Stone Temple Pilots

• 1. Introduction

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  In January 1994, a Rolling Stone poll handed Stone Temple Pilots two opposite verdicts at the same moment. The magazine's readers voted them Best New Band. The magazine's own critics voted them Worst New Band. Stone Temple Pilots, an American rock band, lived inside that split for most of their career. Fans kept buying the records, and reviewers kept doubting them. The band also refused to repeat itself, and each album sounded different from the last. So how did a group that started under a completely different name become a fixture of 1990s rock radio? Why did so many critics hold out against them? And what happens to a band built around one famous voice when that voice is suddenly gone?

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• 2. From Swing To STP

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  In 1985, Scott Weiland and his friends in a band called Soi-Disant kept running into the same bass player at gigs. Robert DeLeo's live shows impressed guitarist Corey Hickok, drummer David Allin and Weiland so much that they decided to track him down. The four eventually formed a group called Swing. Allin left after a few years. The remaining members then watched Eric Kretz play drums in a Long Beach club and convinced him to join.

  In 1989, Hickok left too. The band auditioned many guitarists, and Robert suggested his older brother, Dean. Dean DeLeo was by then a successful businessman who had left his musical career behind and played guitar only as a hobby. The band talked him into playing for Swing anyway. That completed the original lineup, and shortly afterwards the group renamed itself Mighty Joe Young.

  The new name carried them through their first shows. Their debut performance supported Henry Rollins at the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood. Then they began work on a first album with Brendan O'Brien. In the middle of those sessions, their lawyer phoned with bad news. A bluesman had already claimed the name Mighty Joe Young.

  The members had loved the STP Motor Oil stickers they saw in their youth. They tossed around different meanings for the initials STP before settling on Stone Temple Pilots.

  A demo tape recorded around 1990 still shows what the group sounded like before the change. It holds early versions of songs later re-recorded for the first album. It also holds styles that never appeared on any studio record, including funk and yodeling.

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• 3. Core And Purple

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  On the 29th of September 1992, Atlantic Records released Core, the debut album from a band it had signed that same year. Core peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Albums Chart. It produced four hits: "Sex Type Thing", "Plush", "Creep" and "Wicked Garden". Some in the music press still dismissed the group as grunge imitators.

  That year, Weiland and Dean DeLeo played an acoustic version of "Plush" on the MTV show Headbangers Ball. It is widely regarded as one of Weiland's greatest vocal performances. The band also toured as an opening act for Rage Against the Machine and Megadeth. By 1993, they were headlining their own two-and-a-half-month American tour.

  That year they also filmed an episode of MTV Unplugged, where they debuted the song "Big Empty". In February 1994, the group won the American Music Awards for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Heavy Metal/Hard Rock New Artist. A month later, "Plush" earned the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance.

  In the spring of 1994, the band returned to the studio for its second album. Purple was completed in less than a month. On the 7th of June 1994, it debuted at number one in the United States.

  The radio-friendly single "Interstate Love Song" spent a record-setting fifteen weeks atop the album rock tracks chart. "Vasoline" was another hit. "Big Empty" reached a new audience when it appeared on the soundtrack to the film The Crow. By October 1994, just four months after release, Purple had sold three million copies.

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• 4. A Shifting Sound

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  In October 1995, the band rented a mansion in Santa Barbara, California, so everyone could live together while recording a third album. Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop arrived on the 5th of March 1996. Its sound leaned toward glam rock and psychedelic music, away from the hard rock that had made the group famous. Reviews at the time were mixed.

  Rolling Stone had a reputation for dismissing the band, yet it called the record the group's best effort to date. The magazine admitted surprise at "the clattering, upbeat character of the music", given Weiland's much-publicized run-ins with drugs and the law. In February 1997, the band appeared on the cover of issue No. 753.

  The genre-hopping went further than that cover story suggests. After Core, the second album had already drawn on psychedelic rock, country music and jangle pop. A song like "And So I Know" on Tiny Music has a distinct bossa nova sound. Robert DeLeo says each album has its own personality while keeping the band's "sonic blueprint". Steven Hyden of UPROXX called them a "melodic power-pop band in hard-rock clothing".

