A Rolling Stone Article

The Stone Temple Pilots began taking shape in the mid-'80s, following Robert's high school
graduation and move from the brothers' home town New Jersey to California. After a brief
exploration of Europe and skiing in the Austrian Alps, Dean decided to follow his brother to
California and eventually settle in San Diego. Both Robert and Dean had previous experience
playing in a cover band known as TYRUS, but neither of them had seriously considered music as
a career. Meanwhile, Weiland, who had grown up near Cleveland and moved to Huntington
Beach, Calif. at age 15, was currently indulging himself in the Orange County punk-rock scene.
He met Robert at a Black Flag show in Long Beach and the two immediately hit it off. "Weiland
was really the first one that I could actually get along with in a writing -type situation," says
Robert. "We went to a club one night and Eric was playing with this band. He was just pounding
the hell out of the drums, so we decided to ask him what he was doing." The three soon began
writing and eventually moved to Los Angeles, where they took up a series of ill-fated, day-to-day
jobs. A few years later Dean joined the band when Robert phoned him in San Diego and asked
him to help record demos of the songs the three had written. Now officially a band-carrying the
name Mighty Joe Young, the four played their first gig in August of 1990 at the Whisky, in L.A.
They then moved to San Diego and continued performing. Two years later the band got their first
big break at a show in L.A. Booking Agent Don Muller of Traid Artists saw them perform at an
underground dive called the Club With No Name and tipped Atlantic A & R man Tom Carolan.
After a brief period the band signed with the label. On April Fools' Day 1992 Mighty Joe Young
had sealed their deal with Atlantic. During the recording process the guys got a call from their
lawyer, informing them that an elderly blues singer already had claim to the name Mighty Joe
Young. It took the band two weeks of brainstorming to come up with the name Stone Temple
Pilots. The band got the name from Weiland's memory of the STP motor-oil logo he put on the
seat of his bike as a kid, other than that the name carries no real significance to them-and just
liked the way it sounded. The Pilots' released thier platinum debut album CORE in Semptember
of 1992 and it was met with immediate acclaim. Following the release of CORE the band went on
to record thier second successful album PURPLE in June of 1994 which has also topped the
charts.


© Rolling Stone, "Hard To The Core" by Kim Neely

MTV Article

A product of the San Diego club scene, Stone Temple Pilots boast hard-edged songs, classic rock
rhythms, and cutting vocals. The group's original members, bassist Robert DeLeo and vocalist
Weiland, first met at a Black Flag concert in Long Beach, CA where they were both living at the
time. "It was one of those weird things," explains Weiland, "You get into a heavy discussion with
a total stranger, and you discover that both of you are seeing the same girl." When their mutual
girlfriend moved to Texas, Robert and Weiland seized the opportunity and-what else?-moved into
her apartment. "Robert had an eight-track, and we would record these sick, tweaked,
multi-layered jingle/commercial things, like 'Dr. Lymph Node's Duck Butter Brand Butt Wax,'"
Weiland recalls with a laugh. Even though Weiland's roots lay in the punk/post-punk genre, and
Robert came from New Jersey and more of a hard-rock/Led Zep/Black Sabbath background, they
discovered a common artistic ground and decided to form a band. Seeing Eric Kretz play in a
small Long Beach club, where his atomic skin-bashing overpowered the rest of the group, Robert
turned to Weiland and said, "That guy's loud." After Kretz joined the band, the boys began to
search for a guitarist, but they were having no luck landing a player who fit their very particular
bill. "Robert had always told me, 'We should try and talk my brother into coming out from New
Jersey,' but Dean had a real cynical view of California," Weiland recalls. Finally Dean was
convinced to come out to Long Beach to play on a demo session with the band. He decided to
stay, moving to San Diego with his new girlfriend. The group, in turn, felt that San Diego would
provide a much more conducive musical environment than Los Angeles, and they decided to do
most of their live work there. Weiland comments: "At the time, the attitude in LA seemed to be
'We're right in the middle of the music business here in Hollywood so we've all got to try to sound
like this band or that band that just got signed.'" So Stone Temple Pilots developed their original
approach away from the glitz of the Sunset Strip. They built up a local following, only playing the
occasional strategic showcase in L.A. This low-key strategy has paid off for STP; in addition to a
1995 VMA nomination for Best Hard Rock Video, both of the group's full-length releases,
"PURPLE" and "CORE" have gone triple-platinum, and the group was voted Best New Band of
1994 by the Readers of Rolling Stone. Stone Temple Pilots have appeared on MTV Unplugged
and also rendered Led Zeppelin's "Dancing Days" for the Zep tribute album "ENCOMIUM."

© 1995 MTV

Q&A - Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots - by Chris Mundy

He comes complete with all the accessories of a happening rock guy. One name. A furrowed brow.
Hot-pink hair. A platinum record. All he needs now is a bit of respect. But it just ain't coming
easy.

You see, since the debut record by Stone Temple Pilots, Weiland (first name: Scott) seems to have
been walking around wearing the alternative-rock equivalent of a kick me sign. The criticisms
range from complaints that Stone Temple Pilots take themselves too seriously to that they're just
a calculated, poor-man's Pearl Jam (the Stone Gossard Pilots?).

Then again, who cares? A platinum record is, after all, platinum. Weiland is in the process of
buying a house in San Diego and in the midst of organizing a rape-relief benefit concert. His band
is about to start working on album No. 2. And now, ROLLING STONE is on the line, offering
him a chance to bare his soul.

