Creed Bratton of 'The Office' proud of his 'cult following'

'The Office' gave his music and acting careers a big promotion

Some of those details are true both of the actor and character. Creed Bratton is the actor's name. And the real-life Bratton, like the Dunder Mifflin worker, had been a hippie, went through financially difficult times and created great music as a member of the 1960s pop-rock group The Grass Roots.

Bratton will separate fact from fiction, as well as play music from "The Office" and the six solo discs he released since leaving The Grass Roots, when he performs 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Sellersville Theater 1894.

"The Creed character has got this cult following," Bratton says in a phone call from California. "The college kids just love this guy. I hope sometimes they're not too disappointed to find out I'm actually an actor playing him."

Bratton says fanatics aren't likely to be disappointed with the live show. "I will bring him out on stage to annoy the people, for sure," he says with a laugh. "I tell them how to be Creed, basically. How to Creed-up their life a bit, you know? Creed-ify their existence."

Bratton says the show will be a "Samuel Clemens-y, hopefully humorous" series of anecdotes about his life, from "all the crazy stuff I went through before The Grass Roots even happened, then The Grass Roots, then all the very down periods — which there's always humor in that, too."

He'll talk about "The Office," the mockumentary show that became a cultural phenomenon, ranked atop many critics' lists, and won four prime time Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series in 2006. He'll punctuate each tale with a song.

If the stories are anything like the real Bratton's life, they're sure to be interesting.

Bratton, 71, became a professional musician during his college years, and played throughout Europe before forming The 13th Floor in 1966.

A year later, producers/songwriters P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri were scrambling to find a band to play songs they recorded themselves as The Grass Roots, including the hit "Where Were You When I Needed You." The 13th Floor became The Grass Roots.

Bratton's group lost its bassist to the Vietnam War draft and brought in new vocalist Rob Grill, who sang on the group's biggest hits, "Live For Today" and "Midnight Confessions." Bratton recorded four albums, appeared on "American Bandstand" and toured with The Grass Roots as it set a record for most continuous weeks having a song on the charts.

But Bratton says he became disillusioned when producers chose to have famed Los Angeles studio musicians The Wrecking Crew play on the albums rather than the real band. The iconic guitar riff on "Let's Live for Today," for example, was Sloan's, Bratton says.

"The other guys were fine with it; I was not fine with it," Bratton says. "Because I play, I'm an artist. It's not the ego as much as it's, 'Hey, this what I do,' and I take pride in it. So c'mon. So anyway, that was the big bone of contention why I left the group, basically."