It was not unusual for opening acts for thrash metal’s Big Four to suffer at the hands of the audience, not all of whom shared the tastes of the headliners who had hand-picked their support.

Alice In Chains stuck out like a sore thumb during the epic all-star Clash of the Titans Tour of 1991. Queensrÿche and the Cult would tell you that the late ’80s Metallica crowd were a rowdy bunch. One show in Helsinki saw Queensrÿche being showered in bottles. Those were tough gigs.

Dean DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots can relate. The Californian alt-rockers were just getting started when they got the invite from Dave Mustaine to come out and open for Megadeth. Core was in record stores. MTV picked up Sex Type Thing. Things were moving for the band.

Speaking to Guitar World in 2017, the STP guitarist said the Megadeth tour was a huge chance to prove that their sound could translate from the club to an ice rink enormodome.

“It was our first introduction to playing arenas. All of us had been playing clubs from a very young age – in our teens, so we had had our fill of that,” said DeLeo. “And then when STP hit the road we played our fair share of clubs globally. And when we came back we got all these offers to go out with other bands.”

In the early days, Rage Against the Machine took STP out. But it’s the Megadeth gig DeLeo remembers from that time. Mustaine, he says, was a gent. The crowd, once they had filed in, did not have the patience to sit through a support act, nor the manners to humor them.

“Megadeth asked us to go out with them, and I’ll tell ya, Mr. Mustaine was very, very kind to us, man. Very supportive,” recalled DeLeo.

“Nobody knew who we were. We were simply the opening band. We would come out to an arena that was only a third full. And then we’re trying to do our thing, and you’ve got little pimple-faced boys with Iron Maiden shirts just giving you the finger all night. Like, ‘Man, this sucks!’ They just wanted to see Megadeth.”

This did not go down well with Mr Megadeth himself. Dave Mustaine took umbrage that his fans were not pleased at his choice of support act, and if the fans let it be known that they were unhappy, so too did the Megadeth frontman. DeLeo says Mustaine would intervene and call for order.

“Dave Mustaine would sometimes come out,” said DeLeo, “and he’d grab the mic and go, ‘Listen, you fuckers. I personally picked this band to be here. Fucking listen!’ It was like, ‘Holy shit!’ Mustaine was amazing to us.”

And STP returned none the worse for wear. Core was hot. By the summer of ’93, it was charting at number three on the Billboard 200. Creep, Plush, and Wicked Garden joined Sex Type Thing on MTV, on the radio, and ultimately shifted more than eight million copies in the US alone.

From Dean DeLeo’s legendary recordings in Stone Temple Pilots to his more recent Trip The Witch collaboration with Tom Bukovac, there’s a consistency with the quality of his guitar tones and the passion and conviction in his parts.

Alongside Cobain, Cantrell, Cornell, Thayil, Gossard and McCready, he’s one of the bona fide architects of the ’90s alternative rock sound – co-creator of a cultural phenomenon that still inspires people all these years later.

DeLeo’s latest venture, One More Satellite, started out as a solo project and ended up becoming a partnership with English singer Pete Shoulder, best known for his work in The Union, Winterville and Sloper.

The 10 tracks on their self-titled debut album make for an electrifying listen, ricocheting between uplifting earworm melodies and moody angst with an abundance of psychedelia and countrified blues thrown in for good measure.

And, as we’ve grown to expect, the guitar sounds are all-encompassing and multi-dimensional, teetering on the edge of breakup with an unbelievable potency and clarity. “It started out as an instrumental thing, riding the coattails of the Trip the Witch record,” DeLeo explains.

“Pete Shoulder sang on one song, then another, and wound up singing on eight of the 10. To have him on board was great. The record is very much our project, band – whatever you’d like to call it.”

This isn’t the first time Shoulder and someone with the DeLeo surname have crossed paths. The singer co-wrote the song Love Is Not Made of Gold from Robert DeLeo’s 2022 album Lessons Learned and sang on its opening track Big Sky Woman. So how did the siblings end up working with an underground musician on the other side of the Atlantic?

“Ross Halfin introduced me and my brother to Pete back in 2015,” says DeLeo. “The three of us ended up doing some recording in 2017 that one day I hope you’ll hear. We’re sitting on an entire record. He’s a great friend and immense talent.”

Paper Over the Cracks has this riff where chords are bent as open strings ring out, as well as bluesy leads in E minor.

“I stumble upon things. I’ll pick up a guitar, find something and build off it – but I don’t really set out to write a song. With the blues stuff, maybe I’m showing my limitations rather than showing off.

“It’s more about what happens when I’m about to solo on a song like that. I want to have a melody in place rather than blow out guitar licks. Every solo needs a beginning, middle and end; I try to stay conscious of that.”

Vultures has a very unique flavor in terms of chord voicings and movements.

“The verses start on an E, so I guess it has a major 7 sound, but I’m leaving one of the notes out. It’s the same shape through the whole verse. I couldn’t begin to explain what’s happening in the pre-chorus! There’s also a Tele on the left at points, doing this arpeggiated thing.”

The chimey tones are spectacular. In the past you’ve told us about the fundamentals of your rig – a VHT running in stereo with a Vox in the middle bringing extra midrange. Is that what we’re hearing?

“I’m no longer using the VHT. Steve Fryette, who invented it, has built me a whole new rig that I’ve been using over the last few years. The VHT took up about eight rack spaces and weighs around 100 pounds.

“Because we’re doing so many fly dates with STP, he built me a smaller amp that I run at 50 watts. It’s a beautiful thing that emulates the VHT perfectly, because the same guy made both. I’m also using one of Steve’s modules to replace the Demeter preamp.”

Is everything else the same?

“Yeah. There are two Marshall cabs running at 50 watts plus the Vox in the middle, which is set clean to get clarity and chime. Our front-of-house guy has been mixing us for nearly 40 years; he knows if too much Vox comes in – stopping me from getting the sound some of the songs call for.”

Perhaps it’s even more important to get a fuller sound like that when you’re the only guitarist in the band?

“That’s kinda been the blueprint with STP. Robert’s knowledge of voicings is way beyond mine. We wanted to bring in really beautiful chords, sometimes even jazz shapes, into rock music. It was always about clarity. Sure, I love volume, distortion and all that, but I also want to hear every string within a chord, instead of a jumbled mess.”

What instruments did you use most?

“Robert and I love using toy guitars that you have to wrestle with. They can have a specific sound. Sometimes with nice guitars you don’t get that. You’ll pick one up and realize it almost sounds too good.

“There’s something to be said for guitars that are challenging to play. Things like that can add to the performance, because you are pulling from the instrument.

“On Paper Over the Cracks, the guitar on the right was this entry-level Kay. I’m good at knowing what gear will give me the sound I’m looking for. Before I address recording, I have a tonality in my head; I know what sonic adventure I want to go on. For the song Willow Mae, it was a 1950 Gibson J-50.”

So there were a lot of different guitars at your beck and call?

“For sure. What you mainly hear on Vultures is a ’60s double-cut Danelectro. That’s where I’m getting that chime from, along with a guitar made by Bill Nash. Another friend of mine, Bruce Nelson, has built me some beautiful guitars over the years. That’s what I’m using live right now.

“His guitars play beautifully no matter where I am on the neck. When you start overdubbing with older guitars, there can be a battle with tuning. We all know the G string is the naughtiest of all strings! With newer instruments like the Nash and Nelson guitars, everything’s perfect.”

There’s a lot of Telecaster on this record.

“There’s nothing that emulates the sound of a Tele. It’s because of how the string comes through the body and bends at a 90-degree angle. It’s a very special tone. When you pick up a Tele as opposed to a jazz box, you’ll play different. The guitar in your hands can dictate how you touch and play it.”

I own a couple, but my favorite is a Fender Richie Kotzen signature in Sea Foam Green.

“Have you seen what Richie has been up to recently? I saw him at a party recently. I had to ask him, ‘When did you get so great?!’ He’s always been amazing, but the way he’s playing right now is just unbelievable, man. That stuff he’s been doing with Adrian Smith from Iron Maiden is seriously good. The guy sings incredible, too. He’s a double threat!”

You’ve spoken about your love for the Boss CE-1 in the past. Which pedals helped on this album?

“It was mainly Small Stones and Leslie emulators. Bruce Nelson put this thing on his guitars where, if I back off the tone knob, it almost acts like a wah-wah. You can hear it in the solo at the end of Serenade. It’s that cocked sound. I don’t know if it’s some kind of attenuator, but I can get that without needing a pedal.”

You don’t tend to play much slide, but the Can of Worms solo came out great.

“I wear it on my middle finger. It’s just what felt comfortable, though I haven’t seen too many cats do that. Wearing a slide on your pinky looks so foreign to me. Have you seen this guy called Dylan Adams? He can play some slide, man.”

You’ve written many STP classics, from Sex Type Thing to Vasoline. Which song are you most proud of?

“I don’t know. Maybe the best song I’ve ever written is the one I haven’t written yet. I’m a big fan of Failure – I remember the first time I heard their track Mulholland Drive. I called Ken Andrews and told him it’s a song I wish I’d written; it impacted me so deeply.

“I feel that way about a lot of stuff Robert writes. My brother has had a huge impact on me. I played bass on this record and I told everyone I was doing my best Robert DeLeo!

“One of my favorite STP songs is I Got You from the No. 4 album, which was written by Robert and Scott Weiland. Honestly, I’d say my favorite STP songs are the ones I didn’t write!”

You paid tribute to Allan Holdsworth in 1992 on your Sin solo. Not many alternative rock bands would have dared doing that.

“Robert and I caught him on the IOU tour with Paul Williams singing, plus Jeff Berlin and Chad Wackerman. We were at The Fast Lane in Astbury Park. There were 15 people there.

“I can’t believe we did this, but I’m going to come clean – they weren’t off stage for more than two minutes and we barged into their dressing rooms with no etiquette whatsoever. Robert still has the plectrum he asked Allan for!”

You got to know Allan in the years that came after.

“We became friends in the early ’90s. There was a gentleman called John Pegler who had this guitar shop in San Diego. John knew Allan and he was the common thread for our friendship.

“One night I was hanging out at Allan’s house with [pianist] Gordon Beck. Allan made a lovely meal and we had a couple of drinks or 10. Gordon started poking at Allan, telling me, ‘All he wanted was to become a sax player!’ But if you listen to the phrasing and tonality on Allan’s records, it definitely comes from the saxophone.

“There hasn’t been anyone like him – and believe me, I’ve pursued Allan’s career from top to bottom, starting with the 'Igginbottom stuff, then what he did with Bruford and UK to the music he made as a solo artist and with Jean-Luc Ponty.

“Nobody has ever been able to play the way he did. A lot of it comes from the sax phrasing he brought into the realm of electric guitar. It’s mind-blowing!”

• One More Satellite’s self-titled debut is out on July 18 and available to preorder now.

Earlier this month, Dean DeLeo raised the curtain on his latest collaborative project when he dropped Paper Over The Cracks – the debut single from his new band, One More Satellite.

For the upcoming record – which will release later this summer – DeLeo dove deep into his back catalog of electric guitar gear, and, when asked by Guitar World which specific six-strings served a starring role in the studio, the Stone Temple Pilots riffer shared his thoughts on guitar selection.

Namely, he reveals he isn’t always looking for the best or most expensive guitar, which, on paper, should perform flawlessly. Instead, sometimes toy guitars will do just fine – it all depends on the sound you’re after.

“Robert and I love using toy guitars that you have to wrestle with,” he says. “They can have a specific sound. Sometimes with nice guitars, you don’t get that. You will pick one up and realize it almost sounds too good.

“There’s something to be said for guitars that are challenging to play. Things like that can add to the performance because you are pulling from the instrument.

“On Paper Over The Cracks, the guitar on the right was this entry-level Kay,” he continues. Kay Musical Instrument Company was founded by Chicago-based luthier Henry “Kay” Kuhrmeyer in 1931 and became known for its budget builds. Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford, Jack White, Mark Knopfler, and Eric Clapton are among the many big-name players who have wielded Kay guitars over the years.

“I’m good at knowing what gear will give me the sound I am looking for. Before I address recording, I have a tonality in my head and know what sonic adventure I want to go on.”

The list of instruments used during One More Satellite’s recording, as such, makes for interesting reading. DeLeo has name-dropped a 1960s double-cut Danelectro, championed for its “chime”, as well as a Gibson J-50 as two examples. He is also playing custom builds, crafted by luthier Bruce Nelson, on stage.

“The best thing about his guitars is that they play beautifully no matter where I am on the neck,” he beams. “When you start overdubbing with older guitars, there can be a battle with tuning. We all know the G-string is the naughtiest of all strings! With newer instruments like the Nelson guitars, everything’s perfect.”

Guitar World's full interview with Dean DeLeo will be published in the coming weeks.

Stone Temple Pilots’ Dean DeLeo has lifted the curtain on One More Satellite – a brand-new collaborative project, which will be dropping its debut self-titled record via Symphonic later this summer.

For One More Satellite, the electric guitar maestro has called upon a host of special guests, from old bandmates to new collaborators, all of whom will feature sporadically across the upcoming record’s 10-song tracklist.

To mark the announcement of One More Satellite, DeLeo has shared the group’s debut single, Paper Over The Cracks, which has been premiered via Guitar World below.

A grunge-tinged, five-minute introduction to the One More Satellite sonic universe, it submits an early entry for 2025’s best guitar riff conversation. Indeed, Paper Over The Cracks pivots between bruising hooks, sultry slides, cascading interludes, twangy progressions, and a piercing solo – delivering a genre-melding tour of DeLeo’s guitar skills, in the process.

As DeLeo explains, One More Satellite was first conceived as an instrumental album, and as a means through which he could share with the world some of the unrecorded and unreleased material he’d been sitting on.

However, the creative direction of the project would later shift towards something different altogether, when UK vocalist Pete Shoulder was brought onboard as an early Transatlantic collaborator.

“I was simply sitting on some songs I wanted to record,” says DeLeo. “What started out as an instrumental album, quickly changed soon after Pete and I chatted. He was going to sing on a song or two, then wound up singing on eight of the 10 on the record.”

Of his own contributions to One More Satellite’s sprawling first offering, Shoulder adds, “I was excited to hear the new music Dean wanted to collaborate on. We’ve worked together in the past and it’s always been an absolute pleasure making music with him.