  Aerosmith was a large influence. Dean DeLeo credits that band for songs such as "Huckleberry Crumble" from the 2010 self-titled record. At a 1996 show in Madison Square Garden, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry joined the group onstage for "Sweet Emotion" and "Lick and a Promise". All of the members had been Kiss fans in childhood, and in 1993 they played shows at the Roseland Ballroom in Kiss-style makeup. They have also covered the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Pink Floyd, James Brown, David Bowie and Bob Marley.

  The grunge label never sat comfortably. Critics said the early sound came from contemporaries such as Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. The band replied that the similarities were coincidence, since they shared the same musical idols. Much of the comparison targeted Weiland's voice, which people likened to Eddie Vedder's. Weiland named Jim Morrison and David Bowie as his vocal influences, and Bowie was his main fashion influence as well. People called him a chameleon.

  Looking back in 2014, Weiland explained the restlessness this way: "We saw that even great movements only last a certain period of time and you don't want to be pigeonholed."

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• 5. Inside The Writing

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  On Core, Weiland wrote lyrics about societal issues such as religion, abuse of power and isolation. His breakthrough single "Sex Type Thing" divided critics. Some read its words as advocacy of date rape. Weiland said he meant it as a feminist anthem, with the lyrics written in mockery of the narrator.

  As Weiland struggled with substance abuse, his songwriting turned more personal and intricate. "Interstate Love Song" deals with what his addiction was doing to his relationship with his then-wife, Janina. The lyrics of the fourth album were written to bring closure to his marriage and to his addiction to heroin.

  The other three members shaped the sound in their own ways. Dean DeLeo plays heavily layered, distorted guitar. Robert DeLeo draws on rhythm and blues, lounge music and ragtime. Eric Kretz, known for a funk-inflected style, moved from strictly heel-up drumming to a heel-down approach so he could hit harder.

  After the 2008 reunion, Weiland described a change in his approach. He pointed to Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan as models for storytelling. In his words, "In the '90s, I was so overwhelmed with my heroin addiction, and so a lot of the stuff was just from my point of view." He added, "Every song doesn't have to be narcissistically written about how I feel on that day."

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• 6. Cracks And Comebacks

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  The final dates of 1996 included a stop in Hawaii at the end of December, and it never happened. The band had already pulled out of a support slot on Kiss' reunion tour. Hawaii and some 1997 dates were then cancelled so Weiland could go to rehab. Kiss drummer Peter Criss said, "I can't call the kettle black. I just pray for the guy and hope that he gets himself better because they really are a great band."

  The other members recruited Dave Coutts, frontman of Ten Inch Men, and performed as Talk Show. That group released one self-titled album in 1997 before dissolving. In 1998, Weiland put out his first solo album, 12 Bar Blues. Both records earned moderate praise, and neither sold well.

  In late 1998, the band regrouped for a fourth album. No. 4 came out in 1999 as a back-to-basics rock record in the spirit of Core and Purple. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that "it's as if STP decided to compete directly with the new generation of alt-metal bands who prize aggression over hooks or riffs." The single "Sour Girl" became one of their biggest hits since the early days, helped by a video starring Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The band recorded an episode of VH1 Storytellers and toured that summer with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The RIAA eventually certified No. 4 platinum.

  The fifth album, Shangri-La Dee Da, arrived in the summer of 2001 with only one modest rock radio hit, "Days of the Week". A tour with Linkin Park on the Family Values Tour did not rescue it, and it was a commercial disappointment. The band also wrote "All in the Suit That You Wear" as a possible lead single for the 2002 film Spider-Man soundtrack. Chad Kroeger's song "Hero" got the slot instead.

  The band went quiet at the end of 2002, after reports of an altercation between Dean DeLeo and Weiland following the last show of the fall tour. In 2003, Atlantic Records released the greatest hits album Thank You. Five days later, the DeLeo brothers told Guitar One that the band was officially finished.

  Weiland joined the supergroup Velvet Revolver, which released Contraband in 2004 and Libertad in 2007. The DeLeos formed Army of Anyone with Richard Patrick of Filter and session drummer Ray Luzier, releasing one self-titled album in 2006. Kretz kept a lower profile, running Bomb Shelter Studios and drumming for Spiralarms.

