'Out Of Control' Scott Stapp Incites Melee With 311 At Baltimore Hotel
12.01.2005 4:07 PM EST

Former Creed singer brawled in lounge with three members of 311 on Thanksgiving.
Scott Stapp
Photo: Getty Images

When Scott Stapp and members of 311 got together in a Baltimore hotel on Thanksgiving, it wasn't exactly a cordial holiday celebration. In fact, according to 311's Doug "SA" Martinez, it was quite the opposite.

On Thursday night, Martinez,




"I haven't been in a fight since probably third grade, so the whole thing was pretty surreal." — 311's Doug "SA" Martinez



bassist P-Nut and drummer Chad Sexton were sitting in the lounge of the Harbor Court Hotel with their wives, watching a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game. Suddenly an "out of his mind" Stapp entered the lounge, and from there things got ugly.

"He was acting out of control, looking for attention and being loud and obnoxious. He walked up to the bar, took a shot of whiskey and then slammed the shot glass down on the bar, and it shattered everywhere," Martinez told MTV News. "Then he got into it with some patrons and all of a sudden he's walking up to us and telling us how much of an inspiration we were to him. And it was nice, but we had all just eaten our Thanksgiving dinner, and he was drunk, so it got really annoying really quickly.

"After a while he went back to the bar and was looking for attention. And then a few minutes later, he came back to the table where my wife was, sat down across from us and wanted attention," Martinez continued. "So eventually, since [no one] was forthcoming, he said some disrespectful things towards my wife and I set my glass down and asked him what he said, and then Chad came over and said, 'Don't talk to her that way,' and Scott got up and Chad followed him."

Martinez said things quickly escalated from there, as Stapp turned and "sucker-punched" Sexton in the face — inadvertently hitting Martinez's wife in the process.

"And all of a sudden it was on. I threw a punch and hit Scott. He went down. Then Chad came over and hit Scott too," Martinez said. "At that point we held Scott down until hotel security came to break it up. Then the police arrived, escorted Scott to his room and then told him to get out of the hotel."

A spokesperson for Stapp did not return MTV News' requests for comment on the altercation, and according to the Baltimore police department, no charges have been filed. The melee left Martinez with a fractured knuckle on his right hand, which he fitted with a soft cast the following day. P-Nut reopened a surgery scar in the fight, though Martinez isn't exactly sure how that happened.

"Everything happened so quickly, man. Like stuff was getting knocked over, and that's maybe how P-Nut got hurt," he said. "I mean, I haven't been in a fight since probably third grade, so the whole thing was pretty surreal. It was out of control. Scott was enraged. And as we were holding him down, I felt really bad for him. I was concerned for him ... But at least the Lakers won."


Poor Scott, I think he needs to seek therapy and lay off the .

I read another report that quoted hotel security saying that 311 started the whole thing.

I hate when stuff like this puts a couple of artists with dead careers back on the radar.

True, I know 311 doesn't really get airplay much anymore, but they still draw big crowds to their shows, and their latest album is excellent.

How "Christian" of him.

Can you imagine how big this news would've been in 1999?

This makes me think of Dave Grohl's dead-on impersonation of Stapp:

I went to church
On Sunday
To start the band
To start to get paaaaaaaiiiiiiiiid
With arms wide open....

I heard Eddie Vedder got in a fight with 311 earlier that night.

har har har!

Yeah, I read that he also showed up drunk to some Spike TV show. I was going to post it in his CD thread, but then I realized that I didn't care.

Good to see he's taken his drunken act on the road.

Funny you said that. The Rolling Stone article on this story mentions that previously the Stappster got arrested in a fight years ago in St. Augustine FL. That fight was with my good friend's brother. Story goes, my friend's brother saw Scott at a bar and went up to him and said, "Hey man I really liked your band when you were called Pearl Jam." A split second after saying this Stappy drilled my friend's brother in the face and Security broke it up immediately. My friend's brother was pissed that he got no chance to hit him back. To this day if I bring that up he starts bashing Stapp to no end; it's quite hilarious.

I hope wherever he goes, he's constantly tormented. That's payback for me having to listen to his shit over the years.

That was a pretty dick move on your friend's brothers part. Not that it deserves a sucker punch, but it sounds like the brother was looking for a fight.