“The stuff he comes up with is so interesting, with so many beautiful, unexpected, twists and turns. It’s very inspiring to write to and pushes me into realms that I would never usually think of exploring. I’m very proud of the album we’ve made.”

Shoulder is but one of a number of guest musicians who linked up with DeLeo to record the album. Elsewhere, Stone Temple Pilots’ Eric Kretz was recruited to drum on Serenade, while DeLeo’s son, Rocco, manned the stool for Drowning Out The Sun, Willow Mae and Spit It Out.

Billy Idol, Whitesnake and former Ozzy Osbourne drummer Brian Tichy was behind the kit for most of the other tracks, while Dean’s daughter, June, gets in on the action with a vocal cameo.

A full tracklist for One More Satellite – which arrives via Symphonic on July 18 – can be found below.

Keep an eye out for Guitar World's full conversation with DeLeo in the coming weeks.

One More Satellite track list

1. Paper Over The Cracks
2. Vultures
3. Long Way Down
4. Drowning Out The Sun
5. Serenade
6. Can Of Worms
7. Willow Mae
8. Spit It Out
9. Pull Back The Veil
10. Your Call

• One More Satellite is available to preorder now.

Joe Perry is set to return to the road in August, with members of Aerosmith, Black Crowes, and Stone Temple Pilots making up the lineup for his revived and revitalized solo band.

Aerosmith were forced to retire from touring last year in light of Steven Tyler’s ongoing health issues, but Perry has been keeping busy with solo material since, recently revealing the one amp that’s been a game-changer for him as he looks to ignite his post-Aerosmith era.

The Joe Perry Project tour, which starts in Tampa, FL on August 13th and wraps in Port Chester, NY on the 23rd, sees the guitarist making full use of his Rolodex: the band hinges on the classic Aerosmith guitar tandem of Perry and Brad Whitford, with touring keyboardist, Buck Johnson, also involved.

The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson will front the band, while the Stone Temple Pilots rhythm section of bass player Robert DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz rounds out the group.

The eight-date tour is tragically brief for such a superlative group of musicians, but it may yet prove the precursor for a more comprehensive tour further down the line.

It’s unclear what material will be performed across those dates, but with Perry alluding to new solo material, that will likely play a key role alongside cuts from his fairly extensive solo back catalog.

The tour marks the first time the two Aerosmith guitarists have worked together since the band's 2024 tour was brought to a premature end. Perry may also be hoping the new band will help shine a brighter light on his co-guitarist’s talents.

Speaking to Guitar World in 2023, he said, “It's always rubbed me the wrong way when people put Brad down and refer to me as the lead guitarist. Some of the best solos in our catalog are ones Brad did.” So expect solos aplenty from the pair.

Whitford echoed those frustrations in an interview that same year, explaining how many music critics and fans assume Aerosmith's best guitar moments come from Perry's fingers and not his own.

“After Rocks came out, Aerosmith was touring England, and I was sitting in a bar in London reading a review of the album in Melody Maker,” he had said. “And when they got to talking about Last Child, they started talking about how it sounded like Jeff Beck, which was very flattering. But then I kept reading, and they gave Joe credit for the guitar solo and kept comparing it to Jeff Beck. I read that, and I fucking went nuclear.

“I was just so pissed off. It’s like, here I am, having my fucking work being compared to Jeff Beck, and they’re crediting Joe Perry. It was bullshit, and I was so upset.”

Robinson is also no stranger to working with Perry, having featured on his 2023 album Sweetzerland Manifesto MKII. He released his first new music with the Black Crowes in 15 years last year, calling their record, Happiness Bastards, “our love letter to rock n’ roll”.

In related news, Perry has reflected on the band’s hit-and-miss album Done With Mirrors, which saw the group link up with Van Halen super producer Ted Templeman, while the makers of Perry’s new favorite amp have spoken about what his support means for the growing company.

Head over to Joe Perry's website for a full list of upcoming tour dates.

Nuno Bettencourt has recently revealed how Alice in Chains' Layne Staley radically influenced the way plays guitar on stage.

On The Jay Jay French Connection podcast, Bettencourt recalls a touring story that played a crucial role in his journey to embracing the way he presents himself on stage, and, more importantly, his playing style.

“When Extreme first started doing tours, Alice in Chains [were] opening for us, with nobody in the crowd. I remember at soundcheck, seeing Alice in Chains for the first time when Layne Staley came up on stage and they did Man in the Box, and they started playing it. I was like, ‘Wow that's soundcheck. Really interesting, cool band, great guys.’

“Then I saw the show and I came out, and there was Layne again, and there he was, standing there, with his eyes closed. And he was just singing. I remember a fan after the show came up. He goes ‘Man, I don't get it. That Layne Staley, he just stands there. It's like concrete shoes.’”

However, Bettencourt himself was in awe of Staley. “I could not take my eyes off this guy. I could not. Why am I in awe? I realized that day is, you don't perform for people. You don't prove anything to the audience. You take them with you. You take them with you on your journey.

“When I was watching Layne I thought, 'Oh my god, everybody thinks it's like scoring points. Like how was the performance from one to 10? Like gymnastics.’ It isn't. That's what makes you go home with an experience. As a fan, you go like, ‘Fuck man. I was there when I saw the show.’

“That's what musicians, guitar players, anybody, needs to know, is just, there is only one of you. Nobody else can do what you do.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Bettencourt mentions how this experience, as well as Queen’s Brian May, changed the way he sees songwriting, in particular the pressure to add guitar solos.

“One of the things that I learned early on was like, I was always disconnected with guitar players when I heard a song and then a solo came,” he says. “And I always thought, ‘Jeez, oh well, I wonder why I didn't connect with the solo, even though the solo is great.’ But Brian May always taught me to play the solo for the song.

“Instead of like, somebody going, ‘Hey, you got eight bars, take a solo.’ It's like no, you got eight bars to feel the song, and to respect the song and make it a full composition for years to come. What's happening is, it will live beyond you. It's more important than you.”

Bettencourt put these words into action when he joined Stone Temple Pilots on stage just a few days ago to perform the alt-rock icons’ Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart.

Nuno Bettencourt is rarely spotted without his trusty Washburn N4 signature guitar, but the Extreme virtuoso opted for a Les Paul-style electric guitar over the weekend as he joined Stone Temple Pilots on stage to perform Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart.

A blue Nelson LP copy with twin humbuckers was Bettencourt's weapon of choice as he performed with one of his favorite bands during their Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival slot in Winchester, CA. In a surprise to no-one, Bettencourt made the song’s adrenalized solo his own: it's a performance full of passion and power. 

Bettencourt's cameo stole the show, with Dean DeLeo telling the audience how the esteemed shredder “picked the hardest song to play” after their brief but fiery jam.

Taking to the mic, Bettencourt championed Stone Temple Pilots as “one of the greatest rock bands of all time”, before adding he’s “never played this [song] before. But it's one of my favorites. I'm really dumb for doing this, but here goes nothing.” 

Despite such caveats, Bettencourt makes the song’s spinning riffs and fire-propelled solo seem effortless. He looks like he's having the time of his life sharing the stage with the band, as he rips through the song's finger-blurring solo.

Away from his rare outing with an LP-style build, Bettencourt recently had a custom ‘Bumblebee’ Washburn N4 made as a tribute to Eddie Van Halen.

Stone Temple Pilots will tour the US later this year, with 26 live dates booked between June and October. 

There are all kinds of ways you can spend next year’s President’s Day Weekend. You could have a cookout. You could paint the garage. Or you could sign up for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp 2024 and jam with Nancy Wilson of Heart, Dean and Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots, with Chris Slade’s big animal hits keeping time on the drums.

Yes, the lineup for next year’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp has been confirmed, and musicians and instrumentalists of all levels are invited to attend what will prove to be a deep dive into the back catalog of Heart, Stone Temple Pilots and AC/DC, with the main attraction of the camp arriving when you jam onstage with these cats in the Viper Room at the legendary Troubadour on Santa Monica Boulevard. 

Highway to Hell, Thunderstruck, Crazy On You, Barracuda, Interstate Love Song and Sex Type Thing are among the tracks you’ll be exploring, and the organizers promise that you will improve your skills as a musician – and make some friends for life. 

If you’ve seen the documentary on Prime Video about Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp then you’ll know what the deal is: it’s the chance for players to learn from and jam with their heroes in an environment with fellow rock superfans. All are welcome, all abilities catered for, with a musical director calling ahead of the four-day event to find you some bandmates and a suitable rock-star counsellor. 

This year’s counsellors include Vinny Appice (Black Sabbath / Dio), James Kottak (Scorpions / Kingdom Come), Joe Vitale (Joe Walsh), Britt Lightning (Vixen) and more. You’ll be given a set to learn, and ahead of the festivities you’ll be put in touch with your bandmates for the event so you can hit the ground running once you arrive in Los Angeles.

Those four days will be spent rehearsing, attending rock star masterclasses, Q&A sessions, live shows and making a whole lot of electric guitar noise with no-one to tell you to turn it down. And, of course, this is Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp, not the regional Scrabble bee – there will be an opening night party.

There are various tiered ticket prices, with places reserved for a deposit of $599. All your guitar amps and backline is provided. You even get a video to download of your final night’s performance.

Ticket holders get discounted rates at partner hotels. Finance options are available with the Headline Package priced $5,599 for early birds (before December 10), $5,999 thereafter. There are a number of add-ons, too. See Rock Camp for more details.

Lessons Learned, the debut solo album from Stone Temple Pilots songwriter, bassist and backing vocalist Robert DeLeo, is the kind of record that feels as familiar as it does foreign. The overall format of the music is distinctly different to that of his main band, who became alternative rock royalty following the release of 1992 debut album Core. 

The electric guitars, for example, are used sporadically and ornamentally instead of fundamentally – there are no screaming AC30s or VHT/Demeter racks to be found here, as usually seen on his brother Dean’s side of the stage in STP. A lot of the new music feels more firmly rooted in country rock than anything you could term ‘grunge’.

At the same time, the new recordings share some unmistakable similarities with the band DeLeo has built a career out of playing in – you can tell some of these songs have come from the same creative place, even if the instrumentation this time round feels somewhat different.

When we put it to him that Lessons Learned demonstrates new levels of sonic maturity and, at times, musical simplicity, he agrees wholeheartedly. After all, why say more than you need to?

“That word you just said is key… it’s the simplicity of things,” says DeLeo. “How can you contribute sonically to simplicity? Well, that’s something I’m still learning. On this album, it ended up kind of being a diary for myself – playing the music as if I were writing down the words. I’m still learning that. I hope I’m always learning, because that journey has been so fulfilling for me. There are many different things that inspire me and influence me. This record is a celebration of that.”

As the main songwriter on STP’s early records, DeLeo’s use of bluegrass flavors was more limited to certain choice tracks than their albums as a whole. This time he’s gone all-in with warm vintage acoustics, lap steels and summery Southern rock. Which begs the question: what country artists have influenced DeLeo most over the years and in what kinds of ways?

“I don’t know if it’s necessarily country artists,” he shrugs. “It’s more about the sonics of country music overall – that’s what always struck me. There are things I tried to incorporate into STP, going back to songs like I Got You from No. 4. There was a bit of country in there for sure, as well as the song Wonderful from Shangri-La Dee Da. Even Creep from our first record… that came out of a country kind of thing. 

“So it’s always been there, I think. But the main thing that really guides me that way is keeping songs acoustic. There’s something special about what happens when you pick up an old Martin or Gibson. You want to hear the beauty of the guitar.

“That’s what country music epitomizes for me: the pure sound of instruments, like an acoustic guitar. That’s the main appeal to me, how real and pure the sound tends to be. That’s the feeling I get when I pick up old instruments, whether it’s an old acoustic, bass or electric. Those instruments emit a certain feeling. That’s what I hope people will hear on this new album.”

There’s a picture of you surrounded by some rather majestic and highly collectable acoustics on the back cover. Talk us through what we’re seeing…

“The main one I tend to pick up is a ’burst 1955 J-45. That ended up being my go-to acoustic for a lot of the main tracks. What I’d usually do is work off of that and find other pieces to compliment it. I might come up with something in Nashville tuning,

“I have a 1971 Framus Gaucho, which is a smaller-bodied acoustic. I just converted it to Nashville [tuning] and used it solely for that. I loved how the guitars sounded together, complimenting each other. For a smaller main sound, I would go to one of my Martins.”

And what kind of models do you own, exactly?

“There’s a 1953 Martin 00-17 that I really love. It’s all mahogany and very throaty, with this lovely projection to it. That’s what I used for the main sounds on the title track. The other Martin is a 1956 0-18, which was the main guitar I used on a song called What Will Be. I’d then compliment differently around those guitars. The four guitars I just mentioned can cover a lot of sonic ground for me…

“The funny thing is I never really change the strings – they’re all pretty dead! I don’t know why, but I really enjoy that kind of sound. There’s something special about old wood and old strings – you don’t get a lot of top so you hear a lot more wood. Which is exactly what I was going for! I’ve found that the microphone I like most for acoustics is an old RCA 77-DX pill-shaped ribbon mic. It sounds lovely old acoustic instruments.”

These sound like serious collector’s guitars. Which was the most expensive, dare we ask?

“Oh, I don’t know. They all emptied my pockets [laughs]. I would say that out of everything in my collection, there’s a 1959 Fender Precision Bass that was the breaker!”

What kind of amps did you use for the electrics and did you run any pedals in front?

“There weren’t really any pedals. I used a few of my favorite amps, though. There’s an Ampeg GU-12 from 1971 that I absolutely love – it’s a 1x12 with reverb and tremolo and one of my favorite-sounding amps of all-time. It’s a pretty rare little thing, though I think it’s caught on since I started opening my mouth about it! [laughs]

“I also have a 1959 Fender Tweed Deluxe that got used a bit on the record… but there’s not a lot of electric guitar on this album, to be honest. The solo in Big Sky Woman was my 1963 Gretsch Country Gentleman through that Ampeg. I adore the sound of those old Gretsches. 

“I also used a 1965 Gibson ES-330 in Viceroy Brown, which is one of my favorite Gibson colors. Those were the two main electrics. Everything else was acoustic and then complimented by other stringed instruments!”

Looking at the personnel list, this ended up being a very collaborative album, with different voices for each track. Were you ever tempted to sing it all yourself?

“It’s funny… a couple of people have asked me this. There were a couple of different moods I was trying to establish on this record and I feel very fortunate to have great friends that are also great singers. So I took advantage of that! The first person I reached out to was Tim Bluhm, who is the singer from The Mother Hips. A great band from Northern California and really awesome people. Tim was gracious enough to sing a couple of songs for me.