  According to Dean DeLeo, the reunion began with a phone call from Weiland's wife, Mary Forsberg. She invited the DeLeos to a private beach party, and the two sides reconciled. Weiland left Velvet Revolver in April 2008. The next month, the band announced a 65-date North American tour. They reunited for a private gig at the Houdini Mansion and played their first public show on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on the 1st of May. The six-month run ended on Halloween 2008 in Pelham, Alabama.

  The sixth album, Stone Temple Pilots, came out on the 25th of May 2010 and debuted at number two on the Billboard 200. In 2011, the band toured Southeast Asia for the first time, playing Manila, Singapore and Jakarta, then sold out shows in Sydney and Melbourne.

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• 7. Losing The Voice

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  On the 26th of June 2012, the band released its first concert film, Alive in the Windy City. It was filmed at a sold-out show at the Riviera Theatre in Chicago in March 2010. Not long afterward, a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of Core began to show strain.

  On the 17th of September, at a show in Abbotsford, British Columbia, the band arrived nearly two hours late and cut the set 30 minutes short. The next day, the show in Lethbridge, Alberta was cancelled because Weiland was ordered to take "48 hours complete vocal rest due to strained vocal cords." On the 7th of December, Slash told the Minneapolis radio station 93X he had heard rumors that Weiland was fired.

  On the 27th of February 2013, Stone Temple Pilots fired Weiland. It was the first lineup change in the band's history. Both sides filed lawsuits over the right to use the Stone Temple Pilots name. Both were settled out of court, and the DeLeo brothers and Kretz kept the rights.

  In May 2013, the three remaining members performed with Chester Bennington of Linkin Park at the KROQ Weenie Roast and the Live 105 BFD festival. On the 19th of May, they released a free download of the new single "Out of Time", with Bennington now an official member. He had said in interviews years earlier that being in Stone Temple Pilots was his lifelong dream. At a benefit concert on the 30th of May, Slash and Duff McKagan joined them for "All the Young Dudes".

  The five-track EP High Rise followed on the 8th of October 2013, credited to Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington. It stayed his only release with the band. The band dropped his name from its billing in March 2015. On the 9th of November 2015, Bennington announced he was leaving on amicable terms to focus on Linkin Park.

  On the 3rd of December 2015, Weiland was found dead on his tour bus in Minnesota, from an accidental overdose of alcohol, pills and cocaine. The band's statement called him "gifted beyond words". Bennington died two years later.

  In February 2016, the band launched an online audition for a new vocalist. Its call read, "If you think you have what it takes to front this band, record with this band, and tour with this band, we would dig hearing from you." On the 14th of November 2017, the band announced Jeff Gutt as its new singer.

  A second self-titled album followed on the 16th of March 2018, and a co-headlining tour with Bush and the Cult. In 2020, the band released Perdida, which it described as an acoustic record largely recorded on vintage instruments. Eric Kretz told Loudwire in 2019 that the album included a flute solo.

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• 8. Legacy

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  Core is certified 8 times platinum by the RIAA, and it drove the band into the mainstream. Before the group dissolved in 2003, it had sold 40 million records worldwide, including 17.5 million units in the United States. The band has had 16 top ten singles on the Billboard rock charts, and eight of them reached No. 1. VH1 ranked them No. 40 on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.

  MTV writer James Montgomery later questioned the opinions of 1990s critics. He wrote, "All I'm suggesting is that perhaps it's time to admit that we were wrong about them from the get-go." Reviewing the 2003 greatest hits collection, AllMusic's Erlewine wrote that "STP made music that sounded great at the time and even better now." He also called them "the best straight-ahead rock singles outfit of their time."

  Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan paid public tribute after Weiland's death. He called the apology his way of making amends for having been so critical of the band when it first appeared. He said the third album hooked him, and he described it as a mix of glam and post-punk. Asked who the great voices of their generation were, he named Weiland, Layne and Kurt.

  On the 3rd of December 2016, the band posted a tribute on its website to mark the first anniversary of Weiland's death. In 2017, Metal Injection ranked them number 9 on its list of the 10 heaviest grunge bands. The band was still playing in 2024, when it co-headlined a summer American tour with the band Live.

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