One person probably didn’t see it coming: Conor Oberst, frontman of Bright Eyes. In the 1990s he also toured with the emo group Commander Venus, who were signed to the indie label Grass Records. His bosses Alan and Diana Meltzer once played Oberst’s first Creed songs – with the result that he recommended that the label not sign the up-and-coming group.
Jim Morrison or not?
“I said, ‘Guys, that sounds like a really bad version of Pearl Jam,'” Conor Oberst recalled in Broken Record Podcast. The Meltzers disagreed. “Diana said, ‘He’s like Jim Morrison. He’s the new Jim Morrison,’” Oberst continued. Another objection led to nothing – the label signed Creed. Her opponent at the time now sees the story with humor: “They released the music and it became the biggest thing in the world. So you have another reason never to believe my assessment.”
Turbulent career
Creed’s career was steep, but also riddled with interruptions. After the band was founded in 1994 and released its debut album MY OWN PRISON (1997) on Grass Records (at that time already renamed Wind-up Records), the band disbanded for the first time in 2004. In 2009 the band got back together and released the still current album. There was another separation in 2012, which was followed by another re-establishment in 2023. A safe, secure signing actually looks different, so Conor Oberst was probably not completely wrong. However, the Creed musicians were also successful; The three instrumentalists founded Alter Bridge in 2004 and frontman Scott Stapp continued solo, most recently with his fourth album HIGHER POWER in the spring.