“I have an old 1950s 3/4 size nylon string and it’s kinda become my couch guitar. It led to me writing the first song I tracked for the record, She Brings the Rain. I just knew I could not get the right feel without someone like Tim’s voice. I didn’t want to judge this album. I think if I sang all these songs, I would judge them rather than listen to them.”

Like you say, it’s an album of many moods – doing it this way worked out well… 

“I think collaboration is healthy and having someone else’s talent bouncing back to you kinda creates more of a listening environment for the writer. That’s why I didn’t sing much. I only did vocals for the last track on the record, Is This Goodbye. It just felt appropriate! 

“Between Tim, Jimmy [Gnecco], Kara [Britz], Johnny [Irion] and Pete [Shoulder], there was such an amazing amount of talent. Everyone was so obliging. Now I can listen to these songs and enjoy them like a fan.”

It was recently the 30th anniversary of Core – an album widely regarded as one of the strongest debuts of its time. Let’s start with the heavy metal riff for Dead and Bloated… how exactly did that come about?

“I have to tell you, Scott [Weiland] actually came up with the riff and he didn’t actually play an instrument! I remember we were both working on Sunset Boulevard. He was driving models around to their shoots, working across the street at a modeling agency. I was at a guitar shop. He would run over sometimes to hang out. Once he just came and hummed it to me. I put it to a guitar and said, ‘Like this, right?’ That’s how that whole thing originated. I converted it over to guitar thanks to his humming abilities!”

Very cool! I interviewed your brother once and asked why his solo for Sin sounded so much like Allan Holdsworth. He told me you and him went to see Allan play in New Jersey on the I.O.U. tour with Jeff Berlin and Chad Wackerman…

“Wow, what a show that was! You know, people like Allan were just on another level. There were three concerts I saw in 1982. The one you mentioned was Allan Holdsworth at the Fast Lane, this little bar. I was literally sitting on the stage by his feet! I got to meet him afterwards and still have that I.O.U. t-shirt. I also kept the pick he gave me.

“Another gig was King Crimson on the Discipline tour, with Robert Fripp, Bill Bruford, Tony Levin and Adrian Belew! I saw that and couldn’t believe what was going on. I also saw Peter Gabriel on the Shock The Monkey tour. Between those three shows, I had my head rearranged! [laughs] The music completely rewired my brain. I saw some great concerts that year and had an amazing time… I was still in 10th grade! It was such an honor to see those artists when I was so young. I still have the ticket stubs, too.”

Plush could very well be the finest STP riff of them all; there’s a descending note on the B string against that open high E…

“That beginning riff is really just ragtime, like an old piano or guitar thing from that old school era. Then I just ended it with a little exercise I used for country riffs, where it kinda climbs its way back to the beginning. After that, I put the bass riffs in and it all came together.

“Creep is another one that came from the old ragtime stuff I grew up with, listening to not even 33s but the 78s I’d pull out of the cellar. I was a vacuum for all that music when I was younger and I still am! I love music from the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s – there was something about how they would get their ideas across. It’s beautiful.”

Do you remember much about what kind of gear was used on Core?

“Not really, it’s hard to recall! I was very poor at the time. Through a trade I just acquired a G&L L-2000 bass and I think that was what ended up on a lot of the record. I had no choice at the time… I couldn’t afford anything else!

“I started working with Schecter around then and had them build me a Schecter PJ, so some of the record was with that, too. I always dreamed of having really nice vintage instruments, but when we recorded Core, I simply couldn’t afford them. That’s what that record was – we were just doing what we could with what we had. It was more about the songs than anything else. I guess it worked all right!”

• Lessons Learned is out now.

Rock Camp’s next Rock ’N’ Roll Fantasy Camp will be dubbed A Whole Lotta Rock and feature appearances from Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert and Dean DeLeo and rock drummer Carmine Appice.

The event – set to take place March 16-19, 2023 – is themed around Led Zeppelin’s back catalog and gives guitarists and other musicians the opportunity to jam along with (and pick the brains of) some genuine rockstars. 

The LA event will also give participants the chance to perform in two of the Sunset Strip’s most famous/notorious venues, the Whiskey A-Go-Go and The Viper Room. 

As is traditional at the rock camps, across the weekend ticket holders will be split into band groups to jam and practice with a selection of pro musician ‘counsellors’ and star guests. 

Some of the counsellors signed up for next year’s event include Whitesnake’s Joel Hoekstra, former Dio/Black Sabbath drummer Vinny Appice, Mike Kroeger of Nickleback and Madonna/Ministry man Monte Pittman. 

‘Campers’ (as the event calls its ticket-holders), will also get the chance to participate in masterclasses and Q&A sessions with the guest stars, before performing onstage for two nights. Thayil will even join each group for a song in the closing performance. 

“I had such a great time at Rock Camp in February, and I’m super-excited to be coming back,” said Thayil. “Bring your favorite axe, and let’s jam at Rock Camp!”

For more information, head to Rock Camp’s official site.

Stone Temple Pilots and Bush have been booked to play at perhaps the hottest event of the summer, Atlantis Concert for Earth.

Scheduled to take July 22 and 23 inside an actual volcano crater – yes, you read that right – in the Portuguese archipelago of The Azores, the concert will also see performances from a genre-spanning lineup of artists, including Pitbull, Black Eyed Peas, Mod Sun and Girlfriends.

Organized by Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt – who was himself born in The Azores – via his production company Atlantis Entertainment, the event will be hosted by former Pussycat Dolls leader Nicole Scherzinger, who will also put on a performance.

Stone Temple Pilots will support Black Eyed Peas on Friday, July 22 and Bush will play before Pitbull on Saturday, July 23. Sting is also scheduled to put on a virtual performance, though the date and time for this is as yet unconfirmed.

“Atlantis Concert for Earth is a concert and global conservation celebration which uses the universal language and the power of music to showcase the incredible solution-driven work of leading conservationists and organizations from around the world,” a statement on the concert's website reads.

“[It aims to] flip the current narrative of climate and conservation from blame, anger, and doom to positivity and hope by shining a light on inspirational solutions to get us back in balance with our planet.

“It's time to stop telling everyone how we are all going to die, but instead show them how we're all going to live.”

Tickets for the concert are available now for €25 (approx. $27) apiece for the full two days. For more info, head to Atlantis Concert for Earth.

It's unclear yet whether Nuno Bettencourt himself will perform at the event, but fans can anticipate two new solo albums from the Extreme guitarist in the near-future either way.

Stone Temple Pilots bass guitar player Robert DeLeo has revealed he has nearly completed recording sessions for his debut solo album.

DeLeo recently took to Instagram to share several clips of a new song, Anew, which features vocals from The Voice singer Kara Britz, alongside Dave Eggar on cello and Bill Appleberry on piano. In the process, he revealed that he has 10 songs already committed to tape (or, rather, disk), with another two awaiting recording.

Several other posts have since revealed more tantalising tidbits about the album. Among them is another song title, She Brings The Rain, which DeLeo says he recorded with a nylon-string guitar purchased from The Folk Music Center in Claremont, California (a store owned by Ben Harper’s family).

DeLeo also reports that he is handling all the guitar duties for the record, and recently shared a clip demoing his 1955 Gibson J-45, which he says has been used extensively during sessions for the album.

Judging from the instruments mentioned and clips shared by DeLeo, it seems fans can expect the as-yet-untitled solo record to take some cues from the direction of Stone Temple Pilots’ 2020 acoustic album, Perdida.

Indeed, DeLeo previously told Guitar World: “All songs start on an acoustic. Even going all the way back, whether it was Plush or Interstate Love Song, I wrote those on acoustic and that’s where it all began.” 

There’s no official word on a title or release date yet, so in the meantime, stay tuned to Robert DeLeo’s Instagram for further updates. 

Although he had played guitar since his teens, Ben Young never really thought about turning pro or starting a band. For the past 15 years, he was happy enough working as a guitar tech for groups such as Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy and Stone Temple Pilots.

That all changed in 2015, when he was asked to fill in for Linkin Park guitarist Brad Delson for a series of dates in Brazil.

“Brad got sick and couldn’t play, so the band was faced with a choice of canceling the shows or getting somebody who could step in fast,” Young says. “They knew I could play the parts, so that was it.”

Before he knew it, Young was on stage performing for 50,000 fans – and he was hooked. “After that, I was like, ‘Wow, I just played lead guitar for Linkin Park. Maybe I can do this after all.’”

As it turned out, Young didn’t have far to look when recruiting band members – he was already friends with bassist Brian Diaz and drummer Warren Johnson, both fellow roadies whom he had jammed with during soundchecks. 

“It happens all the time,” Young says. “The headliner band might be busy doing interviews and they can’t make soundcheck, so the roadies will play a few songs to get levels in place. There’s lots of roadie bands, but Brian, Warren and I decided to make it official.”

Calling themselves Knifes, the trio forged a sound reminiscent of alt-rock bands such as Green Day and Blink-182. They issued their debut EP, Proof of Concept, in 2019, and their follow-up five-song set, Regression to the Mean (which includes a snarling cover of Barry McGuire’s classic protest song, Eve of Destruction) dropped in 2021.

Young is back on the road as a guitar tech for Fall Out Boy’s Joe Trohman, but he’s hoping that one day soon audiences will see him on stage with Knifes. 

“Everybody in the band is pretty realistic,” he says. “We have great day jobs, but if the new EP takes off, maybe our own band can be more than just a hobby. We’ll see what happens.”

• Knifes' latest EP, Regression to the Mean, is out now via Keystone Estates.

During the first half of the '90s, it seemed like every month, a now-classic alt-rock or metal album was released. And Stone Temple Pilots offered not one, not two, but three deserving entries (that walked the line between both aforementioned genres) – 1992’s Core, 1994’s Purple, and 1996’s Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop.

And to mark 25 years since its release, Tiny Music has received the box set treatment – loaded with goodies (including outtakes and a previously unreleased live show from the era) and featuring the late/great Scott Weiland on vocals. 

It also turned out that Tiny Music was the group’s most musically diverse offering. In addition to the rock radio hits Big Bang Baby, Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart and Lady Picture Show, listeners also discovered a bossa nova-flavored ballad (And So I Know), a tune with a Herb Alpert-esque trumpet solo (Adhesive), a composition that sounded straight out of a soundtrack (Press Play), etc.

STP bassist Robert DeLeo took a trip down memory lane with Guitar World to discuss the making of Tiny Music, gear and future plans.

What gear were you using for the recording of the Tiny Music album?

“We rented a house for that record [Westerly Ranch in Santa Ynez, California], and brought in a lot of vintage Neve preamps. And then as far as personal stuff, for me bass-wise, that was my first record that I actually started using what I still use in my bass set-up. 

“Which is I had a 1970 Marshall 8x10 that I use for one of the channels. And then a 1967 Ampeg B-15 for one of the other channels. And then, a direct. So I kind of blend those three together. And that was the first time I started using that. 

“Guitar-wise, Dean [DeLeo] was in the midst of building his collection at the time, and brought a lot of stuff in – as well as Brendan [O'Brien, the album's producer]. Boy, there was a whole array of stuff. When you’re making a record with Brendan, just his collection alone…it’s like candy land. 

“So, we had lots of vintage acoustics, Martins, Gibsons, Fenders. Too much to even list. And that’s always fun – having a pick of a lot of vintage stuff.”

Can you pinpoint the main basses you used for the sessions?

“I had some Schecters I was using. At the time, I had a ’59 P-Bass, a ’68 Fender Mustang that I used for a song called And So I Know, a ’67 P-Bass. Mostly P-Basses.”

And what about Dean, guitar-wise?

“Dean had his Danelectros and 6-string basses, Les Pauls. I think he was right at the time starting to purchase the stuff. And when you purchase something like that, you want to use it. And what better time to use it than making a record? It was a lot of different stuff.” 

I always assumed the album’s title related to using small amps for the recording. Am I right?

“No, because we were always using smaller amps. We started getting more into those on Purple, the album before it. 

“But the album title came about because we had one of those things where you have a bunch of words on magnets that go on the refrigerator. I think Dean was the one who put together Tiny Music. 

“And that’s where it kind of all stemmed from – putting those two magnetic words together on a refrigerator.”

How has your bass playing evolved since then?

“I used to be better back then! [Laughs] I used to be one of those people that really tried to be a great bass player. And then I realized there are a lot of other people that can do that better. But not everyone can write songs. 

“So, if a song calls for something like, Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart, I want to accommodate the song. And I’ll play that bass line. If it’s a song like Lady Picture Show, I’ll do that. I kind of play according to the song – or try to. I try to accommodate the song. 

“But I’ve got a better understanding I think of how to work bass lines out with chords. I think that’s part of just growing and listening.

“It’s important for any musician – especially young and up and coming – to really just listen to as many kinds of music that you can. Just digest whatever you can, and I think eventually, things will come out. And you’ll know how they want to come out – from yourself.”

Is it ever challenging for you to play a variety of different styles? Tiny Music was STP’s most musically diverse album.

“No. It’s fun – I think as far as listening to so many different kinds of music. 

“I said this many times before – don’t criticize a song until you play it. Because the easiest thing can be the hardest thing – whether it’s feel or laying back or groove. 

“Just learn how to play it. And then when a song like that comes up, you’ll know how you want to play that song. I think it’s important.”

STP’s last album, Perdida, sadly seemed to get lost in the shuffle due to Covid and being unable to tour. Would you like to try and revive that album once everything goes back to normal?

“I would love to. But I think just getting it out and making those emotions and everything in the songs was like therapy. 

“It was pleasing to just complete those as pieces of music and get them out. I don’t think we were looking to win Grammys. I think it was just a matter of getting that stuff out and getting it off your heart, mind and soul. 

“But yeah, it would be great to try to tour that and make that into something. I think people would really enjoy that. I would love to tour that.”

What is up next for STP?

“We’re still trying to figure that out. These are interesting times. The people that are in this business of entertainment are the last to kind of shove off on what we used to be doing. 

“I think we’re still trying to figure that out… I think the world is still trying to figure that out. So, we’re kind of at the mercy of the hands of this pandemic and seeing where this all takes us. 

“I’m hopeful – to see what’s going to happen here. And hopefully see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

• Stone Temple Pilots’ Tiny Music box set will be available from July 23.