When you dyed your hair, what other colors were in the running?

I don't know. I just do things to amuse myself. Like Madonna, I always find the need to reinvent
myself when I get bored.

So we should be waiting on your sex book?

I'm trying to figure out some way to express my sexual preferences that will shock the whole rock
world. I'm waiting to find out if it has anything to do with animals.

The image that most people have of you is very dour and brooding. What makes you laugh?

Different things. Same kind of things that make me cry or make me want to have sex.

Hmm. OK, well, tell me a joke.

I've never been a real joke teller. I find humor out of everyday things that happen in life that
seem to not necessarily be overtly funny but just kind of strike me in a dark comedic sense.

Stone Temple Pilots have been put up as a political band. If you could work for only one issue,
what would it be?

I really don't have a vested interest in anything other than having the freedom to pursue
happiness. Any political issue having to do with equal rights and people enjoying certain
freedoms. But there isn't necessarily one cause that I would feel the need to champion, although
one thing we've never done is a benefit for AIDS awareness, and that is something I'd be very
interested in doing.

What's the worst gig you ever played?

The first show we did right before the record came out. We got this offer to play a couple of the
Lollapalooza shows on the side stage. I hadn't sung all summer, and in rehearsals I blew my voice
out. We went to do the show, got in the van, and when we got on-stage, I had no voice. We only
played three songs, and we left the stage, and I felt humiliated.

If you had a gun and one bullet, who would you shoot?

If you asked me this two days ago, I would have said the person that just held me up. I was with a
friend outside this bar that I frequent, and two guys pull up asking, "Where's Melrose
Boulevard?" I said, "Man, you're on it." The guy runs around us, pulls out a gun and says, "Give
me your fucking wallets." At that moment, if I did have a gun, who knows what would have
happened. I hate to say that, but that was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me.

You seem to shoot for an image of the '90s sensitive male. Is that accurate?

My girlfriend thinks of me that way. Just because I regard myself as a feminist doesn't mean I'm
anti-sexual. It doesn't mean that I don't love women and love to fuck.

Have you ever been on a blind date?

I had this driving job, and this girl started working there, and I asked her to come to this
barbecue my friends and I were having. I pulled up, and she's sitting in her car with a thermos of
malt liquor. Then we go to my house, and within the first 15 minutes, I go to the bathroom, and
she had gone next door and was doing tequila shots with these guys who played in a
Southern-rock band. Later at a party, she turned the fuse box off, pulled the FOR SALE sign out
of the front yard and started runnin g from me down the street. Then she ran right out in front of
a car, put her hands out and her head back. The car slammed on the brakes and jumped the curb.
She never showed up for work again.

If you had to form a band that only covered songs by one group, what would it be?

It'd probably be a mixture between old New Wave -- like Devo -- and maybe Bay City Rollers,
Cheap Trick and Stiff Little Fingers.

That's four.

Just that early-'80s cheese pop.

Do you ever listen to your music and say to yourself, "You know, we do sound a lot like Pearl
Jam"?

This blows me away. I don't think there's any similarities in our bands at all. Not discounting
Pearl jam, but to me they're a modern-day Buffalo Springfield or something, a classic-rock band.
I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. We're on a to tally different trip.

Well, your voices sound very alike.

It's funny, when we were recording the record, I was listening to a lot of Doors, and I was worried
about the fact that people would say I was trying to sound like Jim Morrison. I never tho ught
there was going to be this Pearl Jam thing. I never thought it would blow up the way it has.

A Little History of STP From CDUNIVERSE


Stone Temple Pilots were able to make alternative rock into stadium rock; naturally, they became
the most critically despised band of their era. Accused by many critics of being nothing more than
rip-off artists, pilfering from Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains, the band nevertheless
became major stars in 1993. And the influences of those bands are apparent in their music, but
Stone Temple Pilots do manage to change things around a bit. STP are more concerned with tight
song structure and riffs than punk rage. Their closest antecedents are not The Sex Pistols or
Hnsker Dn; instead the band resembles arena rock acts from the '70s -- it's popular hard rock that
sounds good on the radio and in concert. No matter what the critics might say, Stone Temple
Pilots have undeniably catchy riffs and production; there's a reason why over three million people
bought their debut album, Core, and why their second album, Purple, shot to number one when it
was released. Following the success of Purple and its accompanying tour, the band took some
time off, during which the group's lead singer, Scott Weiland, developed a heroin addiction. In
the spring of 1995, he was arrested for posession of heroin and cocaine, and he was sentenced to a
rehabilitation program. Following his completion of the program, Stone Temple Pilots recorded
their third album. Released in the spring of 1996, Tiny Music .. Songs from the Vatican Giftshop,
entered the charts at number four. Shortly after its release, Stone Temple Pilots announced that
Weiland had relapsed and had entered a drug rehabilitation facility, thereby cancelling the
group's plans for a summer tour. Weiland's drug problems and the group's inability to support
Tiny Music with a tour meant that the album couldn't replicate the success of its predecessors --
by the end of the summer, it had fallen out the Top 50 and had stalled at platinum, which was
considerably less than what the group's two previous albums achieved. the~ Stephen Thomas
Erlewine

Information supplied by All Music Guide

Copyright 1997 CDUniverse