Sans Creed-Type Hype, Scott Stapp Set to Play Fort Lauderdale

Scott Stapp will make a stop at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale September 27. The Creed frontman and lyricist is touring with his 2019 solo release, The Space Between the Shadows.

Stapp will be joined by special guests Messer and Sunflower Dead in the Broward Center's Amaturo Theater.

Who knows whether Creed still lives.

Stapp, guitarist Mark Tremonti, bassist Brian Marshall, and drummer Scott Phillips owned the 2000s. Creed's first three albums — 1997's My Own Prison; 1999's Human Clay, which included the Grammy-winning megahit "With Arms Wide Open"; and 2001's Weathered — went multiplatinum, and the band boasted one of the most commercially successful series of tours in music history. Their 2009 reunification album, Full Circle, yielded three more hit songs and one last full-blown tour before the bandmates wandered back to the groups and music they'd been concentrating on since Creed disbanded in 2004.

Stapp, routinely asked about a possible re-reunification, has only recently begun to deliver responses that fall short of his previous upbeat affirmatives. "Right now, my passion is focused on writing new music," he told Ultimate Guitar in late August, "whether [that's] for me or for another artist or with my old band, who knows."

He calls his time with Art of Anarchy, which he joined in 2016, a "one-off" that is now behind him.

Stapp released one album with the so-called supergroup, which counts Jon and Vince Votta, John Moyer, and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal as founding members. Stapp had replaced Art of Anarchy's hired-gun frontman, Scott Weiland, after Weiland died of a drug overdose in December 2015 while on tour with the band he apparently preferred, the Wildabouts.

Stapp has had his own struggles with drug addiction, along with mental health issues, legal troubles, and a suicide attempt. But his career as a solo artist has been a buoy in his post-Creed world.

His 2003 solo debut LP, The Great Divide, went platinum, and his 2013 sophomore album, Proof of Life, featured his first solo Billboard number one, "Slow Suicide." With the July 2019 release of The Space Between the Shadows, the Orlando native, who recently turned 46, shows he's still a master craftsman when it comes to lyrics, and he remains ever earnest and humble in his songs' messaging.

One heart-wrenching example: In the ballad "Gone Too Soon" from the album, he eulogizes Chris Cornell, the longtime lead singer for Soundgarten who reportedly hanged himself in May 2017; and Chester Bennington, the Linkin Park singer who took his own life three months later.

Stapp may not be a master of subtlety, but it will never be said he doesn't keep it real.

Scott Stapp. 8 p.m. Friday, September 27, at Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; 954-462-0222; browardcenter.org. Tickets cost $40 to $65 via ticketmaster.com.