Vio-lence and ex-Machine Head electric guitar player Phil Demmel, System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian, singer and musician Jason Christopher and drummer Brandon Pertzborn, both of whom have played with Corey Taylor, have recorded a virtual jam on Stone Temple Pilot’s 1992 song, Dead & Bloated.

The quarantine cover was posted on Christopher’s Instagram page, where he wrote:

“I hope you enjoy watching this as much as we enjoyed making it.

"I would like to thank the homeys: @jayruston for taking time out of his busy schedule to do this sweet mix, @rarebirdlit for the studio, @dirtyern12 for making this rad video, and @ra_diaz for the company. And my brothers in arms: @phildemmel @shavoodadjian @brandonpertzborn

"I love you guys so much and thank you for absolutely crushing this!! I hope we did @stpband justice.”

You can check out the performance above.

In non-quarantine news, Demmel recently paired up with former and current members of Overkill and Dream Theater in BPMD, which he described to Guitar World as “four dudes jamming covers.” 

The group takes on hard rock classics from Grand Funk Railroad, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Ted Nugent. “I was a '70s kid, so these are all bands I [that] loved and really got me into heavy music,” Demmel said.

“For me, all songs start on an acoustic,” Robert DeLeo says. “Even going all the way back, whether it was Plush or Interstate Love Song, I wrote those on acoustic and that’s where it all began.”

His brother, STP guitarist Dean DeLeo, concurs. “You probably wouldn’t believe me, but I wrote Meatplow, on an acoustic,” he says, referencing the excessively grungy leadoff track to the band’s smash 1994 album, Purple.

“It’d be the last song on earth you’d think started out that way, but I happened to be sitting there, I felt this little kind of thing come over me, I grabbed the nearest guitar and out came that lick.”

Robert picks up the thread. “Then, after a song is written, you have a decision to make about whether to keep it in that acoustic state or to electrify it. And sometimes the result is a heavy song.”

But this time, he says about Perdida, “I think the sentiment was to keep everything in that sort of acoustic, ‘writer’ mode.”

That said, while Perdida does indeed find Stone Temple Pilots - which in addition to the DeLeo brothers includes drummer Eric Kretz and singer Jeff Gutt, who joined the band in 2017 - presenting their new material in, as Robert puts it, acoustic, ‘writer’ ” mode, these are hardly raw, skeletal demos. 

Rather, the 10 tracks are some of the band’s most densely layered and melodically complex songs to date, built on beds of strummed and picked steel- and nylon-string acoustics in a variety of tunings, and then outfitted with electric and slide guitar and all manner of percussion. 

From there, the songs utilize everything from female backing vocals and vintage keyboards, to flute (I Didn’t Know the Time), alto saxophone (Years) and violins, violas and cellos (Perdida) - not to mention atypical stringed instruments like guitarrón (Miles Away) and Marxophone (She’s My Queen).

As for what is behind this instrumental exploration? “Just like we have a great love for songwriting, I think there’s a great love for the craftsmanship of instruments,” says Robert, who plays the guitarrón and Marxophone parts on the record. “Instruments from the past are really appealing to me, and there’s something about them that makes me want to make music. They make me want to express myself.”

Plus, adds Dean, “There’s not a lot of places you can use Marxophone - so when you have the opportunity where it can fit in, it’s like, ‘Let’s use it!’ ”

He laughs, then continues. “But really, what it is with this band is there’s a concerted effort to always keep new colors coming in. And this record, this is just what has been on our minds and in our hearts.”

This may seem like an obvious question, but why do an acoustic record now?

Dean DeLeo: "We just came off a long year of touring and honestly, I’ll be the first one to say it - we were sick of loud guitars, man! [Laughs]. But seriously, I don’t know that I really have an answer for that. 

"It’s just something we’ve been wanting to do for a long, long time - many, many years. So I would have to say time dictated it. It just felt like the natural thing to do. And it’s always been fun for us to explore this side of our sound."

There’s something about your music that really lends itself to an acoustic format.

Robert DeLeo: "I think it has to do with the time that we grew up in. Being five or six years old during the height of the singer-songwriter era in the early '70s… I mean, I feel very fortunate to have grown up on those songs and those people. It’s the milk that was in the musical bottle for me, and I grew up sucking on that bottle. 

"And I still hold that music dear. I still enjoy listening to people like Burt Bacharach and all those artists that were really serious about arrangements and songwriting and were really trying to raise their craft up a few notches. It was a beautiful time, man. My first concert was the Carpenters, when I was five years old. And I still love the Carpenters."

Dean: "I challenge anyone to go back and look at the Top 10 albums in Billboard in the '60s and '70 as opposed to the last 10 years. You’re going to see Carole King’s Tapestry, the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, Al Green - real things. I mean I still listen to things like those early Cat Stevens records, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young, and I just can’t believe what I’m hearing come out of the speakers. 

"And I was hearing all that stuff firsthand as a boy. You turn on AM radio and you hear Heart of Gold, and then Goodbye Yellow Brick Road comes on… I mean, that’s mind-blowing, you know? So all that music was pretty impactful."

How did you go about composing and arranging these new songs?

Dean: "Robert and I each came in with our songs pretty well completed. On the things that I wrote, it was just me sitting down with Jeff and an acoustic guitar and just playing it. Jeff would kind of hum along and then eventually a melody would stick. And he’d usually be on to something within minutes. 

"He’s extraordinary that way. But in general I find that you shouldn’t spend too much time on a song. If it doesn’t happen within minutes, you’ve just gotta kind of move on."

Robert: "For me, it doesn’t really start out musically. It starts out emotionally. My emotions kind of guide where I want that piece of music to go, and then I’ll sit down and just start putting my fingers in different places and think of how I want to portray it rhythmically and express it rhythmically. 

"Once the chords come into play, that’s when a melody kind of comes over it. And I think with this record, the songs that we contributed, there were some heavy, heavy emotional things that Dean and I were trying to express musically, and it was just a matter of respecting each other’s space."

As far as expressing heavy things, given the more somber feel of the music, combined with the title of the record, which is Spanish for loss, might lead people to try to connect this record with some of the very public losses Stone Temple Pilots have experienced over the years - specifically, the deaths of your two previous singers, Scott Weiland and Chester Bennington. Would that be fair to say?

Dean: "Well, let’s let the listener take what they want from it."

Robert: "You know, I’m not going to exclude that, but it’s also far more personal for me. I don’t want to speak for Dean, but for me this is a very, very personal record about my experiences and my decisions and my choices. Just what’s been happening in life over the past couple of years. 

"It’s something that needed to be done, something I needed to get out and needed to express. And you know, I’m still writing songs in this sort of format, even now that the record is done."

What were your main instruments on the record?

Dean: "My gosh, we brought in a lot of stuff. I had a couple of prewar Martins, I had a 1950 [Gibson] J-50. I had a lot of wacky Kay stuff, a beautiful Guild 12-string. There were tricones, mandolins. 

"My friend Bruce Nelson built me a Strat that’s just gorgeous, and that guitar appears on the solo on Three Wishes and on the outro of You Found Yourself While Losing Your Heart. 

"Then I also had these Frankenstein-like guitars that I paid nothing for - one has a Danelectro Teardrop-type body and one has the Longhorn body. And they say Danelectro on the headstock but they’re really not. They’re kind of like cheap, junky, almost borderline toy guitars. 

"And I’ll tell you, man, I bought these things, I’m going to say 20 years ago, thinking one day I’m going to use these because they have a very, very, very unique sound. And they do - the Teardrop one, I believe, doubles the violin on Miles Away, and it was just the perfect sound for that moment. And those things have been sitting in my storage for dang near 20 years! [Laughs]"

Robert: "For my main acoustic I played Dean’s J-50, and I also played my 1954 Gibson J-45. Then I had an all-mahogany 1953 Martin 00-17, and a ’61 00-18C, which is a classical Martin. It’s a great-sounding nylon-string, and that’s what you hear on the title track. And I also had a little three-quarter-scale nylon-string that I used on Years."

You played guitarrón too. How did that come about?

Robert: "In some of these songs I was hearing an upright acoustic bass, but I can’t play one. So one day I planned a field trip to go out to a really groovy spot, the Folk Music Center, out in a cute little town here in California called Claremont, which was started by Ben Harper’s grandfather. 

"It’s a beautiful store, almost like half museum, half retail. And I was interested in trying to find a guitarrón, which is like a mariachi bass. It has eight strings and it’s fretless. Well, I wouldn’t really know what to do with that. But they had one there that was fretted and had been converted to a four-string, and I was like, “this is perfect.” 

"And I used it on three songs on the record - the title track, She’s My Queen and Miles Away. And then the Marxophone, I pull that out whenever I can. It’s like a combination of an autoharp and a hammered dulcimer. It’s the coolest instrument. But you know, we had Dobro and mandolin and all these different things. Dean and I kind of just pool all our stuff together. It’s like a vintage guitar store in the studio! [Laughs]"

In addition to the thoughtfulness that went into the instrumentation, there’s clearly a lot of consideration given to arrangements and chord structures in these songs.

Dean: "The arrangement is a pretty important part of the puzzle, you know? And it’s real easy to get caught up in a verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus type of thing. So you have to be conscious about not doing just that. Or, I hear in some bands, they like the key of, say, D, and every song is in D. 

"But fortunately for us, Jeff’s range is diverse so we can write in a lot of different keys. And I think that’s something we paid attention to on this record - finding a real comfortable guitar key. So there’s a concerted effort there to really think about these things.

"And as far as chords go, one thing that has always been appealing to me is taking nonconventional chords or voicings and implementing them in a way they wouldn’t normally be presented. I mean, look, it’s all about presentation, right? Plush could have been cut on a nylon-string, you know? It’s just all about how you present it."

In today's digital age, it's seemingly easier than ever for artists to put out material with greater regularity. The biggest names in the world of guitar seem to be releasing albums and singles left, right and center - and we've never been happier.

In the past week alone, we've been treated to plenty of fantastic new music. From Code Orange's industrial, synth-infused Swallowing the Rabbit Whole to Stone Temple Pilots' shift from amps to nylon strings, there's been an abundance of both electric and acoustic guitar mastery to admire.

We've put together what we think are the most essential tracks from the last week. If there's any you feel we've missed, rest assured: they were considered.

Loathe - Screaming

While we lie in wait for the new Deftones album, Liverpool’s brightest metal upstarts are here to fill the void with one I Let It In And It Took Everything, one of 2020’s best albums thus far.

But while the band’s cannonballing baritone riffs and dream-like vocals recall Sacramento's finest, their breakdowns owe more to djent and metalcore, lending a sharper edge to their already well-honed craft. Ignore this band at your peril. (MAB)

Green Day - Meet Me on the Roof

Pop-rock's most arguably influential trio returned last week with Father of All Motherfuckers, an upbeat, infectiously feel-good 10-track record which clocks in at a mere 26 minutes and 16 seconds.

Steering away from the politically charged themes of albums past (think American Idiot), the album brings a welcome dose of escapist positivity to our increasingly uncertain political climate.

Still, the opening guitar riff of Meet Me on the Roof, while simple, harks back to the Green Day of the 2000s, beautifully utilizing nostalgia to drive home those evocative pop-punk hooks. (SR)

Sylosis - Empty Prophets

The modern-age disciples of thrash metal are back with their first album in five years, Cycle of Suffering. Having taken time out to tour and record with British metalcore frontrunners Architects, guitarist and frontman Josh Middleton returns to Sylosis with renewed vigor.

The album opens with Empty Prophets, which hits like a freight train, setting the stage for the rest of the album with a rapid-fire opening riff that locks in tightly with the machine gun-esque drum work. The section is followed by a pounding half-speed riff that's certain to get your head moving, followed by an impressive harmonized solo section. To a guitarist, this track has everything, and we dig it. (SR)

Stone Temple Pilots - Perdida

The ’90s alt-rock stalwarts made the surprise move to ditch the amps for their second record with new singer Jeff Gutt - and the results are quite spectacular.

The ever-underrated Dean DeLeo picks up a nylon-string to lend the album’s title track a distinctly cinematic feel, with a nuanced, performance so chock-full of flair, it’s hard to believe this is the band’s first all-acoustic affair. (MAB)

Tyler Larson - Eighty-Nine (ft. Tomo Fujita)

The lauded YouTube tutor, PRS endorsee and former GW columnist unveiled his debut EP this week, with a series of videos on his Music Is Win channel. Entitled Nashville Noises, the release showcases five original songs recorded in five different studios in Nashville, with guest appearances from the likes of Adam Neely and Andy Wood.

Eighty-Nine starts in pure fusion territory, balancing funky rhythms with gnarly fuzz tones, before Larson and special guest Tomo Fujita exchange licks over a backing track that recalls ballads by the likes of Joe Satriani - who himself is one of Larson’s all-time heroes. (MAB)

Code Orange - Swallowing The Rabbit Whole

You'd be forgiven for assuming straight off the bat that Code Orange's Swallowing the Rabbit Whole is built on an odd time signature, but this is due to, as the song's music video might suggest, a possible new and unnamed drummer's ability to shift and sway around 4/4.

The track quickly kicks into gear, with a tension-building palm-muted guitar section that couples nicely with the drums, climaxing with one of the most unusual and incredible guitar riffs we've heard in a while.

The rest of the track is an instrumental masterclass, with a particularly standout moment in the breakdown section. Guitar, bass, drums and synth marry together perfectly, seemingly unconfined to any tonal region, creating a beautiful sonic cacophany that's certain to open up the pit. (SR)

Godsticks - Surrender

Wales’ premier prog-rock-metal outfit returns this year with Inescapable, their most refined effort yet.

In Surrender, the band conjure a desolate, uneasy atmosphere, as time signatures simmer and sway, and arpeggiated chords rise and fall, all building towards a climactic wah-drenched lead from six-string-toting frontman Darran Charles - the kind of virtuosic delivery that has also seen him sought after by Bruce Soord-fronted progsters The Pineapple Thief. (MAB)

Machine Head - Circle the Drain

The longstanding California metal quartet have returned with a new standalone single, Circle the Drain. The track appears to mark a sonic change of direction for the band, with catchy, melodic chorus vocals and an instrumentally stripped-back verse. 

But fear not - hardcore fans will not be left wanting, as a Machine Head-signature, natural harmonic-infused riff follows frontman Robb Flynn's "I bring the hammer down" vocal cry. And we can confirm - he certainly does.

