When Creed last headlined New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2000, the rockers were on a major roll after releasing their 1999 blockbuster “Human Clay.”
But playing the big daddy of all arenas, frontman Scott Stapp was in a different kind of fatherly feels.
“I brought my son Jagger out, and I’ll never forget bringing him out as a little boy onstage,” Stapp, 51, told The Post. “And you know, the whole thing ‘If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere’ …. I got to share that memory with my little boy.”
Twenty-four years after that father-son bonding moment, Stapp and Creed are finally making their way back to the Garden on their “Are You Ready?” reunion tour that hits MSG on Friday night.
And the singer is rocking it as a grandfather this time. “Now [Jagger is] 26 years old and married, and I have a grandson, Cash, and another grandson, Colt, about to be born,” said Stapp. “And so it’s crazy how time flies.”
No doubt, much has changed for Stapp — and Creed — since then. But as this tour celebrates the 25th anniversary of “Human Clay” — a monster album that went diamond with over 11.5 million US sales on the strength of hit singles “Higher” and the No. 1 smash “With Arms Wide Open” — the band is back on the biggest of stages.
“It’s a full circle moment, you know?” said Stapp. “And so it’s definitely a surreal experience. And it’s going to be a night to remember.”
After the success of Creed’s 1997 debut “My Own Prison” — which went six-times platinum — the band was hardly worrying about suffering a sophomore slump with “Human Clay.”
“We didn’t have time to think about that,” shared Stapp. “The success happened so fast with ‘My Own Prison’ [that] we literally went from clubs to arenas in 18 months. And during the course of that period of time, we didn’t have enough material to play a headline set, and so we were feverishly just writing songs on tour.”
“Human Clay” was molded out of that write-or-die desperation on the road. “We were writing songs at sound check and in hotel rooms,” said Stapp of his songwriting spree with Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti.
“I have specific memories of getting inspired and writing and then running to Mark’s room and going, ‘Hey man, let’s do this.’ And then literally debuting them for the first time in front of big audiences, just because we needed to have a longer set time.”
One of those songs was “Higher” — the lead single from “Human Clay” — which became Creed’s first Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Stapp’s exploration of lucid dreaming turned into real-life inspiration in the middle of a freestyle one night.
“I kind of put the band on the spot,” he said, “but Mark kind of rolled with me and started playing something, and the chorus for ‘Higher’ just came out live on stage.”
The Grammy-winning “With Arms Wide Open” was born when Stapp was processing the news about becoming a new dad. “I had just found out prior to a club show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in early 1998 that I was going to be a father for the first time,” he recalled. “I went inside to tell the band, and I heard Mark doodling with his guitar.
“And I said, ‘Dude, just keep playing that over and over and over again.’ And it was the guitar-picking intro for ‘With Arms Wide Open.’ And I stepped up to the mic during sound check and just started singing what was in my heart.”
But after scoring another multiplatinum album with 2001’s “Weathered” — featuring the hit “My Sacrifice” — Creed broke up in 2004. Stapp went on to pursue a solo career, beginning with 2005’s “The Great Divide,” but also struggled with mental health problems while battling alcohol addiction.
“Addiction and alcoholism can also kind of have some side effects, if you will, that can manifest as depression,” said Stapp. “And we were all so young, we didn’t really understand the factors that were creating this scenario.
“It’s very easy for young artists, when you’re playing every night, when you’re having this meteoric rise, and every night’s a party to the audience … that can turn into how you are offstage as well. It can have dire consequences when it perpetuates and becomes something that’s consistent.”
Stapp was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after suffering a psychotic break and has now been sober for 10 years.
“It seems like we live in a society and world today where artists are extended much more grace and understanding and compassion than they were 25 years ago,” he said. “I’m glad that artists today are looked at and cared for and understood a little more deeply than they were back then, and the stigma is off these issues.”
Stapp — who also released a new solo album, “Higher Power,” earlier this year — is bringing his healthier outlook and perspective to the Creed reunion tour.
“This doesn’t sound very sexy in terms of being in rock ’n’ roll, but I’m out here working, and I have a job to do,” said the singer, who has three other children with his second wife, former Miss New York USA Jaclyn Nesheiwat. (They announced their plan to divorce after 18 years of marriage earlier this year.)
“My job is to deliver this music and a performance to these fans that they expect and that meets my standards. And I can’t do that if I’m partying and participating in all the trappings that surround the entertainment business.”
Indeed, Stapp has a new, wiser appreciation for the fans — old and young — that he will continue embracing with arms wide open as the reunion tour hits MSG.
“What’s beautiful about what’s going on with Creed today is, you know, we’re getting to experience it all over again at the same level that we ended when the band went on hiatus in 2004 — but with all this knowledge and experience and understanding of how special and fortunate that we were back in the late ’90s, early 2000s,” he said.
“It’s incredible to be able to experience this now with the depth of appreciation and gratitude and just humility that we didn’t have 25 years ago.”
