September 28, 2025 • 23 mins
Creed Bratton is an American musician and actor, best known for playing a fictionalised version of himself on NBC’s The Office. A former member of the 1960s rock band The Grass Roots, he has also released several solo albums. He studied drama at the College of the Sequoias and Sacramento State College before leaving to travel and pursue music. His acting credits include films such as Mask and The Sisters Brothers, and TV shows like Grace and Frankie and Upload.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
Follow this and a wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowan
on News Talk sed B.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Goodday, Welcome to Real Life. My guest tonight is musician
and actor Creed Bratton.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Welcome Creed, well John, Thank you breymuch for having me.
I'm looking forward to getting out playing for the folks
there soon.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes, you're coming to New Zealand soon. We're recording this
over the while from America, but soon you'll be in
New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Never been here before, I have not I played. I
was going to get over that was there a couple
of years ago in Australia, and was planning to go
there and to spend a week just love. I've heard
so many lovely things about it. And then I got
offered this corporate party in America, so they flew me
back for and I was kind of still regretted. But
now it turned out okay because now I get to
(01:16):
come back again. Cool, so they're not going talking out
of it this time. I'm coming.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
The choice between a party and coming to New Zealand.
Now that sounds like an earlier version of Creed. But
we'll we'll get to that as we tell some of
your story, and just to bring people up to speed,
because some people are scratching their heads, possibly going Creed Bratton.
Where do I know that from? You were on the
US version of the Office, and it was hugely popular
(01:43):
at one huge audience, awards and stacks of prizes and things,
and right through over one hundred and eighty episodes, was
a very strange character initially in the background called Creed Bratton,
and he started off without any words, but he certainly
streaked to the front of the rankings. Really he became
(02:03):
one of the regular staff, delivering some of the funniest
and most memorable lines. They got himself awarded. So that's
a thumb nile skitch bricically, isn't. But what you were
doing on the Office, I was.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And that's exactly what it was. It turned out turned
out really well because I just kind of slipped in
there by the skin of my teeth and then eventually, yeah,
got some great, great line, They wrote some great lines
for me.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Okay, well, any of those lines here on your own.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, the reality is, John, I was I was on
a show called Bernie Mack, and I came on the show,
wrote my own wrote the character of the Creed Baton
character for the Office, you know, kind of a dearranged
former rock and roll star based on real life, of course,
and when we uh I wrote. I wrote a couple
(02:52):
of songs for the show, a few things I had lived,
but mostly it was mostly about ninety percent of it written,
you know, scripted for me. I had met a director
for Bernie Mack called Ken kappas found out he was
going to do the uh American version of the Office.
He was called the Office in American Workplace. That was
(03:13):
its title. And I had seen the Ricky Gervais Stephen
Merchant show, which I, like everyone else, thought it was brilliant,
and right away I went, oh my god, I would
love to be on that. And Bernie Mack was kind
of cooling down then at that time, and so they
put they said, Kid said, well, we can't guarantee you anything.
We've already cast the characters. We'll try to work you
(03:35):
in if we can. That was that was the words.
So I went there. After about three weeks or so,
I realized that there's a bunch of really talented people,
and I better get my game going. So I sit
and I wrote about an hour's worth of material, ad
lived a bunch of stuff, shot it in a suit
instead of a window, just like the talking heads thing
(03:56):
on the show. Gave it to Greg Daniels. Didn't tell
my kids, didn't tell anybody, but I was doing this.
Just just did it. And you're not supposed to do this.
You're not supposed to go an end run around casting,
to go through the cast and procedure. There's a there's
a protocol for all this. I avoided all that somewhat
like my character, and they liked what they saw. They
(04:18):
gave me the shot for the Halloween episode. I had
six and a half page seen with Steve Carell, and
they say the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Uh speaking of history, I read a weird story about
some history that you shared with Ricky Gervais and a dog.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Ah, well, I tell that story at the at the show. Yeah,
I'll be telling that show if you want me to
tell that story.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Oh yeah, that's a uestion.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
So I'm this is before the Uh now of course
this is this is this is a story for my show.
So John, you can either say this is like Oh,
this is a this is factual, this is truth, this
is nonfiction, or it could be just a story that
I tell in my stove.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Oh you leave people gazing of that? How much true?
And how about your stories? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
That's all we want about me that I got to
figure anything.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
The story our raide was was was described as being actual, factual,
So this has story at the show.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And to do this, they tend to do this stuff
with me anyway. The reality is the story was what
I just told you how I got on the show.