Following last year's Do or Die, new guitarist Wacław Kiełtyka comfortably fills the void left in 2018 by long-serving six-stringer Phil Demmel, delivering the pounding riffs with satisfying accuracy and confirming that Machine Head, despite their line-up changes of late, are stronger than ever. (SR)

Continuing our exploration of chord progressions built around a bass line that walks down the major scale, I’d now like to explore a musically dramatic twist to this composition approach that has been used by many famous songwriters and bands in some of their most enduring works. 

It’s a move that involves the second chord of the progression becoming a secondary dominant of the major key’s relative minor, or vi (six minor), chord, with an inner voice resolving upward and creating sweet-sounding contrary motion with the descending bass line. The result is a musically compelling and highly appealing sound that helps establish a tender mood for a vocal melody and lyric, which is why you’ll find it used mostly in laid-back ballads, so as to milk the juicy chord change.

A classic example of what I’m talking about here is the verse progression to Bell Bottom Blues by Derek and the Dominos, featuring Eric Clapton, who begins on a first-position open C chord then moves to E/B - an E chord with a B bass note, or E over B - which is a second-inversion triad (with the fifth in the bass) that resolves perfectly to Am, followed by the chords C/G (C over G), F and G, using the grips shown in FIGURE 1, which the guitarist gently arpeggiates in a flowing eighth-note rhythm. Notice the warm, down-home sound this move creates. (Also note that the original recording is 25 cents sharp of concert pitch.)

The verse progression to Take It to the Limit by the Eagles features almost the same move, but with a different set of open chords, a capo deployed at the fourth fret and the second chord being a dominant seven. As in FIGURE 2, the progression starts on G, followed by B7/F#, which is the second-inversion V7 (five-seven) chord of Em, to which it resolves (with everything transposed up a major third, due to the capo).

Note that, on the recording, bassist Randy Meisner goes up to the root of the second chord while the acoustic guitar does the walk-down with the inverted voicing. Paul Simon used pretty much the same progression in the chorus to Kodachrome, played capo 2, but with the guitar’s bass note going up to the root of the B7 chord instead of down to F#, which also sounds very nice, although I personally prefer the sound of the walk-down for this progression, with the low fifth in the bass instead of the root.

A classic keyboard-driven example of this three-chord progression is the beginning of the verse to the old jazz/blues/r&b standard Georgia On My Mind, famously recorded by Ray Charles in the key of G. In this case, the bass line initially moves from G down to F#, then flips up to B before resolving to Em. The verse progression to New York State of Mind by Billy Joel similarly starts on C, then goes to E7, which resolves to Am. Two bars later, Joel temporarily modulates to the IV chord, F, and does the same move - F to A7 to Dm. FIGURE 3 offers some nice voicings to play for these chords, with second-inversion dominant sevenths employed to create a bass drop.

A more up-tempo, rockin’ example of this move can be found in the choruses of Queen’s Keep Yourself Alive, wherein guitarist Brian May and bassist John Deacon effectively imply the chord progression D-F#/A#-Bm with two single-note lines moving in contrary motion, which works beautifully with May’s high-gain electric guitar tone. FIGURE 4 illustrates a composite of the two-voice counterpoint, with the bass notes transposed up an octave. In the song’s final chorus, they transpose the same progression up a minor third (three frets), to F, and also down a minor third, to B.

A somewhat more recent example of this move in a rock song, from the Nineties grunge era, can be found in the chorus to Lady Picture Show by Stone Temple Pilots, where guitarist Dean DeLeo arpeggiates the E and B#dim/D# voicings illustrated in FIGURE 5 with a shimmering rotary-speaker effect. (The second chord may be thought of as a rootless G#7.) The verse progression to Lithium by Nirvana features a similar progression - E5 G#5 C#5 - in this case with the bass drop being provided by bassist Krist Novoselic playing a low D# note beneath Kurt Cobain’s G#5 power chord, with both instruments being tuned down a whole step.

Stone Temple Pilots have announced a 25th anniversary reissue of their smash 1994 album, Purple.

The Super Deluxe edition, due September 13 via Rhino, will be expanded with rare and unreleased studio and live recordings, including demos ("Unglued," "Army Ants") early versions of album tracks ("Meat Plow," "Interstate Love Song") and previously unreleased acoustic recordings ("Big Empty").

There’s also unreleased live performances from the 1994 KROQ Acoustic Christmas show, including a version of "Christmastime is Here," as well as a previously unreleased demo of the Beach Boys’ "She Knows Me Too Well." Additionally, the set features a previously unreleased recording of the band's August 23, 1994 concert in New Haven, Connecticut.

In advance of the release, you can check out the acoustic version of “Big Empty” above.

Purple: Super Deluxe Edition will be available as a 3-CD/1-LP set including a newly remastered version of the original studio album on both CD and vinyl. On the same day, the music will be made available both digitally and as a 2-CD Deluxe Edition.

A limited-edition bundle is now available to pre-order at stonetemplepilots.com which includes a bonus replica seven-inch vinyl single of "Interstate Love Song" that was originally released in the U.K. in 1994. This exclusive bundle is limited to 1,000 copies.

You can pre-order Purple: Super Deluxe Edition here.

Purple: Super Deluxe Edition track list:

Disc One: Purple 2019 Remaster

01. Meat Plow

02. Vasoline

03. Lounge Fly

04. Interstate Love Song

05. Still Remains

06. Pretty Penny

07. Silvergun Superman

08. Big Empty

09. Unglued

10. Army Ants

11. Kitchenware & Candybars

Disc Two: Early Versions, Demos & Acoustic

01. Meat Plow – Early Version *

02. Interstate Love Song – Early Version *

03. Big Empty – Acoustic Version *

04. Unglued – Demo *

05. Army Ants – Demo *

06. Kitchenware & Candybars – Demo *

07. Dancing Days

08. She Knows Me Too Well – Demo *

09. Interstate Love Song – Acoustic Version * (Live At KROQ Acoustic Christmas 1994)

10. Pretty Penny – Acoustic Version *

11. Kitchenware & Candybars – Acoustic Version *

12. Christmastime Is Here – Acoustic Version *

Disc Three: Live at New Haven Vererans Memorial Coliseum, New Haven, CT, August 23, 1994

01. Vasoline *

02. Silvergun Superman *

03. Crackerman *

04. Lounge Fly *

05. Meat Plow *

06. Still Remains *

07. Gypsy Davy *

08. Pretty Penny *

09. Creep *

10. Andy Warhol *

11. Army Ants *

12. Big Empty *

13. Interstate Love Song *

14. Plush *

15. Unglued *

16. Dead & Bloated *

17. Sex Type Thing *

* previously unreleased

Bonus "Interstate Love Song" 7-inch (Limited Edition of 1,000 units)

Side 1

01. Interstate Love Song

Side 2

01. Lounge Fly

Stone Temple Pilots and Rival Sons have announced a co-headlining tour. The 12-city outing kicks off September 13 in Baltimore and wraps October 9 in San Diego. Tickets are on sale now at LiveNation.com.

Said Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo, "We are thrilled about this tour and grateful to share these upcoming shows with Rival Sons. A great band! They don't make them like this anymore. Looking forward to seeing all of you."

Added Rival Sons’ Scott Holiday, "We're delighted to share the stage with the DeLeo brothers and STP. Not to mention performing together in some really great venues. These guys wrote some of the soundtrack to my childhood… and it'll be killer to watch and listen to 'em hit these gems every night."

You can check out the full itinerary below.

Stone Temple Pilots/Rival Sons tour dates:

Sep. 13 - Baltimore, MD @ MECU Pavilion 

Sep. 15 - Asbury Park, NJ @ Stone Pony Summer Stage 

Sep. 19 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia 

Sep. 22 - New York, NY@ Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island Boardwalk 

Sep. 25 - Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom 

Sep. 27 - Detroit, MI @ Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill* 

Sep. 29 - New Orleans, LA @ The Fillmore New Orleans 

Oct. 01 - Houston, TX @ Revention Music Center 

Oct. 03 - Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory 

Oct. 06 - Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas 

Oct. 08 - Phoenix, AZ @ Comerica Theatre 

Oct. 09 - San Diego, CA @ Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre at SDSU

* No Stone Temple Pilots

Stone Temple Pilots, Bush and the Cult are coming together for a North American tour they've dubbed Revolution 3. The "tri-headlining" summer tour will take the bands to amphitheaters and arenas across the continent from mid July through early September. Each band will take the stage in a different order on every stop of the tour.

"Over the years I have come to call the DeLeo brothers close friends. I appreciate their excellent musicianship and crazy sense of humor," Billy Duffy of the Cult said in a press release. "I'm looking forward to this amazing tour with STP and Bush, knowing we'll all be sharing the stage and enjoying a lot of laughs!"

"It is with great honor and pleasure to know we will be spending our summer vacation on the road with the gents from the Cult and Bush," said Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo. "Two great bands and more so, great friends. Also, to be there with you is even better. With love. See y'all soon."

"It's going to be a great summer with STP and the Cult, two bands built on great rock songs," said Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale.

“For fans of guitar-based rock music, this is a killer bill," added Bush guitarist Chris Traynor. "It’s going to be a fun summer!”

You can check out the full itinerary of the tour below. For more information on tickets, head on over to livenation.com.

Revolution 3 Tour Dates:

Wednesday, July 18: Nashville, TN—Municipal Auditorium

Friday, July 20: Noblesville, IN—Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center

Saturday, July 21: Burgettstown, PA—KeyBank Pavilion

Sunday, July 22: Huber Heights, OH—Rose Music Center

Tuesday, July 24: Detroit, MI—Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill

Wednesday, July 25: Toronto, ON—Budweiser Stage

Friday, July 27: Wantagh, NY—Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater

Saturday, July 28: Holmdel, NJ—PNC Bank Arts Center

Monday, July 30: Boston, MA—Blue Hills Bank Pavilion

Thursday, August 02: Gilford, NH—Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion

Sunday, August 05: Bristow, VA—Jiffy Lube Live

Friday, August 10: Pehlem, AL—Oak Mountain Amphitheatre

Wednesday, August 15: Laredo, TX—Laredo Energy Arena

Thursday, August 16: The Woodlands, TX—Cynthia Woods Mitchel Pavilion Presented by Huntsman

Saturday, August 18: Albuquerque, NM—Isleta Amphitheater

Sunday, August 19: Morrison, CO—Red Rocks Amphitheatre

Monday, August 20: West Valley City, UT—USANA Amphitheatre

Thursday, August 23: Pocatello, ID—Portneuf Health Trust Amphitheatre

Saturday, September 01: San Bernardino, CA—Glen Helen Amphitheatre

Sunday, September 02: Phoenix, AZ—Ak-Chin Pavilion

Stone Temple Pilots highly anticipated, self-titled album will be released this Friday, March 16. It marks the band’s first collection of new material with their new lead singer, Jeff Gutt.

The album features songs like “Meadow” and “Never Enough," both of which channel the guitar grit and swaggering rhythms the band first perfected on their monster 1992 debut, Core, while tracks like “Roll Me Under” glide along with nimble bass lines and massive choruses.

Guitar World recently spoke to Dean DeLeo about the new Stone Temple Pilots album, touring, gear and more in this new interview.

How does the new album relate to some of Stone Temple Pilots’ previous work?

I like to think everyone’s playing has evolved with this record. Everyone has evolved into a new place and has gotten better. Robert [DeLeo, the band's bassist] actually said something about the album recently that was beautiful. He said, 'This record breathes resilience.'

How did Jeff Gutt get on the band’s radar?

Robert was doing a gig in Detroit [where Gutt is from] with the Hollywood Vampires. After the show, someone came up to him and mentioned that he needed to check out this singer. So, after Robert got home, Jeff came out and played with us. He was one of the last five people we auditioned over a very lengthy period of time.

I think for Jeff, he wants to honor our catalog with the utmost dignity and respect, and he does just that. For us, we’re just as thrilled about delving into this new material with him. He's an extraordinary singer and we've very fortunate to have met one another.

What’s the writing process like for Stone Temple Pilots?

For us, it's always music first, and the thing that’s beautiful about it is that there are no rules. The other thing that’s remained constant throughout our career—whether it was Scott [Weiland], Robert, myself and Eric; or Chester [Bennington], Robert, myself and Eric; or even now with Jeff—when someone brings a song in, it has to be designed to get everyone off in the room. So, for me to bring a song in to record, it has to be at the bar my brother set (Robert brought in “Plush” and “Interstate Love Song”). That's where it needs to be.

Let’s discuss a few tracks from the new album, starting with “Meadow."

That was one of the songs that was Frankenstein-ed together. Robert and I both each had parts. He had the chorus and I had the pre-chorus and intros and we put them together. That’s how it came about musically.

What about “Roll Me Under"?

That was a track Robert had. He had the chorus lick and the verse lick came out of a jam in a room just playing. He and Eric just started off and I worked chords around it. Robert had the chorus and we glued everything around that lick.

“Never Enough”?

That song has several parts to it. It has an “A” verse, a “B” verse and another half-time section with a chimey guitar. Robert had that part for some time and we started jamming to it. He came up with the verse lick and everyone just jumped in.

What can you tell me about band's new tour?

It’s been a while since we've been out on the road. Every day, I’m looking at my calendar and there’s more shows and we're thrilled. That's an aspect of being in a band that we all love. I even remember the first day we were driving to Robert’s house. I picked up Jeff on the way and he said, “Man, I’ll do 300 shows a year” and I believed him [laughs]! He’s got a lot of power and determination. I’m thrilled to get out there with him and bring this to life.

Has your live setup changed much over the years?

My live stuff is the same rig I’ve had since the very beginning. It’s a VHT with a Demeter. I run the Demeter in stereo through two 4x12 25-watt Celestions with a [Vox] AC30 in the middle. I keep the AC30 very clean and chimey to get the differentiation with each string. I want to hear every string when I’m playing a chord. Because of its versatility, it allows me to cover a lot of different terrain and musical ground.

How about guitars?

My biggest concern on the road is tunings. That’s why we’ll bring out a few Les Pauls and bounce back and forth with Telecasters. I also have a few PRS guitars that I use for “Creep” and “Sour Girl." They have a piezo acoustic pickup in the bridge that lets me blend my amp with an acoustic sound. One of my dearest friends has also built me some beautiful guitars over the years. One of them is a Telecaster with Firebird pickups. If we play “Pruno” off the fourth album, that’s the guitar I’ll be using.

The band recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of their first album, Core. What are some of your best memories from that album?