Stupid move on Stapp's part fighting with 311 though. There's like 100 people in the band. But on a side note, surprisingly to many, 311 is still incredibly popular...they've had a single on the charts for like the past 20 weeks, peaking at #2 I believe.

I think the Stappster needs to switch to decaf.

A big fan of the sucker punch, isnt he?

Why didn't your brother's friend sue?

i don't really agree. It was meant as a joke first of all, my friend's brother was definately not looking for the fight. Stapp is (was) a musical star. If any journalist reviewed his band's CD and wrote that they sounded like Pearl Jam or even said "I liked them when they used to be Pearl Jam" does that warrant Stapp to go find that journalist and punch him, or ANY of the critics? Same thing in my eyes.

He's a really laid back guy. The punch did absolutely nothing to him except give him a great story. And after he saw how Stapp was treated after the fight because of his "celebrity" status, he figured it wouldnt be worth it.

Have you sued every time you've gotten hit?

Was that back when Stapp was in Pearl Jam?

Going up to a musician in a bar of all places and throwing a comment like that at them in person is itching for a fight. How did your friend's brother think something like that would be received? Did he think Stapp would have a good laugh at his clever remark? But that said, Stapp sounds like a douchebag, so whatever.

Somehow this news isn't the same without Serena Altschul reading it...

It must have been a slow news day.

311 does still have a huge fanbase... I saw them last night in a sold out show that was incredible. I met 3 out of the 5 guys in the band and talked with them about the incident.

They pretty much said they were just trying to do their thing, when Stapp came and said some shit to SA's wife, and then Chad got up because he doesn't stand for that shit, and then BAM. It was on and that was that. They didn't want to talk about it much, because if you've listened to their music, 311 are all about the UNITY, so I
think they'd rather just forget the whole thing.

Last night during the concert, there were many chants of "Fuck Scott Stapp" and "Fuck Creed" which got the crowd and the band really going...an excellent show overall. I couldn't believe when I heard about this incident before, so I was glad I got to hear a bit about it from the horses mouths.

MATT

Band fights are still fun to hear about. I remember when members from Godsmack tried to get in a fight with members from Pantera. Not the wisest move, in my opinion.

Stapp seems to be a tool, and really tarnishing any good image he may have had at one point.

"Whoever wins... We lose"

Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who read it online, pardon the naughty words

Lead Singer of Creed Gets Punk'd

Friday, July 29. My last night in Gainesville. I've had my party and said my goodbyes to most of my friends. One group actually didn't make it to the party, but were possibly still coming, and instead of having them walk into an empty house (literally-- no furniture) devoid of people, I went over to their place.

So I'm saying goodbye to pals Jeanine and Heather. They have a few friends over to their place and are already stoned and drunk, seemingly ready for bed quite soon. I hear mumbling in the other room of some kids leaving soon because they have to go see Scott Stapp. My pop culture radar is not currently on, so I'm missing the reference. Instead, I think they're just talking about a friend who's driving in from out of town. But they're quite adamant about seeing Scott. "I'm fucking walking to Denny's to see Scott if I have to, I don't care if no one else goes!" one kid says.

So I'm curious and ask one of the guys what's going on. He tells me the background story: Apparently, one of their friends met Scott Stapp (who, because I find no problem with conflation, will for the rest of the story be referred to as "Creed") at an airport bar and the girl pretended to be interested. At the end of their conversation, he asked for her number and because she was going to Amsterdam, she gave Creed her friend's number instead. The girl then calls her friend and warns her that Creed might be calling her sometime in the future for a hook-up.

Which he does. Friday night. He flew into Orlando and gave the girl a call. The girl, thrilled at the prospect of making Creed look like an idiot, plays along. "You should drive up to Gainesville tonight to see me!" she says. Creed, because his star has fallen quite a bit recently (if you hadn't noticed) eagerly accepts the offer to drive 2 hours to get some pussy. I guess the groupies aren't lining up outside the airport like they used to.

I heard through the grapevine that night that Creed had actually kicked Scott Stapp out of their band. I don't know if this is true or not as no one on the Internet has any stories about it. But I googled him recently and found out that his solo career isn't taking off nearly like he expected, despite being the first released single off the Passion of the Christ Songs CD-- songs inspired by the movie. Mel Gibson hand picked him for a special screening, and he wrote a song after he was so personally affected by the movie. Douche.