But I used to tell people. But the real reason,
and it might may or may not be the real reason, John,
We'll just say it is. At this moment in time,
I was working on the Burnie Mack show, Hats on
(05:41):
high Its, visiting friends in London, having a restaurant at
this lovely, lovely restaurant was friends and it was going
really well. And also this little dog started I think
it was a Maltese or a Yorkshire terrea that and
I'd had a couple of drinks and it was just
going into my head and hurting, hurting so bad. And
I looked over and I saw this other guy going
(06:05):
through the same thing that I was he got up,
he started walking to the dog, and I went and
I jumped up on my head right straight for that dog.
And just before I get to that dog, I start
to put up my hand and I'm going to tell
him just hold it right there, buddy, let me kick
that dog. When Ricky Gervase sees me put up my hand,
(06:28):
he stands up. He's in the restaurant. Go figure. He said,
brave American, My god, you save this little dog. He's
a big dog lover. So I didn't think much about it.
Later on, I'm doing this whole story, and they're thinking
about making me a regular on the show. But they
were vacillating, and I didn't want that. I wanted to
be on the show. So I called my manager and
(06:49):
I said, call Ricky Gervase's manager and tell them that
Creed Bratt and the guy who saved the dog. Ricky.
Ricky will remember, and he went, oh, my god, that's
you that did that. Yes, I did, all right. So
they said, okay, Well, then Ricky says he's got to
be on the show.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Okay, push the door wide open for you.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Push that.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Across the street. I gotta tell you that. Oh by
the way, I know, can I use the words like
that on the show or not.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well, look, I'm sure if people hit a beep or
a buzz just then then you'll know that the answer
to Creed's question is no, you can't be No.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I don't normally do that, but I needed that for
that little dog. You know what it is. Sometimes there's
a there's a pitch, a certain WHINDI little pitch with
animals that goes right, or kids sometimes go right in
your head and you go and you just can't can't
turn it off.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Now, Creed, on the show, you play a character called
Creed Breton that used to be a famous rock and roller.
Now in reality you are Creed Breton and you were
a famous rock and roller and well was were? I
think you still are?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, you can take that away. It's not like
John you come up on a stage when you get
bald and old and say, oh, right there, lieutenant, and
they strip your stripes demoted was right? No, once you're there,
once you get the hit records and I, by the way,
I'm coming to you guys performing, I'm still doing it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, I mean yeah, still doing it. And you still
got those gold records on your wall on the wall.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah. I mean, you've accumulated a lot of stories in
your life, and I mean those stories started in the
back box of California, up near Yosemite Parks. That must
have been the real backblocks back when you were growing up.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I mean, Uh, there's there's a lot of weird stuff
about growing up there, but there's also some great stuff
of being in that beauty, being able to walk out,
you know, or ride my horse, you know, for miles
around the countryside, go fishing in streams, you know, swimming lakes. Uh. Yeah,
there was there was some weirdness. I didn't know a
lot about the real world, but where I was growing
(09:02):
up it was certainly beautiful and uh time for reflection,
meditation and stoic philosophy, as they say.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And so how did you get some music into your
life if you're so far away from civilization?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
R That's a good question, John. My grandparents down along,
which had a semi professional country Western band called the
Happy Timers. Their picture is on one of my earlier
albums called Course Gold. You can see their band there.
And my real father, I didn't know my real father.
He died in the World War Two when I was
(09:37):
just two years old, so I know him. But my
mother played really really good mandolin. I played trumpet from
a very young age. It was first chair of trumpet.
I played classical and whatever whatever you like. I could
read music very well. But about time I was thirteen,
I started playing the guitar. And I didn't have the
(10:00):
YouTube or to go to. What we did is go
to dances, watch people's hands, sit there front and watched
their hands playing. Figure out what they were doing. That's
what I figured how I figured it out and I
listened to the radio and try to figure it out.
So I got a guitar.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I can just imagine you up in the hills with
a crystal State strain.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
That's absolutely a fact. Crystals set no joke, listening to Camps,
wb B, Mitchell Reid and Los Angeles, and I'd listened
to Rumble and Ray, Charles and Bats, Domino and the
Everly Brothers and all that early early rock and roll.
And I got a silver tone guitar and that was it,
(10:44):
and I started figuring it out. By the time I
was seventeen, I started playing professionally. Out of college, I
went up to Europe, with a folk trio. I met
people over there. I played for over two years in
Europe with a folk trio and then came back, came
to LA and then a year later I was playing
with the band called the Grassroots, and that's the band
that had the Gold records.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I'm talking with Creed Branton. You'll remember him from the Off.