Those are the best memories I have of us as a band. All of us were in a really beautiful, loving and communal place in our lives. We were all young, healthy and ecstatic about embarking upon this career. It was a dream come true. There was an excessive amount of love and respect between the four of us. But it’s a two-edged sword because it also reminds me of how much I miss Scott and how innocent and beautiful he was. He was an extraordinary talent. I’d rather talk about what he brought into it personally rather than professionally. He was a beacon of creativity and light and electricity. That’s what I remember from those early days. How focused he was and how confidant I felt being next to him.

What are you most looking forward to about this next phase of the band’s career?

I'm excited about the future and about the next album and the one after that. Mostly? I'm excited to get out and play these songs for our friends and the people who dig what we do.

James Wood is a writer, musician and self-proclaimed metalhead who maintains his own website, GoJimmyGo.net. His articles and interviews are written on a variety of topics with passion and humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JimEWood.

Back in November, Stone Temple Pilots announced their return, welcoming new frontman Jeff Gutt into the fold, and premiering a new single, "Meadow."

In that announcement, the band mentioned that they would release a new album this spring. Now, the band have finally detailed that new album, announcing that their newest effort—simply titled Stone Temple Pilots—will be arriving March 16. The band also premiered a new single, "Roll Me Under," which you can listen to via Rolling Stone.

"We are thrilled about what lies ahead," guitarist Dean DeLeo said in a press release. "The best way for us to honor our past is to keep making new music."

With the announcement of the new album also came the addition of a number of new American tour dates, which will take place from early May through mid-June.

You can check out the band's full upcoming itinerary below, and preorder the band's new album here.

For more info, stop by stonetemplepilots.com.

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS 2018 TOURMarch 2 Santa Clarita, CA @ The Canyon
March 3 Indio, CA @ Rhythm, Wine & Brews Experience*
March 4 San Diego, CA @ Observatory
March 8 Pasadena, CA @ The Rose
March 9 Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues
March 10 Phoenix, AZ @ Marquee
March 12 San Francisco, CA @ Fillmore
March 13 Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
March 15 Portland, OR @ Roseland
March 16 Boise, ID @ Knitting Factory
March 17 Billings, MT @ Pub Station Ballroom
April 28 Jacksonville, FL @ Welcome to Rockville*
April 29 Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Fort Rock Festival*
May 1 Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
May 2 Knoxville, TN @ The Mill & Mine *
May 4 Charlotte, NC @ Carolina Rebellion*
May 5 Virginia Beach, VA @ FM99 Lunatic Luau 18*
May 6 Wallingford, CT @ The Dome at Oakdale Theatre
May 8 Stroudsburg, PA @ Sherman Theatre
May 9 Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom
May 11 Nashville, TN @ Topgolf Live
May 13 Somerset, WI @ Norther Invasion*
May 15 Sioux City, IA @ Anthem at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
May 16 Cedar Rapids, IA @ Club Five at the U.S. Cellular Center
May 17 Peoria, IL @ WIXO "Spring Fling 2018!"*
May 19 Camden, NJ @ 93.3 WMMR Presents MMRBQ 2018*
May 20 Columbus, OH @ Rock on the Range*
May 22 Chattanooga, TN @ The Signal *
May 23 Memphis, TN @ New Daisy Theatre *
May 25 Pryor, OK @ Rocklahoma Restival*
May 27 Wichita, KS @ Cotillion Ballroom
May 29 Clive, IA @ 7 Flags Event Center
May 31 Boulder, CO @ Boulder Theater
June 1 Lincoln, NE @ Bourbon Theatre *
July 14 Oshkosh, WI @ Rock USA 2018*

Stone Temple Pilots have announced their return.

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.

"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.

For more info, stop by stonetemplepilots.com, and don't forget to read our recent interview with Dean DeLeo on the 25th anniversary of Core.

“You know that thing your mom used to say to you when you were little?” Dean DeLeo asks Guitar World with a Iaugh. “It’s true—time really does fly.”

In this case, the amount of time that the guitarist is referring to having flown by is exactly 25 years, which is how long ago his band, Stone Temple Pilots, released their smash debut, Core.

In celebration of the milestone anniversary, the album is now being reissued in a 4CD/DVD/LP Super Deluxe Edition that features a remastered version of the original 12-track effort along with rarities, unreleased demos and B-sides, live recordings, music videos and other goodies.

First released on September 29, 1992, Core arrived in the days just after hard rock had transitioned from the big-hair, shred-crazed approach that characterized the music in the Eighties to the grunge and alternative sound that dominated its early Nineties iteration. And Stone Temple Pilots—which also included DeLeo’s younger brother, Robert, on bass, drummer Eric Kretz and frontman Scott Weiland (known at the time by his surname only)—quickly became one of the biggest rock bands of that moment.

Throughout 1993 the band racked up hit song after hit song, from the darkly aggressive and excessively grungy “Sex Type Thing,” to the swirling technicolor alt-rock of “Plush,” the downcast acoustic balladry of “Creep” to the throbbing grooves of “Wicked Garden.” Core, meanwhile, to date has sold more than eight million copies.

On the heels of that breakout success, Stone Temple Pilots went on to dominate the rock scene for much of the remainder of the decade; their follow-up to Core, 1994’s Purple, debuted at the top of the Billboard charts.

The 2000s, however, have been marked by fits and starts, as well as touched by tragedy on more than one occasion. Weiland, in the throes of a severe and ongoing drug addiction, was in and out of the band, and in December 2015, he died of an overdose while on tour in support of a solo album. In the years following his ouster from Stone Temple Pilots, the singer’s shoes had been filled by Chester Bennington, who, after a successful run, parted ways amicably with STP in 2015 in order to focus his attention on Linkin Park. Then, on July 20 of this year, Bennington took his own life while at home in Los Angeles. When Bennington’s name is brought up during this interview, DeLeo, clearly still deeply shaken by the very recent tragedy, is practically at a loss for words. “We lost an angel,” he says simply.

When it comes to looking back at Core, however, DeLeo is excited to talk and exudes nothing but happiness and appreciation for everything he and his band-mates experienced and achieved in those early days. “I’m gonna say this with great humility,” he says. “When we were putting that record together, Robert, Scott, Eric and myself, we knew we had something very special.” On a recent August morning, DeLeo took some time to discuss the writing, recording and aftermath of that special album.

Putting together this 25th-anniversary package must have been a little bit like jumping back in time for you. What was that experience like?
You know, from time to time I hear the songs from the album on the radio and it takes me back. Especially with Scott’s passing. It would seem like he was just haunting me. Because every time I got in the car he was singing to me. And that’s really, really sad. But what was really interesting in putting this collection together was when we dug into the demos. Those demos were prior to us being in the studio, prior to meeting Brendan [O’Brien, producer of Core]. They’re from when we were in a little rehearsal room in North Hollywood with Robert’s eight-track Fostex. You could hear us talking to one another when the mics were on. You could hear the excitement in our voices. You could hear the vision we had for the songs. And there’s stuff on this collection that no one has ever heard. We kept it very close to our chests. But hearing that stuff is what really brought me back. Right back to that room, man. I can recall all these really, really wonderful moments. Meeting Brendan, and then off to Rumbo Recorders in Canoga Park to do the record, all of it.

What was it like being in the studio with Brendan?
That was just pure fun. A lot of laughs, a lot of great food, a lot of building lifelong relationships. And we managed to play some music. [laughs] Look, man, I’ve had the luxury of doing some pretty wonderful things in my career. I’ve been very, very fortunate. One of the greatest things about embarking upon a recording career was establishing a relationship and a friendship with Brendan O’Brien. Robert and I learned so much from him. And that is one part of my life…there are a lot of ifs and buts, but that is one part I wouldn’t change at all. That relationship we forged with Brendan was really special. On a personal level as well as a professional level.

Let’s talk about some of the album’s most well-known songs. Core kicks off with “Dead and Bloated,” which opens with Scott singing alone through what sounds like a megaphone. But it’s actually your guitar, correct?
Yes. We had my Les Paul plugged in, and Scott is basically singing right into the treble pickup of the guitar.

Was that something you had discussed doing?
Well, we all kind of knew that pickups are microphonic, so we said, “Let’s try this.” So he sang into the guitar and it’s just one of those moments. You never know when you’re in the studio. You can go in and have this wonderful day where everything you pick up or touch and go to play works. And then there are days where it doesn’t. You’re wrestling with it. But that was just one of those moments that worked. We had the guitar plugged in the way we normally had it plugged in and Scott just laid into it. And that’s what you hear on the record.

The next song is “Sex Type Thing.” How did that one come together?
I came up with that descending riff, the B to Bb to A and then to E. And then I immediately went to the pre-chorus section where it goes to B to A to D. That came very quickly. And the verse was something I wrote for another song when I was 15 or 16. And you know the part that’s kind of syncopated? Eric [Kretz] thought we should have something just a little syncopated so he said, “Let’s do something here with this beat.” And that’s when I came up with the chords for that. But it was the main riff that came to me in my head first. And I ran right in and grabbed a guitar and transposed it from my medulla oblongata. [laughs] And that started the whole thing.

In the “Sex Type Thing” demo on this collection, the structure is basically the same, though the overdubbed guitar that plays that higher, arpeggiated part alongside the main riff is more prominent in the mix.
Yeah, it’s that overdubbed guitar where I’m doing the riff kinda on the G, B and E strings. That was probably something we came up with at the last minute. The last overdub is always the loudest, isn’t it? [laughs]

“Creep” is one that went through some changes from the demo version to the take we hear on Core.
It went through a lot of changes. We took out that whole middle section, and lyrically it changed pretty drastically, too. You know, that’s a perfect example of “less is more.” That’s something we’ve always tried to adhere to. It was, “You know what? We don’t need that section. Pull it out. Lose it.” Obviously the song didn’t suffer.

“Wicked Garden,” in contrast, is one that sounds pretty similar in the demo and Core versions.
Yeah, not too far off. That was a song where Robert had the intro, the G to the D to the A sections. And he had the chorus and then I had the verses. We just kind of introduced them to one another and they seemed to dig each other.

“Plush” was something that Robert brought in on his own, correct?
Yes. Robert had all the parts for that one ready to roll.

When you were working on that one could you tell it might be something special?
I didn’t really think in those terms. And, I mean, we put the song way back on the record, too. So I don’t think we were really thinking like that. I think I kinda saw it when the label started stopping in and listening to stuff as we were approaching the end of making the record. Because I saw how those guys were reacting to the track. But I tell ya man, Atlantic, they were very cooperative as far as how we wanted to build not only our record but also our career. Because you get one shot, man. You get one shot. And Atlantic was a great place to be. They really let us do our thing, and then they did their thing. So we released “Sex Type Thing” first and then “Plush” was the second single.

“Sex Type Thing” was a hit, but in some ways it’s also uncharacteristic of the Stone Temple Pilots sound and style. Musically, it’s pretty grungy, and the lyrics, which Scott sings in the first person, were seen by some as being overly aggressive toward women, rather than a critique on that sort of thinking, which seemed to have been Scott’s intention. Were you bothered at all by people’s interpretation?
Oh, I didn’t give a shit. It never crossed my mind. It’s like, “This is us. Take it or leave it. There’s plenty of other music out there if you leave it!” So I never thought on those terms. It was basically a song that wanted to bring some awareness to some really bad stuff that goes down, and still goes down to this day. It’s probably worse now than ever. It was something Scott felt strongly about. We all did. So I don’t even know how it was construed. I just know where we were coming from with it. How anyone else wants to interpret it, that’s up to them.

What gear did you use in the studio?
At the time I didn’t have much of a collection of amplifiers or guitars. And here’s a story: When we moved into Rumbo, we met at the studio at five o’clock the night before we were scheduled to start. Brendan met us there, with his car loaded with guitars and amps, and he and the four of us carried in all of our gear. I don’t know that Brendan O’Brien meets clients at the front door of the studio anymore to load in gear! [laughs] So we met at Rumbo with all our gear and fortunately at the time Brendan had a few amps and a few guitars. So he brought down, oh gosh, of his we used a beautiful Pelham Blue Gibson ES-335. We had a Gibson Les Paul Special he brought down. He brought a Strat with him.

And you know, I was limited in those days. I had three guitars that I brought in: my ’78 sunburst Gibson Les Paul, which was the main guitar on the record—that’s the one where Scott sang into the pickup—and I also had a Tele, a newer one, and I had a Yamaha FG-160 acoustic I had since I was a kid. That’s what we used acoustically on the record. That doesn’t sound like a heck of a lot of stuff, but if you think about it, we had single coils in the Strat and the Tele, we had PAFs in the 335 and the Les Paul, and we had a P-90 there, too. So we had every choice of pickup. Then for amps, it was pretty much my live rig that I still use to this day—my VHT with my Demeter preamp. We ran that stereo through two 4x12s. And then we had a lot of small stuff—Vox stuff, Fender stuff. Things like that that come in pretty handy for overdubs.

Do you recall a moment where you could tell Core was getting big and the whole thing was really taking off?
Yeah, absolutely. We were on tour with Megadeth. It was our first introduction to playing arenas. All of us had been playing clubs from a very young age. In our teens. So we had had our fill of that. And then when STP hit the road we played our fair share of clubs globally. And when we came back we got all these offers to go out with other bands. Megadeth asked us to go out with them, and I’ll tell ya, Mr. Mustaine was very, very kind to us, man. Very supportive. That was an interesting gig because nobody knew who we were. We were simply the opening band. We would come out to an arena that was only a third full. And then we’re trying to do our thing, and you’ve got little pimple-faced boys with Iron Maiden shirts just giving you the finger all night. Like, “Man, this sucks!” They just wanted to see Megadeth. But I’ll tell you what, Dave Mustaine would sometimes come out, and he’d grab the mic and go, “Listen, you fuckers. I personally picked this band to be here. Fucking listen!” It was like, “Holy shit!” Mustaine was amazing to us.

But back to your question—we were on that tour when “Plush” came out. “Sex Type Thing” had definitely set a tone, and it was doing its thing for us. But when “Plush” came out, we looked around and realized, “Hey, you know what? The arenas aren’t empty anymore!” The places were full when we went on. That’s when we saw it happen.

Going back to this time period and listening to all this music again, listening to the demos, thinking about being on the road, did it bring up any feelings about Scott and your relationship back then, and also how everything progressed with him over the years?
Yeah, it did. It was very sad digging into those demos. It took me right back to the rehearsal room, and to all the memories. You know, Scott and I were roommates back then. We rented a house out in Highland Park. And we lived together while writing and recording and touring that first record. And…yeah, man, it was such a different scenario from Chester because, Chester, that was very, very sudden. And unexpected. Whereas it was the complete opposite with Scott. It was, you know, a 12-, 14-year suicide.