Anyway, so the guy who was so spiritually affected by The Passion of the Christ is now hightailing it to Gainesville to tag a piece of ass he met in an airport bar. And he's having his ghettotastic hootchie skanky Jersey girl sleaze of a sister drive him. Yes, Creed is making his sister drive him to the Gainesville Denny's for a booty call.

So this group from the party makes it over to Denny's, strategically choosing places all around the Denny's so that we can watch what goes down. It's 3am on a Friday, so of course the place is packed with drunk kids getting out of the bars, who have no idea what they're about to be in for. Jeanine, Heather, and I all have prime seating-- we're directly next to the booth with the girl who has been talking to Creed, as well as her 5 friends who are all in on the joke and have been planning extra embarrassing things to do to him. The girl who is keeping track of him via cell phone convos lets me know that Creed has been in fine form so far tonight. Here is how one of the conversations went:

Creed: "Do you have an acoustic guitar with you in Gainesville?"
Her: "Um, yeah."
Creed: "Good, maybe you can help me write my new hit single!"
Me, after hearing the story: "I applaud your ability not to vomit at that."

Now we're convinced he's on his way. We hear the countdown from the table next to us: "He's in Micanopy!" "He's passing UF!" "He's pulling into the parking lot!" The excitement is killing me. And then he enters. Creed steps into the Gainesville Denny's, wearing a wife beater and slick running pants, desperately trying to find his hookup. My life is complete.

The girl who's been talking on the phone with Creed has a friend who recently broke his arm. So as soon as Creedy walks in, he screams, "Oh my god! You're Scott Stapp! You're my favorite singer ever! Sign my cast!" Creed, probably even himself realizing how sucky it is to be the (former) lead singer of Creed, denies it. "I get that a lot... I just look like him. I'm not him." HA!

Then the Denny's cop comes over: "Both of you, outta here! No screaming in Denny's! Manager's orders!" Delicious. The lead singer of Creed is getting kicked out of the Gainesville Denny's.

Cast arm boy obviously doesn't want our fun to be over so quickly, so he sweet talks the cop and gets him to rescind his ejection. Creedy keeps walking around, trying to find the girl he talked to in the airport bar, feverishly running to the back to get better cell phone reception and then moving back to the front to try to find her. Of course, the girl has stopped answering her phone now and the Denny's partrons are just watching Creed walk around looking desperately horny.

And the best part is watching the other people as they notice who this guy is. "Hey, that's the Creed guy!" they all say as he walks past them. Then, 5 seconds later and as soon as he's out of earshot: "Wait, who cares? Creed sucks!" This is seriously the reaction of every table that I hear as he walks by. So sad, for him. Oh, and the dude is like 5'6". I'm not joking. When he walked by, he was at least (AT LEAST) 3 inches shorter than me. Midget.

Now there are about 12 people who know about what's going on. And like the rats in Muppets Take Manhattan who run around under the tables at that fancy restuarant spreading the buzz that Manhattan Melodies is going to be a smash hit show, we start spreading the ruse that has been pulled on Creed. Soon, most of the tables and the wait staff is informed of what's going on. "Pathetic!" is the most common reaction.

To keep him there as long as possible, groups of girls keep going over to him and flirting and trying to find out what he's doing in Gainesville. Cast arm boy even printed out Scott Stapp's headshot and goes over to ask him to sign it. You'd think that would be an obvious sign that he was being tricked, but apparently Creed is cocky enough to think that people regularly carry around his photograph everywhere like it's an American Express card.

Jeanine, perfect brilliant girl she is, ran over to the juke box to see if it happened to have a Creed song on it. Unfortunately, it didn't. Or maybe fortunately. For if "Arms Wide Open" began playing as he was running around the Denny's, I probably would've soiled myself laughing.

At the end of the night, we convince Jeanine to go ask to take a picture with Creed by saying it was her birthday (it was, only 4 days earlier). When she goes to get the picture, all 12 of us who are in on the joke jump in the photo. Unfortunately, the person taking the picture couldn't work the flash, so it just looks like a mess of clumpy dark blobs. But I know that one girl took a bunch of pictures of Creed running around the Denny's-- mostly of the back of his head-- and I want them. If anyone knows where to get these, let me know.

So that was my last night in Gainesville. Creed eventually got back in his car and drove home to Orlando, having unsuccessfully found his pussy for the night. What a sad sad man. Super douche.