He was on over one hundred and eighty episodes of
the Office. He's also a very famous musician and he's
got ten albums. We're going to be hearing some music
soon from his latest album. But I'm going to enjoy
talking to Creed about his life as an actor and
as a musician. This is real life on news Talk.
(11:27):
As they'd be welcome back to real life. I'm John
Cown talking with Creed Branton, star of the Office. But
he also makes beautiful music like that. What are we
listening to there? Creed?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That was a Corner of the Universe song. I had
read this article in Popular Mechanics about in the Antarctica
that the ozone layer, which there was a hole in.
As we know, there was a hole in the ozone
layer up there was starting to heal itself. And I
know everythinks we're going to hell in a handbasket. But
(12:00):
they put they said it was healing itself. So I thought, well,
they wouldn't putting itself in the news. There was lied,
It wouldn't lie in print, wouldn't happen Q Creeds clink
wink wink wink. So I wrote this song more of
a positive, no doom and gloom, but the lyrics are
(12:21):
turned the corn in the universe. You know that are
you know when the plan is working out that we're
going to heal the planet?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
I wrote this song with my friend Dance Degenerous. Oh
and Dance is the brother of Ellen gy Oh wow.
So I've written a couple of songs with him, Faded
Spats from the album before. It's a song I wrote
with Advance. So anyway, it's like a real up tempo,
poppy song. That's my buddy Elliott Easton from the Cars
(12:49):
on lead guitar, and so it's a pretty cool song.
Actually I like it too.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I really like it. And the interesting thing is that
you've picked something upbeat. I mean, you've scanned around the news,
which is just so full of terrible stuff, and you've thought, hey,
there's some good stuff happening? Is that is that you?
Is that your is that your personality? You? You'll You'll pick.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Up only more of a Pollyanna than than a pessimist.
I think I'm going to see if there's really bad stuff,
I look at it against stoically saying well, I can
take it and allow it to affect me. But you can.
When you get bad news, you can. You can. You
don't have to accept it. You can. You can say well,
I can. How I react to it is what it is.
(13:33):
So I tend not to react to it in a
bad way. I say, well, things are happening, but I'm
still going to go on, and I'm going to do
my plays and my TV shows and films and write
my songs and be positive because that's my choice.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
In about a quarter of a second in the first half,
you mentioned the phrase stoic philosophy. Is that a real
thing for you?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Oh? Absolutely absolutely, Marcus Relish Meditations is a book that
I've been I go back to year after year after year.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And how does that sort of work out in daily life?
Do you admit?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
It? Called the daily stoic? And they talk about Plato,
you know, Marcus Aurelius Epictitus, Seneca, and all the likely
some of these stoic philosophers back in the days of
the Caesars would be you know, study it was one
of the richest men in Rome, and he mentioned he
(14:31):
said something against the Caesar. He said something, it's the
guy in control, kind of like what's happening right now,
and he got completely demoted. He got all this stuff
taken away from him, stead away to an island. So
I think right now life is just reflecting exactly what's
going on. Numerous times before you voice your opinions against
the powers of e and sometimes they can actually take
(14:54):
everything away from you, which they used to and apparently
doing still right.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
If I was to draw a line of your life,
you've had some real high points, but there's been a
few dips in between, and I I'm not surprised that
for a person who's now in his eighties and grinning
and performing and loving life, that philosophy must have got
you through those things. But we'll go back to your story.
(15:21):
You were actually a stutterer when you were a young fella.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Oh that's interesting, you know that. Yeah, so that's in
my IMDb, isn't it. Yeah? I uh, well, as I
told you that, it was a rough, a rough childhood,
even with all the beauty around me. Of course, I
had the stepdad, which is, you know, no different than
a lot of kids in America in the fifties. Was
the m O was spared the rod to spoil the child.
(15:50):
So it was a lot of kids getting you know,
the straps and whips and that, you know, so I
got my share of it. So you kind of as
an artistic type, you kind of go inside and go
become introspective and you start writing stuff to or you
become an actor so that you can pretend you're somebody
else sometimes.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And the acting helped you if you're stuttering.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
The acting I stuttered to the I was, I did
a little segue. I bypassed her your question, John, I
was stuttering so bad in the fourth grade that I
couldn't even talk. So I try to say, my body
would spas them up and I couldn't get the words out.
