Former Creed frontman Scott Stapp paid tribute to Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington in a new Longview News-Journal interview.
“I think the mental illness conversation is something that we all need to get more knowledgeable about and have more compassion about and less judgment, and realize it’s a serious disease and treat it as such,” Stapp said.
Stapp, whose mental illness had gone undiagnosed for over a decade after he was originally diagnosed with depression in 1998, said he felt connected with Cornell and Bennington because of their struggles.
“I wouldn’t say I was close [to Bennington or Cornell],” Stapp said, “but I definitely had a tremendous amount of respect for both of them and admired their work and felt connected to what their struggles were because my struggles have been the same.
“It’s really not in their control,” he continued. “It’s a disease just like cancer. Hopefully, with the string of deaths, it just raises awareness and people aren’t so judgmental and make mockery of people who are suffering whether they are celebrities, friends or family members.”
Stapp himself contemplated suicide in 2003. One evening, after polishing off a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, Stapp removed two firearms from his collection. “An MP5 SD3 and an MP5 K,” he told Rolling Stone in 2006. “Machine guns. They’re what SWAT teams use.” Since Creed’s final show of their original run, he hadn’t spoken to anyone from the band. He’d become convinced that everyone involved with the band wanted him to die, so that he would become a “Kurt Cobain martyr-type” and boost record sales. “I had crazy thoughts going through my head,” he says.
