At a private show last night at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the band welcomed their new single, Detroit native Jeff Gutt, into the fold. During the performance, the band debuted a new song, "Meadow." You can hear the song—which is the lead single from an as-yet untitled album scheduled for release in 2018—below.
Before settling on Gutt—a veteran of the Detroit music scene—Dean DeLeo, Robert DeLeo and Eric Kretz reviewed around 15,000 online submissions, which they narrowed down to 30 singers, all of whom auditioned with the trio at Studio 606 in Los Angeles.
Gutt was the only one of the singers to audition who actually never submitted anything online. Instead, he was recommended to Robert DeLeo after he played a show with the Hollywood Vampires.
"Talk about a happy accident," Robert said. "It was clear right away that Jeff had the range to sing vocally challenging songs like 'Piece of Pie' and 'Interstate Love Song.' But we soon discovered that he also has a great ear for melody and knew how to write a song."
In September 2016, the four of them started working together and spent the next several months finishing off song ideas and writing new music. "The chemistry was there from the start, and Jeff kept coming up with one great melody after another. We ended up finishing 14 songs, which is the most that Stone Temple Pilots has ever recorded for an album," Kretz said.
Gutt, for his part, said that he was fully aware of the legacy of his predecessor. The band's original lead singer—the legendary Scott Weiland—passed away in December 2015 at the age of 48.
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"No one will ever fill Scott's shoes and I'm not trying to—he's a legend," Gutt said. "But these songs deserve to be performed and people want to hear them. I'm just honored that the guys chose me to help them continue to build this band's legacy."
In conjunction with the band's upcoming album, the band will embark on a North American tour, also slated for spring 2018.
Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.
