Who are the Stone Temple Pilots?

are:
Scott Weiland: Vocals
Robert DeLeo: Bass
Dean DeLeo: Guitars
Eric Kretz: Drums

They may be a new band to you, but the Stone Temple Pilots have been flying the course since their formation in San Diego in 1988. Mad vocalist Weiland hitched up with bass guitarist Robert DeLeo and soon picked up the solid drumming form of Eric Kretz. The last piece of the puzzle came in the shape of Robert's brother Dean on lead guitar duties. After a short period of garage rehearsals the group set about securing any support slots that were begging on the local live circuit. With a background of influence taking in classic acts like Led Zeppelin, Queen, Kiss and Aerosmith, Stone Temple Pilots were perfecting a sound of their own, taking the best of seventies hard rock and bringing it into the nineties. At the same time as this melting pot was overboiling a parallel set of groups over in Seattle were also putting the finishing touches to their version of the new rock revolution. Bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden may have had the advantage of hanging on the coat-tails of Nirvana, but out on the West coast Stone Temple Pilots have been going it alone and their super-fine debut album, Core, shows that they are already climbing head and shoulders aboue the pack. If this lot are the first out of the West coast then there is sure gonna be a lot of great groups to look forward to in the next couple of years. Lets just hope that who ever follows in their footsteps are of the same world beating quality.
-From insert to Stone Temple Pilots "Close Your Eyes"(Import)

An STP article from MTV

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

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