They actually had to pull me out of school, and
(16:37):
they found out that I was a reasonably intelligent person
and that I just had too many thoughts and I
just couldn't It was just strong and nervous. I was
scared scared so that the speech therapist said, I want
you to try to stutter. I want you to make
the sounds that you make when you're studying. You're not
studying right at this moment, try to stutter. So once
(16:59):
I try to articulate that out of control thing that
I couldn't control, I got control of it. Once I
tried to study, I stopped stuttering. And then when I
got to control of it, she said, I want you
to go now audition for any chance you can get
up and talk in front of people. You get on stage.
(17:22):
So that led me to acting, and I found that,
like in music, the girls.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Liked it, so that's always a bonus.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
That's a bonus. So I went, okay, well then maybe
I'll stick with this for a while. And I didn't know.
Truth well, that was part of it, but also the
main thing was that I really enjoyed it and I
felt that I had a good which I do. I
have a good, good natural comedy talent timing. I should
say I'm about the talent, but I have timing, which
is you know, everything's about timing.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So acting and music that's been you alive and it
worked out really well for you to it around Europe,
and then got onto this band the Grassroots that had
Gold Records and read they write it in the top
ten and that was going great. And then a bit
of a slump, a bit of a slump when you
(18:20):
were sort of just.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Doing that's a kind way to say, John.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Did you get pretty low?
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Well? Yeah, I mean, I mean there's I'm not lower
than anybody else, you know. I mean I figure, you know,
every every kid has probably been waterboarded by the time
they were five. I'm not different than anybody else, you know.
Uh So, But I.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Mean work and working, and I had a.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Vision, a mental image of me being successful. I saw myself.
I'd already seen myself on stage and that came to fruition,
and then I saw myself actually succeeding as an actor.
So no matter what was going on, how bad it was,
I still had a mental image. So I had that,
(19:10):
as it were, the template. I had that mental picture,
that Zeitgeist thing that's gonna be the no what's the word, ah,
what's a German word for picture?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Gestalt?
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah, this gestal that occurred where I saw very clearly
that I really shouldn't worry about all the stuff that
was going to turn out okay, and it did okay.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So even though you did what I think eight years
of wicking and catering and people coming in and probably saying,
oh winch you and.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Grassroots, it didn't tear me apart because I knew it
was it was temporary, yeah, and I didn't know that
it could have just derailed me completely.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, Well it hasn't derailed you. You set you down, and
you've got tracks under even now, and I mean tenth
album And do you find these albums? Are they fun
to do for you or do you.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Just find me? Well, you can imagine I get to
work with some great musician. They're all friends of mine here,
and I've been playing around. I always was playing. Even
though all that rough times that were going on, I
still had a lot of friends who believed in me musically.
At that even the lowest moment. Joni Mitchell's producer, Henry
Louie took me under his wing and believed in my
(20:35):
voice and believed in my songwriting and took me in
the studio and record is tough with me. So I
always had people that I respected backing me up so
that I didn't lose faith and he's not with us.
Name over. Thank you, Henry for all that stuff. The
people to do that you can't even know. You're a
little misty now thinking about it. But the people that
(20:57):
come into your life to give you that leg up, huge, huge.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Well, that leg up has lifted you up into a
good place now. And I'm just a lot I did
the idea if I can, let you know, let's slip
the secret. You're eighty two years old. Eighty two and
you still enjoy getting on a plane and traveling to
the other side of the planet.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I get crazy here, my friend.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Like none of it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Enjoy that long, No, no, enjoys that. That's not what
I enjoy. Getting on stage performing for the people that
know my music and uh and still being able to
sing well and play right. Yeah, but uh, my mother,
my mother had great I've got good DNA and my
mother was very youthful into her eighties.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Well, and you continue to doing.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
A lot of I do a lot of things to
stay healthy. I mean a lot of people don't know what.
I've been using Gensen suppositories for years, for years. It's
just a wonderful thing to keep you vibe. People living.
The pencil stuff like that now. When I first started,
my little sphincter didn't like that stuff, you know, but
(22:06):
now kind of looks it.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Well. I don't think I've talked too many guests over
the twenty years i've been doing the show about their
use of suppositories. So Creed, Peraps perhaps will hear the
opportunity of you perhaps sharing more about suppositories on stage
when you're playing in October first Folks at sky City
in Auckland. Look, I reckon that you'll enjoy it because
(22:35):
I've been watching a lot of him online and he
just mixes so much fun and humor and fantastic music,
like this track we're going to go out on, which
is the song that you sang on the office and
all the faces, beautiful song and look track track creeds
(22:55):
albums down on Spotify or wherever you get your music,
track him down on YouTube. You won't regret it because
he's just a great entertainer. Creed. We'll edit that, Creed,
it's been fantastic talking with you and.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I greed greed, Breton, you know I'm not that greed.