But I’ll tell you what, man, Scott was just an incredible human being. An incredibly gifted and talented human being. I mean, you saw the guy’s body, right? He was like a genetic masterpiece. So strong. And whatever he did, it was like, “You wanna go hit golf balls?” And he’s hitting them 200 yards, straight. “Let’s go waterskiing.” He’s just shredding it. He was just that guy. Whatever he did he was really, really good at. And I’ll fucking say this loud and proud: Scott Weiland was one of the best lyricists of our time. His lyrics and his melodies and his delivery…he was the fucking best, man. It was an honor to be onstage with that cat. And it was an amazing place to be there with him while writing a song. I miss that guy. I miss the guy he was. I’ve missed him for about 15 years.

You mentioned Chester. I can only imagine how shocking his death must have been for you, not just on its own but also given what you had experienced not too long before with losing Scott.
You know, we lost an angel, man. We lost an angel. [pauses] I loved Chester dearly, man. He was just an exquisite guy. I really, really loved him. And I’m really, really going to miss him for the rest of my days.

For the past year or so, you and Robert and Eric have been on the hunt for a new lead singer for Stone Temple Pilots. There have been some reports out there about possible candidates, though nothing has been confirmed. Anything you can tell us about the current status of Stone Temple Pilots?
I can’t…but I think we’ll be able to sometime soon. We won’t let you down, man!

Looking back over the past 25 years, what do you think is the legacy of Core?
For me, it’s a reminder. It’s a reminder of a time when there were four young men aspiring to want to make records. And to be able to travel the world to play music. It reminds me of a time when four guys were very, very, very close, and very, very loving. Very much in harmony. And we got to share that. And you know, when you get to share love and respect and harmony and friendship, and then you add into that the intimacy of music? I feel very fortunate, man.

As of February 8, Stone Temple Pilots have been looking for their next lead singer via a highly publicized online search.

We had a chance to chat with STP’s founding guitarist, Dean DeLeo, to discuss what could be an amazing opportunity for one talented vocalist.

When the band began working with Chester [Bennington, who left the band in 2015], were you thinking he'd be a long-term guy, or was his commitment to Linkin Park pretty well laid out?

It was definitely longer than two and a half years.

Had there been any consideration prior to December to working with Scott [Weiland, who died in 2015] again?

None.

As strange as this might seem, do you feel Scott's passing might allow more fans to be accepting of STP with a different singer?

I will never view his passing as gaining acceptance from someone.

Because of the obvious history of STP and the millions of albums sold, it would be natural for listeners to expect a certain sound from the band. Are you looking for a certain type of voice and persona that can do justice to the band's legacy, or are you looking for someone who might fit in well with your future material?

Robert [DeLeo], Eric [Kretz] and I are looking for someone who sings really well—great, if you will. Future recordings, and the ability for this person to carve that out, is essential.

What lead to the decision to launch a virtual casting call?

We wanted to go wide. We know there are many talented people out there who'd never get an opportunity like this, and this simply allows us to listen to so many people.

Can you explain how the process will work, from beginning to end, for interested singers?

Go to stonetemplepilots.com and click “Singer Submission” and “Sign Up." We've provided three tracks. Please sing on two of them. Upload those, along with a video of you performing recently, and include an original piece of music as well. We'll have a listen.

Does the band have material for a new album already in the works, or will you wait until this process is complete to begin work?

We have eight songs tracked and finished musically. When we find the person, we'd like to get right to work.

Scott Weiland, former singer for Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, has died at age 48. His wife, Jamie, confirmed his passing.

The singer was found around 9 p.m. Thursday on his tour bus in Minnesota, where his band, the Wildabouts, were scheduled to play at the Medina Entertainment Center. The show was canceled prior to their taking the stage.

Reports of Weiland’s death first began to circulated after Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro tweeted: “Just learned our friend Scott Weiland has died. So gutted, I am thinking of his family tonight.” That tweet has now been deleted.

Weiland’s official Facebook page has been updated with a short statement:

“Scott Weiland, best known as the lead singer for Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, passed away in his sleep while on a tour stop in Bloomington, Minnesota, with his band The Wildabouts. At this time we ask that the privacy of Scott’s family be respected.”

Earlier today, Chester Bennington announced he was departing Stone Temple Pilots to focus on his other band, Linkin Park.

The news comes two-and-a-half years after Bennington replaced Scott Weiland as the band's frontman.

This morning, Bennington and Stone Temple Pilots' Robert DeLeo, Dean DeLeo and Eric Kretz issued simultaneous statements:

"The last few years have been an amazing experience," Bennington said. "I got to create and perform with one of the greatest rock bands of our generation, that had so much influence on me growing up. With the amount of time STP deserves, in addition to being in Linkin Park, and with the needs of my family, one of them always seems to fall short.

"Going into this, the four of us ... Robert, Eric, Dean and myself knew what we were up against. We decided in due fairness to friends, fans and the legacy of STP that it needs more than time was allowing me," the singer added. "And in all fairness to my bandmates in Linkin Park, as well as to myself and to my family, I'm going to focus solely on Linkin Park so I can contribute 100 percent. It's been an amazing experience and a dream come true, and I look forward to the future of both STP and Linkin Park."

The three remaining Stone Temple Pilots members wrote the following:

"What an amazing and beautiful few years we've all had together," the group wrote. "It was our honor to play and see all of you recently on tour. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time together with Chester not only professionally, but even more so on a personal level. Sadly, it was evident that scheduling and time was working against us.

"Within this, there is a new beginning. There is an abundance of new music written, some of which is already recorded. We have had the fortune of playing with some very talented singers over the last few months and will continue to do so until each of us feels and knows when the right person arrives."

Stone Temple Pilots will still perform with Joss Stone tonight as part of Jimmy Kimmel's Mashup Mondays.

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of "Down in the Delta," a new song by Delta Deep, a band featuring Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen and Stone Temple Pilots bassist Robert DeLeo.

The self-titled debut album by the band—which also features vocalist Debbi Blackwell-Cook and drummer Forrest Robinson—will be released June 23 via Mailboat Records.

The new disc also features guest appearances by Def Leppard vocalist Joe Elliott, Whitesnake’s David Coverdale, Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook and bassist Simon Laffy.

"I used my natural PC1 but also kept all my demo guitars because they were a bit sloppy and had a great feel," Collen said about "Down in the Delta."

"I wanted to keep the song sounding nasty. I think that vibe inspired Robert and Forrest. When they played along with my guitars they kept that same energy going. By the time Debbi added her vocals the song was as filthy as we could make it."

Collen initially started Delta Deep in 2012 after jamming at home with Blackwell-Cook, who happens to be the godmother of Collen’s wife, Helen. What started as a casual pairing quickly turned into much more. Collen, Helen and Debbi began writing original music, which Collen and Debbi recorded in Collen’s home studio. Later that year, a chance meeting re-acquainted Collen with Memphis native Forrest Robinson. A friend suggested giving STP bassist Robert DeLeo a call.

“We really wanted Robert in this band," Collen said. "He had the added firepower of being the premiere pioneer and most ‘badassed bass player’ to come out of the alternative rock explosion.”

Delta Deep is available for pre-order now via iTunes, where "Down in the Delta" happens to be available for instant download.

For more information about Delta Deep, visit deltadeep.net and follow them on Facebook.

Stone Temple Pilots — with Linkin Park's Chester Bennington — have posted the official lyric video for their new song, "Black Heart," and you can check it out below.

The song is one of five tracks from the band's upcoming EP, High Rise, which will be released October 8 via 13Star Records.

Here's the complete track listing:

• 01. Out Of Time
• 02. Black Heart
• 03. Same On The Inside
• 04. Cry Cry
• 05. Tomorrow

Check it out — and be sure to tell us what you think in the comments!

Stone Temple Pilots — with Linkin Park's Chester Bennington — are streaming a new song, "Black Heart," and you can check it out below.

The song is one of five tracks from the band's upcoming EP, High Rise, which will be released October 8 via 13Star Records.

Here's the complete track listing:

• 01. Out Of Time
• 02. Black Heart
• 03. Same On The Inside
• 04. Cry Cry
• 05. Tomorrow

Check it out — and be sure to tell us what you think in the comments!

Below, you can check out some rehearsal footage of Stone Temple Pilots featuring Chester Bennington.

The clips show the band preparing for their September 1 show in Hollywood. About 30 fans were reportedly picked to attend the six-song rehearsal session, which took place at Linkin Park's rehearsal space, Third Encore.

The band played "Sex & Violence," "Pop's Love Suicide," "Out Of Time," "Trippin' On a Hole In a Paper Heart," "Piece Of Pie" and "Church On Tuesday."

Stone Temple Pilots featuring Chester Bennington will kick off a North American tour September 4 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington have announced that their debut EP will be titled High Rise and will be released via their own label, Play Pen/ADA, on October 8.

The EP features five tracks, including the band's new single, "Out of Time."

The new lineup of STP kicks off their first US tour on September 4 in Bethlehem, PA. For more info and tour updates, visit stonetemplepilots.com.

Stone Temple Pilots will be heading out on a North American tour this fall with their new lineup, which includes Linkin Park's Chester Bennington as vocalist.

The band also has been busy working on new music for an upcoming EP that will be released later this year. The Bennington-infused lineup of Stone Temple Pilots released a single, "Out of Time," in May.

Filter will be the supporting act on the tour, and you can check out all the dates below.

• Sept 4 Bethlehem, PA @ Sands Bethlehem Events Center
• Sept 6 Sayreville @ Starland Ballroom
• Sept 7 Atlantic City, NJ @ House of Blues
• Sept 9 Boston, MA @ House of Blues
• Sept 10 Huntington, NY @ Paramount
• Sept 13 Oklahoma City, OK @ Downtown Airpark (w/ Motley Crue)
• Sept 14 Newkirk, OK @ First Council Casino*
• Sept 17 Sunrise, FL @ BB & T Center (FLA Panthers Event)
• Sept 18 Orlando, FL @ House of Blues
• Sept 20 Columbia, SC @ Township Auditorium
• Sept 21 Ft Myers, FL Rockwave Festival – Jet Blue Park
• Sept 24 Midland, TX @ La Hacienda Event Center
• Sept 26 Tempe, AZ @ Marquee
• Sept 27 Las Vegas, NV @ Freemont Street Experience*
• Nov 1 Biloxi, MS @ Hard Rock Live*
• * Filter will not be appearing on this show

Fans attending KROQ’s annual Weenie Roast over the weekend got a surprise when Stone Temple Pilots took the stage unannounced, for a set with Chester Bennington of Linkin Park as lead vocalist.

The crowd went wild as the band performed STP classics like "Sex Type Thing" and "Vasoline" and also debuted a new song, “Out of Time," the recording of which KROQ premiered immediately following the band’s 40-minute set. You can hear the track below.

When Stone Temple Pilots band members Dean DeLeo, Robert DeLeo and Eric Kretz began thinking of singers to accompany the new music they were working on, Bennington was at the top of the list. “Chester has a one-of-a-kind voice we’ve admired for a long time,” Dean DeLeo said. “We know Linkin Park will always be his priority, but we thought it would be cool to try something together. We managed to find the time to record a song and we’re all really happy with the result.”

“I’ve loved STP since I was 13, and they’ve had a huge influence on me,” Bennington said. “When the opportunity came up to do something creative with them, I jumped at the chance. The guys in Linkin Park have been incredibly supportive of me undertaking this project while I’ve continued to work on new music with LP.”

For more info to get a free download of the new single, “Out of Time,” go to StoneTemplePilots.com.

Scott Weiland, who was fired yesterday from Stone Temple Pilots, said he found out about the firing the same way the rest of us did: He read the one-sentence statement the band sent to the media Wednesday.

"I learned of my supposed 'termination' from Stone Temple Pilots this morning by reading about it in the press," Weiland said in a statement. "Not sure how I can be 'terminated' from a band that I founded, fronted and co-wrote many of its biggest hits, but that's something for the lawyers to figure out."

The statement sent by the band was a simple one: "Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland." No reason for the split was offered.

Weiland's solo tour, which will find him performing tracks from STP's first two albums, kicks off Friday in Flint, Michigan.

Stone Temple Pilots' latest album is their self-titled 2010 release.

This morning, Stone Temple Pilots announced the firing of singer Scott Weiland in a brief, straight-to-the-point news release:

"Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland."

No reason was given for the decision.

In 2011, Weiland told Billboard.com that Stone Temple Pilots would begin working on a new album, the followup to their self-titled 2010 album, in the very near future.

"There is another album coming," he said, adding some info about the band's songwriting process: "They usually start before me, just getting some rough ideas together and then putting rough ideas down on ProTools with no lyrics and no melody. And then I start listening to it and see if it's just a straight-ahead rock 'n' roll record or if it's more of a concept album like (2001's) Shangri-La Dee Da was. Once we decide that, it should go full speed ahead."

Last year, Weiland told Rolling Stone, "I think [Stone Temple Pilots] kind of overplayed ourselves by playing the same set over and over. I think the band needs to take some time off and be creative again. I always felt that our creativity and the growth we made within making records as artists was equally as important as we were as a live band. The transformation from Core to where we ended up before we took that time off, when I started with Velvet Revolver, was enormous. I think we need to get back to that. I don't think that touring consistently with a greatest-hits package gets you anywhere. It diminishes things."

Weiland, who released a Christmas album in 2011, is preparing to hit the road to perform tracks from Stone Temple Pilots' first two albums, 1992's Core and 1994's Purple. The Purple At The Core Tour kicks off March 1 in Flint, Michigan.

Stay tuned for updates as we get them.

Update: Minnesota-based radio station 93X Rocks! reports that Slash would not confirm a Velvet Revolver reunion with Scott Weiland as of this morning. Slash appeared on a morning show on the radio station, and when questioned about the reports responded, "[Scott's] out of his mind." He would later add, "Maybe [Weiland and Matt Sorum] know something I don't." We'll keep you posted as we learn more. The original story follows.

ABC News Radio is reporting that Velvet Revolver have official reunited with singer Scott Weiland, with the band tentatively planning to tour later in the year.

"We’ve all grown a lot," Weiland said. "We’re able to put egos and differences and old…conflicts aside and so that’s really cool."

