Creed is having a second. Truly, if we’re being exact, it’s having innumerable moments, over and over, all throughout the web.

On Instagram, the band has been repurposed as a comedic device for dunking on President Joe Biden; on TikTok, shitposters imagined what it will be like to elucidate the butt rock legends to an alien race; and on X, Creed is a straightforward punchline for commenting on political theater. All of the whereas, these memes are collectively accumulating hundreds of thousands of likes, views, and shares.

It’s secure to say that if Charli XCX hadn’t already made 2024 a “brat summer,” then this—so far as memes are involved—can be Scott Stapp season. And Stapp, for his half, appears to be totally conscious of it. “I’ve seen so many [memes],” the Creed frontman says. “Some are hilarious and I discover myself simply laughing, and a few are actually heartwarming when it comes to how a lot time and vitality the fan has put into creating the video.”

The wildest a part of all isn’t that Creed is being memed to dying—it’s that the band is seemingly being memed again to life. In 2024, Creed quietly clawed its manner again from web punchline to actual, honest-to-god, record-selling rock band. By June, the band discovered itself again within the charts—the highest 40 no much less. Final month, the band’s Best Hits was climbing in sales.

On account of its sudden resurgence, Creed is even again touring, enjoying sold-out exhibits with fellow postgrunge staples like 3 Doorways Down. On high of that, they’re promoting tickets for area gigs for upwards of $100. For the tremendous Creed-core, there’s the band’s second-annual Miami-to-Nassau “Creed cruise” in 2025, which lists top-tier tickets for an eye-watering $4,300. These tickets, by the way in which, are bought out.

Certain, outdated music finds new audiences on a regular basis, usually with a bump from the web—however Creed isn’t different bands. Creed is a band that hasn’t launched a brand new studio album in 15 years and has spent most of that decade and a half because the butt of web jokes. By business requirements, Creed was, at the least till lately, six ft underneath.

“Again in 2020, Creed hadn’t toured since 2012, so we have been sort of intrigued, I believe can be the phrase, to see the curiosity and to see the songs having new life and resurgence and renaissance,” says Creed’s agent, Ken Fermaglich, who has been with the band for many years.

All of that begs a pair apparent questions: Why right here and why now?

In keeping with YouTuber Pat Finnerty, whose channel “What Makes This Song Stink” ritually roasts bands of Creed’s ilk, the equation for Creed’s comeback is a straightforward one: time + cringe = reputation.

Creed, Finnerty says, at the moment are previous the 20-year mark after which most aged bands can really feel new once more. “However then there’s the meme factor—you see all these memes of like ‘this band sucks,’ however now, to make use of the parlance of our time, ‘this band fucks,’” he provides. “They’re switching it from ‘this band sucks’ to ‘this band fucks’ and it’s truly funnier for them to get into it.”