I'm not basically I don't I have all that I
really need, thank you, And not all Americans are Green.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
For more from news talks at b Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
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You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
Follow this and a wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowan
on News Talk sed B.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Goodday, Welcome to Real Life. My guest tonight is musician
and actor Creed Bratton.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Welcome Creed, well John, Thank you breymuch for having me.
I'm looking forward to getting out playing for the folks
there soon.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes, you're coming to New Zealand soon. We're recording this
over the while from America, but soon you'll be in
New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Never been here before, I have not I played. I
was going to get over that was there a couple
of years ago in Australia, and was planning to go
there and to spend a week just love. I've heard
so many lovely things about it. And then I got
offered this corporate party in America, so they flew me
back for and I was kind of still regretted. But
now it turned out okay because now I get to
(01:16):
come back again. Cool, so they're not going talking out
of it this time. I'm coming.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
The choice between a party and coming to New Zealand.
Now that sounds like an earlier version of Creed. But
we'll we'll get to that as we tell some of
your story, and just to bring people up to speed,
because some people are scratching their heads, possibly going Creed Bratton.
Where do I know that from? You were on the
US version of the Office, and it was hugely popular
(01:43):
at one huge audience, awards and stacks of prizes and things,
and right through over one hundred and eighty episodes, was
a very strange character initially in the background called Creed Bratton,
and he started off without any words, but he certainly
streaked to the front of the rankings. Really he became
(02:03):
one of the regular staff, delivering some of the funniest
and most memorable lines. They got himself awarded. So that's
a thumb nile skitch bricically, isn't. But what you were
doing on the Office, I was.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And that's exactly what it was. It turned out turned
out really well because I just kind of slipped in
there by the skin of my teeth and then eventually, yeah,
got some great, great line, They wrote some great lines
for me.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Okay, well, any of those lines here on your own.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, the reality is, John, I was I was on
a show called Bernie Mack, and I came on the show,
wrote my own wrote the character of the Creed Baton
character for the Office, you know, kind of a dearranged
former rock and roll star based on real life, of course,
and when we uh I wrote. I wrote a couple
(02:52):
of songs for the show, a few things I had lived,
but mostly it was mostly about ninety percent of it written,
you know, scripted for me. I had met a director
for Bernie Mack called Ken kappas found out he was
going to do the uh American version of the Office.
He was called the Office in American Workplace. That was
(03:13):
its title. And I had seen the Ricky Gervais Stephen
Merchant show, which I, like everyone else, thought it was brilliant,
and right away I went, oh my god, I would
love to be on that. And Bernie Mack was kind
of cooling down then at that time, and so they
put they said, Kid said, well, we can't guarantee you anything.
We've already cast the characters. We'll try to work you
(03:35):
in if we can. That was that was the words.
So I went there. After about three weeks or so,
I realized that there's a bunch of really talented people,
and I better get my game going. So I sit
and I wrote about an hour's worth of material, ad
lived a bunch of stuff, shot it in a suit
instead of a window, just like the talking heads thing
(03:56):
on the show. Gave it to Greg Daniels. Didn't tell
my kids, didn't tell anybody, but I was doing this.
Just just did it. And you're not supposed to do this.
You're not supposed to go an end run around casting,
to go through the cast and procedure. There's a there's
a protocol for all this. I avoided all that somewhat
like my character, and they liked what they saw. They
(04:18):
gave me the shot for the Halloween episode. I had
six and a half page seen with Steve Carell, and
they say the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Uh speaking of history, I read a weird story about
some history that you shared with Ricky Gervais and a dog.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Ah, well, I tell that story at the at the show. Yeah,
I'll be telling that show if you want me to
tell that story.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Oh yeah, that's a uestion.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
So I'm this is before the Uh now of course
this is this is this is a story for my show.
So John, you can either say this is like Oh,
this is a this is factual, this is truth, this
is nonfiction, or it could be just a story that
I tell in my stove.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Oh you leave people gazing of that? How much true?
And how about your stories? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
That's all we want about me that I got to
figure anything.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
The story our raide was was was described as being actual, factual,
So this has story at the show.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And to do this, they tend to do this stuff
with me anyway. The reality is the story was what
I just told you how I got on the show.
