As part of Commander Venus, Conor Oberst saw the band’s second album The Uneventful Vacation released to acclaim by Wind-up Records in 1997. The album would grow the band’s audience and set the scene for Oberst’s leap to begin Bright Eyes the following year, the band with which he’s only ever broadened his musical appeal and enjoyed subsequent international success.
However, while on Wind-up, Oberst very nearly played a part in ending the career of his future labelmates before they’d even had a chance to be heard. It seems that – speaking to producer Justin Richmond on the Broken Record podcast – the work of the early Creed didn’t exactly meet with Oberst’s favour.
In 1997 Oberst was held in sufficient esteem by Alan and Diana Meltzer, owners of the Wind-up Records, that they would play upcoming signings and ask for his opinion. One such ‘try this’ was what would become Creed’s debut album, My Own Prison, which was independently released by the band's own record label, Blue Collar Records, on 14 April, 1997.
It’s fair to say that Creed had a rocky road to success. Being caught in the spotlight of post-grunge, and therefore being the band that the world turned to for ‘what’s next’, proved a difficult mantle for the band to pull off. So while they enjoyed three consecutive platinum albums between 1997 and 2001, they had their share of haters, culminating in their split and readers of Rolling Stone magazine voting them the worst band of the 1990s.
And it seems that one Creed hater was keen to put the boot in from year zero…
Hearing My Own Prison back in 1997 – an album that Alan and Diana Meltzer of Wind-up Records were keen to take on and promote – Oberst did his best to dissuade them.
"They were sweet, but I remember them showing me Creed before it even came out. And I was like, 'You guys – it sounds like a really bad Pearl Jam.'"
Fortunately for Creed frontman Scott Stapp and the band, the Meltzers weren’t listening.
"Sure enough, they put it out, and it’s the biggest thing in the world. So another reason not to ever trust my judgment,” Oberst confesses.
Subsequently Diana Meltzer would even go on to call Stapp "the new Jim Morrison”, while guitarist Mark Tremonti would find huge acclaim with Alter Bridge.
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