Premiere: Scott Stapp Details Harrowing Personal Struggles in "Slow Suicide" Video
Creed frontman Scott Stapp hasn’t been shy about past battles with depression, alcoholism and drug abuse, culminating in two near-death experiences. In the world premiere of “Slow Suicide,” the first video off his solo album Proof of Life, the singer revisits painful memories from both childhood and adulthood first elucidated in his 2012 autobiography Sinner’s Creed.
“[’Slow Suicide’] was the perfect way for me to start off the story this albums tells, which was to come right out and face the music and deal candidly and poignantly with negative things that I had been doing and just face it,” Stapp tells Fuse. “I had to call it for what it was and what I was doing to myself: slowly killing myself and not dealing with things in my life appropriately. It set the tone for the rest of the album.”
Directed by Andrew Gant and shot in an old abandoned Los Angeles hospital, “Slow Suicide” shows Stapp in various life stages of distress, including physical abuse as a child and arrests and near-death experiences in hospitals as an adult.
“It’s an autobiography exactly as it happened,” admits Stapp. “There’s no embellishment; if anything, it’s toned down from reality. It was a real cathartic experience. I got to see what alcohol and drugs did to me, but I got to see it from a clear place shooting this video. I got to sit back and say, ‘My god, my wife and my family were in the hospital and I looked like that [in real life].’ The other scenarios were all me bringing closure to my life.”
Asked if it would be tough to recount his darkest moments night after night on tour, the singer noted the song’s positive aspects. “[The song] is reminding me of a mentality that I need to carry on for the rest of my life, which is, ‘I can’t let this life pass me by.’ For someone who’s battled with depression, drug addiction and alcoholism, it’s always good to have that reminder of where you’ve been so you don’t want to go there again, followed by that epiphany of ‘This is how I want to live my life now.’ I was living my life headed straight for the grave. I should’ve been in that grave. This is all part of my journey to recovery.”
45m
22m
22m
3m
1h 18m
46s
3m
9m
3m
3m
45m
41m
24m
24m
22m
22m
21m
1h 5m
1h 11m
20m
21m
21m
22m
20m
21m
44m
21m
20m
3657s
22m
44m
1h 25m
20m
1h 28m
23m
20m
1h 43m
2m
2m
1m
21m
18m
1h 2m
56m
1h 3m
20m
1h 23m
1m
47m
5m
57s
2m
47m
2m
1m
1m
20m
2m
2m
59s
9m
43m
1m
20m
22m
59s
1m
1m
1h 38m
59s
2m
17m
20m
4m
1m
21m
20m
55s
6m
2m
41m
11m
22m
1m
4m
18m
3m
4m
2m
3m
1m
1m
1m
1m
2m
1m
6m
1h 16m
5m