But I used to tell people. But the real reason,
and it might may or may not be the real reason, John,
We'll just say it is. At this moment in time,
I was working on the Burnie Mack show, Hats on
(05:41):
high Its, visiting friends in London, having a restaurant at
this lovely, lovely restaurant was friends and it was going
really well. And also this little dog started I think
it was a Maltese or a Yorkshire terrea that and
I'd had a couple of drinks and it was just
going into my head and hurting, hurting so bad. And
I looked over and I saw this other guy going
(06:05):
through the same thing that I was he got up,
he started walking to the dog, and I went and
I jumped up on my head right straight for that dog.
And just before I get to that dog, I start
to put up my hand and I'm going to tell
him just hold it right there, buddy, let me kick
that dog. When Ricky Gervase sees me put up my hand,
(06:28):
he stands up. He's in the restaurant. Go figure. He said,
brave American, My god, you save this little dog. He's
a big dog lover. So I didn't think much about it.
Later on, I'm doing this whole story, and they're thinking
about making me a regular on the show. But they
were vacillating, and I didn't want that. I wanted to
be on the show. So I called my manager and
(06:49):
I said, call Ricky Gervase's manager and tell them that
Creed Bratt and the guy who saved the dog. Ricky.
Ricky will remember, and he went, oh, my god, that's
you that did that. Yes, I did, all right. So
they said, okay, Well, then Ricky says he's got to
be on the show.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Okay, push the door wide open for you.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Push that.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Across the street. I gotta tell you that. Oh by
the way, I know, can I use the words like
that on the show or not.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well, look, I'm sure if people hit a beep or
a buzz just then then you'll know that the answer
to Creed's question is no, you can't be No.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I don't normally do that, but I needed that for
that little dog. You know what it is. Sometimes there's
a there's a pitch, a certain WHINDI little pitch with
animals that goes right, or kids sometimes go right in
your head and you go and you just can't can't
turn it off.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Now, Creed, on the show, you play a character called
Creed Breton that used to be a famous rock and roller.
Now in reality you are Creed Breton and you were
a famous rock and roller and well was were? I
think you still are?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, you can take that away. It's not like
John you come up on a stage when you get
bald and old and say, oh, right there, lieutenant, and
they strip your stripes demoted was right? No, once you're there,
once you get the hit records and I, by the way,
I'm coming to you guys performing, I'm still doing it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, I mean yeah, still doing it. And you still
got those gold records on your wall on the wall.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah. I mean, you've accumulated a lot of stories in
your life, and I mean those stories started in the
back box of California, up near Yosemite Parks. That must
have been the real backblocks back when you were growing up.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I mean, Uh, there's there's a lot of weird stuff
about growing up there, but there's also some great stuff
of being in that beauty, being able to walk out,
you know, or ride my horse, you know, for miles
around the countryside, go fishing in streams, you know, swimming lakes. Uh. Yeah,
there was there was some weirdness. I didn't know a
lot about the real world, but where I was growing
(09:02):
up it was certainly beautiful and uh time for reflection,
meditation and stoic philosophy, as they say.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And so how did you get some music into your
life if you're so far away from civilization?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
R That's a good question, John. My grandparents down along,
which had a semi professional country Western band called the
Happy Timers. Their picture is on one of my earlier
albums called Course Gold. You can see their band there.
And my real father, I didn't know my real father.
He died in the World War Two when I was
(09:37):
just two years old, so I know him. But my
mother played really really good mandolin. I played trumpet from
a very young age. It was first chair of trumpet.
I played classical and whatever whatever you like. I could
read music very well. But about time I was thirteen,
I started playing the guitar. And I didn't have the
(10:00):
YouTube or to go to. What we did is go
to dances, watch people's hands, sit there front and watched
their hands playing. Figure out what they were doing. That's
what I figured how I figured it out and I
listened to the radio and try to figure it out.
So I got a guitar.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I can just imagine you up in the hills with
a crystal State strain.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
That's absolutely a fact. Crystals set no joke, listening to Camps,
wb B, Mitchell Reid and Los Angeles, and I'd listened
to Rumble and Ray, Charles and Bats, Domino and the
Everly Brothers and all that early early rock and roll.
And I got a silver tone guitar and that was it,
(10:44):
and I started figuring it out. By the time I
was seventeen, I started playing professionally. Out of college, I
went up to Europe, with a folk trio. I met
people over there. I played for over two years in
Europe with a folk trio and then came back, came
to LA and then a year later I was playing
with the band called the Grassroots, and that's the band
that had the Gold records.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I'm talking with Creed Branton. You'll remember him from the Off.
He was on over one hundred and eighty episodes of
the Office. He's also a very famous musician and he's
got ten albums. We're going to be hearing some music
soon from his latest album. But I'm going to enjoy
talking to Creed about his life as an actor and
as a musician. This is real life on news Talk.
