Creed is having Wait a minute. Actually, if we’re being precise, it’s countless moments, over and over again, all over the Internet.
On Instagram, the band has been repurposed as a comic device for wetting President Joe Biden’s ass; on TikTok, The shitposters imagined what it would be like to explain rock legends of ass to an alien race; and in X, Creed is an easy joke to comment on political theater. Meanwhile, those memes collectively rack up millions of likes, views, and shares.
It’s safe to say that if Charli XCX hadn’t turned 2024 into “brat summer,” then this, as far as memes go, would be Scott Stapp season. And Stapp, for his part, seems fully aware of that. “I’ve seen so many[memes],” the Creed frontman says. “Some are hilarious and make me laugh, and some are really heartwarming in terms of how much time and energy the fan has put into creating the video.”
The craziest thing of all is not that Creed is being memed to death, but that the band is seemingly coming back to life. In 2024, Creed quietly made its way from internet joke to a real, honest-to-goodness rock band that sells records. In June, the band found themselves back in the charts – in the top 40 no less. Last month, the band Greatest hits was Rising in sales.
As a result of their unexpected resurgence, Creed has even gone back on tour, playing sold-out shows alongside other post-grunge greats like 3 Doors Down. They’re also selling out stadium tickets for over $100. For die-hard Creed fans, there’s the band’s second annual tour from Miami to Nassau.Creed Cruiser” in 2025, which includes premium tickets for a whopping $4,300. Those tickets, by the way, are sold out.
Sure, old music finds new audiences all the time, often with a boost from the Internet, but Creed isn’t like other bands. Creed is a band that hasn’t released a new studio album in 15 years and has spent most of that decade and a half being the butt of Internet jokes. By industry standards, Creed was, at least until recently, six feet under.
“In 2020, Creed hadn’t toured since 2012, so we were a little intrigued, I guess that would be the word, to see the interest and to see the songs being given new life, being reborn and reborn,” says Creed’s agent Ken Fermaglich, who has been with the band for decades.
All of this raises a couple of obvious questions: Why here and why now?
According to YouTuber Pat Finnerty, whose channel “What makes this song suck?” ritually roasting bands of Creed’s style, the equation for Creed’s comeback is simple: time + embarrassment = popularity.
Finnerty says Creed has already passed the 20-year mark, after which most older bands can feel new again. “But then there’s the meme thing: you see all these memes like ‘this band sucks,’ but now, to use the slang of our time, ‘this band sucks,’” he adds. “They’re changing the ‘this band sucks’ to ‘this band sucks,’ and it’s actually more fun for them to get into that.”