(11:27):
As they'd be welcome back to real life. I'm John
Cown talking with Creed Branton, star of the Office. But
he also makes beautiful music like that. What are we
listening to there? Creed?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That was a Corner of the Universe song. I had
read this article in Popular Mechanics about in the Antarctica
that the ozone layer, which there was a hole in.
As we know, there was a hole in the ozone
layer up there was starting to heal itself. And I
know everythinks we're going to hell in a handbasket. But
(12:00):
they put they said it was healing itself. So I thought, well,
they wouldn't putting itself in the news. There was lied,
It wouldn't lie in print, wouldn't happen Q Creeds clink
wink wink wink. So I wrote this song more of
a positive, no doom and gloom, but the lyrics are
(12:21):
turned the corn in the universe. You know that are
you know when the plan is working out that we're
going to heal the planet?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
I wrote this song with my friend Dance Degenerous. Oh
and Dance is the brother of Ellen gy Oh wow.
So I've written a couple of songs with him, Faded
Spats from the album before. It's a song I wrote
with Advance. So anyway, it's like a real up tempo,
poppy song. That's my buddy Elliott Easton from the Cars
(12:49):
on lead guitar, and so it's a pretty cool song.
Actually I like it too.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I really like it. And the interesting thing is that
you've picked something upbeat. I mean, you've scanned around the news,
which is just so full of terrible stuff, and you've thought, hey,
there's some good stuff happening? Is that is that you?
Is that your is that your personality? You? You'll You'll pick.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Up only more of a Pollyanna than than a pessimist.
I think I'm going to see if there's really bad stuff,
I look at it against stoically saying well, I can
take it and allow it to affect me. But you can.
When you get bad news, you can. You can. You
don't have to accept it. You can. You can say well,
I can. How I react to it is what it is.
(13:33):
So I tend not to react to it in a
bad way. I say, well, things are happening, but I'm
still going to go on, and I'm going to do
my plays and my TV shows and films and write
my songs and be positive because that's my choice.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
In about a quarter of a second in the first half,
you mentioned the phrase stoic philosophy. Is that a real
thing for you?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Oh? Absolutely absolutely, Marcus Relish Meditations is a book that
I've been I go back to year after year after year.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And how does that sort of work out in daily life?
Do you admit?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
It? Called the daily stoic? And they talk about Plato,
you know, Marcus Aurelius Epictitus, Seneca, and all the likely
some of these stoic philosophers back in the days of
the Caesars would be you know, study it was one
of the richest men in Rome, and he mentioned he
(14:31):
said something against the Caesar. He said something, it's the
guy in control, kind of like what's happening right now,
and he got completely demoted. He got all this stuff
taken away from him, stead away to an island. So
I think right now life is just reflecting exactly what's
going on. Numerous times before you voice your opinions against
the powers of e and sometimes they can actually take
(14:54):
everything away from you, which they used to and apparently
doing still right.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
If I was to draw a line of your life,
you've had some real high points, but there's been a
few dips in between, and I I'm not surprised that
for a person who's now in his eighties and grinning
and performing and loving life, that philosophy must have got
you through those things. But we'll go back to your story.
(15:21):
You were actually a stutterer when you were a young fella.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Oh that's interesting, you know that. Yeah, so that's in
my IMDb, isn't it. Yeah? I uh, well, as I
told you that, it was a rough, a rough childhood,
even with all the beauty around me. Of course, I
had the stepdad, which is, you know, no different than
a lot of kids in America in the fifties. Was
the m O was spared the rod to spoil the child.
(15:50):
So it was a lot of kids getting you know,
the straps and whips and that, you know, so I
got my share of it. So you kind of as
an artistic type, you kind of go inside and go
become introspective and you start writing stuff to or you
become an actor so that you can pretend you're somebody
else sometimes.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And the acting helped you if you're stuttering.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
The acting I stuttered to the I was, I did
a little segue. I bypassed her your question, John, I
was stuttering so bad in the fourth grade that I
couldn't even talk. So I try to say, my body
would spas them up and I couldn't get the words out.
They actually had to pull me out of school, and
(16:37):
they found out that I was a reasonably intelligent person
and that I just had too many thoughts and I
just couldn't It was just strong and nervous. I was
scared scared so that the speech therapist said, I want
you to try to stutter. I want you to make
the sounds that you make when you're studying. You're not
studying right at this moment, try to stutter. So once
(16:59):
I try to articulate that out of control thing that
I couldn't control, I got control of it. Once I
tried to study, I stopped stuttering. And then when I
got to control of it, she said, I want you
to go now audition for any chance you can get
up and talk in front of people. You get on stage.
(17:22):
So that led me to acting, and I found that,
like in music, the girls.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Liked it, so that's always a bonus.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
That's a bonus. So I went, okay, well then maybe
I'll stick with this for a while. And I didn't know.
Truth well, that was part of it, but also the
main thing was that I really enjoyed it and I
felt that I had a good which I do. I
have a good, good natural comedy talent timing. I should
say I'm about the talent, but I have timing, which
is you know, everything's about timing.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So acting and music that's been you alive and it
worked out really well for you to it around Europe,
and then got onto this band the Grassroots that had
Gold Records and read they write it in the top
ten and that was going great. And then a bit
of a slump, a bit of a slump when you
(18:20):
were sort of just.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Doing that's a kind way to say, John.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Did you get pretty low?
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Well? Yeah, I mean, I mean there's I'm not lower
than anybody else, you know. I mean I figure, you know,
every every kid has probably been waterboarded by the time
they were five. I'm not different than anybody else, you know.
Uh So, But I.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Mean work and working, and I had a.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Vision, a mental image of me being successful. I saw myself.
I'd already seen myself on stage and that came to fruition,
and then I saw myself actually succeeding as an actor.
So no matter what was going on, how bad it was,
I still had a mental image. So I had that,
(19:10):
as it were, the template. I had that mental picture,
that Zeitgeist thing that's gonna be the no what's the word, ah,
what's a German word for picture?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Gestalt?
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah, this gestal that occurred where I saw very clearly
that I really shouldn't worry about all the stuff that
was going to turn out okay, and it did okay.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So even though you did what I think eight years
of wicking and catering and people coming in and probably saying,
oh winch you and.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Grassroots, it didn't tear me apart because I knew it
was it was temporary, yeah, and I didn't know that
it could have just derailed me completely.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, Well it hasn't derailed you. You set you down, and
you've got tracks under even now, and I mean tenth
album And do you find these albums? Are they fun
to do for you or do you.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Just find me? Well, you can imagine I get to
work with some great musician. They're all friends of mine here,
and I've been playing around. I always was playing. Even
though all that rough times that were going on, I
still had a lot of friends who believed in me musically.
At that even the lowest moment. Joni Mitchell's producer, Henry
Louie took me under his wing and believed in my
(20:35):
voice and believed in my songwriting and took me in
the studio and record is tough with me. So I
always had people that I respected backing me up so
that I didn't lose faith and he's not with us.
Name over. Thank you, Henry for all that stuff. The
people to do that you can't even know. You're a
little misty now thinking about it. But the people that
(20:57):
come into your life to give you that leg up, huge, huge.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Well, that leg up has lifted you up into a
good place now. And I'm just a lot I did
the idea if I can, let you know, let's slip
the secret. You're eighty two years old. Eighty two and
you still enjoy getting on a plane and traveling to
the other side of the planet.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I get crazy here, my friend.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Like none of it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Enjoy that long, No, no, enjoys that. That's not what
I enjoy. Getting on stage performing for the people that
know my music and uh and still being able to
sing well and play right. Yeah, but uh, my mother,
my mother had great I've got good DNA and my
mother was very youthful into her eighties.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Well, and you continue to doing.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
A lot of I do a lot of things to
stay healthy. I mean a lot of people don't know what.
I've been using Gensen suppositories for years, for years. It's
just a wonderful thing to keep you vibe. People living.
The pencil stuff like that now. When I first started,
my little sphincter didn't like that stuff, you know, but
(22:06):
now kind of looks it.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Well. I don't think I've talked too many guests over
the twenty years i've been doing the show about their
use of suppositories. So Creed, Peraps perhaps will hear the
opportunity of you perhaps sharing more about suppositories on stage
when you're playing in October first Folks at sky City
in Auckland. Look, I reckon that you'll enjoy it because
(22:35):
I've been watching a lot of him online and he
just mixes so much fun and humor and fantastic music,
like this track we're going to go out on, which
is the song that you sang on the office and
all the faces, beautiful song and look track track creeds
(22:55):
albums down on Spotify or wherever you get your music,
track him down on YouTube. You won't regret it because
he's just a great entertainer. Creed. We'll edit that, Creed,
it's been fantastic talking with you and.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I greed greed, Breton, you know I'm not that greed.
I'm not basically I don't I have all that I
really need, thank you, And not all Americans are Green.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
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