The singer also revealed that he would be joining guitarist Dave Kushner and bassist Duff McKagan for a writing session sometime next week to begin work on their third studio album. He also added that the band would hit the road for a short year-end tour once Slash finishes his live commitments in support of his latest solo album, Apocalyptic Love.

"Slash’s solo album gets released [on May 22] and so he’s gonna do some touring on that and then we’re gonna go and do some [Velvet Revolver] shows in the later part of summer into early fall," Weiland said.

You can read more here.

Velvet Revolver performed what was then called a "one-off" show with Weiland back in January as part of a benefit for the late songwriter John O'Brien.

Later this year, Stone Temple Pilots will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Core (buy on iTunes), by playing the album in its entirety during a run of shows that kick off September 1.

"We're going to play the album in its entirety," vocalist Scott Weiland told Rolling Stone. "I think it'll be really fun, because the one thing that I got tired of was sort of playing the same basic set list every night. It was like, 'the hits.' This way, it's something different, and I think it will be cool."

He added: "What comes to mind is the first song that we ever wrote with all of us in the band, when we had our first rehearsal with Dean [DeLeo]. He had this guitar riff that turned into 'Where the River Goes.' We haven't played that song in a long time, so I'm looking forward to that."

While it may not surface until 2013, Weiland also remarked that he was "sure" the band would write another album.

Stone Temple Pilots have announced a June release for a new live DVD/Blu-Ray, Alive In The Windy City.

The film captures the band during their recent tour in support of their latest, self-titled album. The DVD will include their entire concert from March 27, 2010, at the Riviera Theater in Chicago.

Alive In The Windy City marks the band's first official live DVD.

Alive In The Windy City Track Listing:

• 01. Vasoline
• 02. Crackerman
• 03. Wicked Garden
• 04. Hollywood Bitch
• 05. Between The Lines
• 06. Hickory Dichotomy
• 07. Big Empty
• 08. Sour Girl
• 09. Creep
• 10. Plush
• 11. Interstate Love Song
• 12. Bagman
• 13. Huckleberry Crumble
• 14. Sex Type Thing
• 15. Dead And Bloated
• 16. Lounge Fly
• 17. Piece Of Pie
• 18. Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart

Last night, the original Velvet Revolver lineup - Slash, Scott Weiland, Dave Kushner, Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan -- took the stage together for the first time in nearly four years.

Performing as part of a benefit for the late songwriter John O'Brien, the group ripped through a quick four-song set, which included "Slither," "She Builds Quick Machines," "Sucker Train Blues" and a cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." You can check out some fan-filmed footage from the show below.

Speaking to Rolling Stone recently, guitarist Dave Kushner wouldn't rule out a full-on reunion with Weiland, who was dismissed from the band in 2008. The band has been searching for a replacement ever since.

"We haven't played together in four years, and so we're really just like, 'Let's see how this goes,'" Kushner told Rolling Stone. "I know everyone's got other commitments, but I think everyone's like, 'Let's get this thing done and get through this and then we'll see.'"

Here's an interview with Slash, Duff McKagan, Scott Weiland, Dave Kushner and Matt Sorum of Velvet Revolver from the November 2003 issue of Guitar World. To see the cover of the issue -- and all the GW covers from 2003 -- check out the 2003 GW covers gallery.

It's another unseasonably hot summer day in Burbank, California. But inside a small rehearsal and recording studio on the city's industrial outskirts, five musicians are staying remarkably cool, even as they rack their brains to remember how to play a new song they're practicing.

"I think we missed the second bridge," shrugs guitarist Slash, as bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum nod in agreement. "Maybe we should go in and listen to it one time," Sorum suggests. "I think I was playing the wrong song for part of that," McKagan says with a laugh as he heads into the control room. "We've been so busy writing songs," he explains, "that we haven't had a chance to really get them down."

Back in the early Nineties, Slash, McKagan and Sorum comprised three-fifths of Guns N' Roses. Together, they still clearly possess the kinetic chemistry that once made that band such a major rock force to be reckoned with. But today's rehearsal session has nothing to do with rehashing past glories. Instead, it's all about Velvet Revolver.

For nearly a year and a half now, the internet has been crackling with talk of Slash, McKagan and Sorum's new band. Variously dubbed the Project and Reloaded, the group had been rumored at times to feature such disparate luminaries as original Guns guitarist Izzy Stradlin, former Skid Row vocalist Sebastian Bach, Days of the New frontman Travis Meeks and Buckcherry singer Josh Todd.

But this past June 19, the official Velvet Revolver lineup of Slash, McKagan, Sorum, guitarist Dave Kushner and Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland was unveiled to the world with a press conference and a six -song performance at Los Angeles' El Rey Theater.

The show was a success, but nagging questions lingered: Were Velvet Revolver for real or just a bloated "supergroup" put together to revive a few faded careers and make some cash? Given Weiland's recurring drug and legal problems, could anyone be sure that this project would even get out of the starting gate? Would "Set Me Free," the hard-driving song they wrote for the Hulk soundtrack CD, be both the first and last recorded example of original Velvet Revolver material?

But on this sweltering Burbank afternoon, such questions seem utterly irrelevant. Weiland, looking healthier than he has in ages, wraps his angular frame around the microphone stand and leads the band through "Headspace," a song that seems to combine the freight-train velocity of GN'R's "Paradise City'' with the effervescent vocal hooks of STP's "Big Bang Baby'' -- a radio hit in a perfect world, and maybe this one as well. When that song slams to a close, Weiland relinquishes the mic and perches himself on a nearby road case, listening intently while the other four work their way through something with the provisional title of "Rock Song."

The number begins with a jangly, atmospheric buildup that leads into fiery, Zeppelin-esque riffing. "I don't normally say things like this," Weiland pipes up during one pause in the action, "but you guys should extend that intro. I think I can definitely do something with that."

This is how it's been all summer for Velvet Revolver. No egos, no entourages, no rock star decadence -- everyone other than Slash is presently sober, and even he has pretty much been on his best behavior -- just intense rehearsals five days a week and an ever-expanding repertoire of riffs and songs. "So much of the stuff has been written on the spot," Sorum explains. "It's like, Duff will play some bass thing and I'll start kicking a groove, and before you know it, it starts turning into something. Then we'll give it to Scott. If it inspires him, he'll do his thing with it in Pro Tools, and he'll come back and say, 'Look!' And then we'll put it away and start working on something else."

It appears to be an ideal creative situation, which is pretty ironic, considering how often both Guns N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots foundered on the rocks of terminal dysfunction. "This particular thing has been a true expression of dedication; it was so fuckin' against all odds, and we just did it," Slash says enthusiastically. "It's amazing to be sitting here talking about it in the past tense -- all the auditioning, all the writing, all the naysayers, all the Guns N' Roses comparisons… "

Unflattering comparisons between Slash's post-Guns projects (Snakepit, Slash's Blues Ball) and his old band have dogged the guitarist since he left Guns N' Roses in 1996; so, too, have incessant rumors of a Guns N' Roses reunion. In 1990, original drummer Steven Adler was the first to go (booted out when his heroin addiction got in the way of his playing), and original rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin left soon after, unable to deal with the increasingly imperious behavior of lead singer Axl Rose. But with the departure of Slash -- whose hot-rodded blues-metal licks were as much a part of GN'R's sonic imprint as Axl's feral yowl -- it seemed like the true essence of the band had been lost forever. Slash, for his part, seemed pretty lost as well.

"It's hard for me to quit anything, and it was a moment of truth when I finally decided, 'I

cannot

do this!'" he remembers.

"I can come up with two million ways to try and make something work, and I just fucking had to go. With Snakepit, that was just to get out of the situation that I was in; something fun to do, without, like, all the bullshit. It became one of those things where, every time I did it, I would just hook up with different people, and I found that finding the right combination of guys is not easy. I love working with people; I love going to other people's sessions or writing something with somebody, or jamming live with people I've never played with before. But when you're doing a band, you need the right chemistry, and I think I had to learn that.

"The last incarnation of Snakepit was just a huge mess; as much as I liked it, I was all fucked up -- I almost killed myself drinking too much -- and I had a lot going on. And I did this record [2000's Ain't Life Grand] with a bunch of guys who'd never been around the block before. For me, it was like revisiting what it was like to go out and start your first band; for them, it was their first band! One was strung out, blah blah blah; we were always getting guys out of jail for stupid shit." He laughs. "It had its moments, but it was like, John Lennon had his lost fuckin' summer, right? For me, it was like my lost four or five years!"

When Snakepit finally curled up and died, Slash decided to go back to square one, trying once again to put together a band with the same elusive chemistry that had sparked the original Guns N' Roses. Fate intervened in 2002, when drummer Randy Castillo, who'd played with Ozzy Osbourne and Motley Crue, died of cancer. A memorial concert to raise money for Castillo's family was scheduled for April 29, 2002, at L.A.'s Key Club, with many of Randy's old musical pals on the bill.

"I got a phone call from Matt," Slash recalls. "'You wanna go jam at this thing?'" The pair dialed McKagan in Seattle and enlisted his services, then roped in Buckcherry's Josh Todd and Keith Nelson to complete what looked like a purely one-off collaboration. At the concert, the quintet (billed as Cherry Roses) ripped through Guns N' Roses classics "Paradise City'' and "It's So Easy'' and jammed with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith on "Mama Kin." The response was electric, and Slash immediately felt a regained sense of purpose. "The chemistry that I have with Duff is not something you can emulate," he says. "I didn't have any intention of getting this whole thing rolling, but the day after the gig, Duff and I talked on the phone and were like, 'Maybe we should do this!'"

Of Velvet Revolver's members, Duff McKagan seems to have had the least interest in returning to the rock and roll wars. Newly remarried and happily resettled in his hometown of Seattle, McKagan was in his third year at Seattle University when Slash and Sorum asked him to play the Castillo benefit. "I was really serious about getting my finance degree, with a minor in accounting," he explains. "I was fully going toward that. I still had my band, Loaded, because I can't stop playing music, you know? On spring break or winter break we'd go and play Europe or something. But I really got into school and the field that I was getting my degree in. And this changed everything, you know?"

McKagan convinced Seattle University to let him complete his degree online, and almost before you could say "Welcome to the Jungle," he relocated to Hollywood and began writing songs with Slash, Sorum, Nelson and Todd. But within a matter of months, the Buckcherry guys were gone. Perhaps "musical differences" reared their ugly head, or maybe the fact that Buckcherry were generally perceived as a poor-man's Guns N' Roses imbued the whole enterprise with something of a not-so-fresh feeling.

"The initial thing with the guys from Buckcherry would have been a completely different band," Sorum admits. "No disrespect to Josh -- I mean, what he does is cool -- but I think that particular style or direction we were going in might have not been taken as seriously as what we're doing now. I think what we're doing now just has so much more substance."

Being taken seriously is important to Sorum, a friendly chap who has never been entirely able to shake his "replacement drummer" tag. "I came into the Cult to replace a guy; I came into GN'R to replace a guy," he says. "But I've gotten more love and respect from both those bands than I could have ever possibly imagined, and I feel like I've made good choices with my career decisions. But this is my band, you know? It's really my first band where I can say it's something I helped create."

Since leaving Guns N' Roses in 1997, the same year McKagan quit, Sorum has immersed himself in a wide variety of musical projects, including film scores, production gigs and even a solo album (

Hollywood Zen

, due out this fall). But the bitter aftertaste of his GN'R exit still rankles. "We got the shitty end of the deal, me, Slash and Duff," he says. "We got kinda kicked to the curb, you know? Not that we have anything to prove, but we do."

Though Slash, McKagan and Sorum had all contributed in various combinations to several post-GN'R projects, they all admit that they'd been leery of doing anything that would be seen as a reunion. "We didn't want to make that statement," says Duff. "We were very careful about how we did it. I'd get a call from Izzy once in a while -- 'Hey, you wanna play on my record?' Or Slash would come through town, so I'd see him. But it just wasn't in the cards until now."

Deciding to carry on in the wake of the Buckcherry misfire, the three musicians invited Dave Kushner to join the party. Kushner and Slash had been friends in their L.A. junior high school days but had never played music together, since Kushner didn't become serious about playing guitar until after Slash had moved to a different neighborhood. Having paid his dues in such L.A. punk and hard rock bands as Wasted Youth, Electric Love Hogs and Infectious Grooves, Kushner moved to Japan a few years ago to seek his musical fortune. He didn't find it, but he did run into McKagan in a Tokyo nightclub.

"I was playing in this band called Zilch," Kushner recalls. "It was this crazy thing with a guitarist named Hide -- he's big in Japan -- and Joey Castillo from Queens of the Stone Age on drums. Duff was there with his band, Loaded. We'd met before, and we just started talking and hanging out." Kushner eventually joined Loaded, and when the rhythm guitar slot opened up in what would become Velvet Revolver, he seemed like the obvious choice.

"Dave's real forte is sounds," says McKagan. "He's got a million different pedals, and that adds a whole other 'mad scientist' element."

"He's got really good ideas," Slash agrees. "Dave's as sober as a judge; he used to be a real fuckup at one point, but now he's got this great work ethic."

"I've always been into really tweaky sound effects," says the deceptively mild-mannered Kushner. "I think it was because I could never afford good amps, so I always bought tons of effects -- wah-wah pedals that sound like talk boxes, that kind of shit. In this band, I'm just really trying to do something that takes it a little further from being a straight-up, five-piece, two-guitar rock band."

While Kushner's predeliction for Fernandes guitars, Bogner heads and a whole arsenal of Line 6 and Boss pedals might seem at odds with Slash's Les Paul-into-Marshall approach, the two guitarists quickly meshed. But when Izzy Stradlin suddenly started showing up at rehearsals, Kushner began to wonder if his days in the band were numbered. "Izzy just came out of nowhere, as Izzy does," Slash says, laughing. "Poor Dave. Izzy's sitting there, this ominous presence, and Dave's thinkin', That's the original guitarist from Guns N' Roses. Am I still gonna have a job? But we're real loyal people. It wasn't like, 'Hey, Dave, we're gonna work on some songs with Izzy; call us back in a couple of weeks!' When Izzy was there, we just played with three guitarists."

Stradlin hung out and jammed with his old mates for several weeks, but Slash and McKagan both say there was never any real possibility of their old guitarist joining their new band. "The Izzy thing probably got misconstrued a little bit," says McKagan. "I think he wanted to come in, like, 'Let's go out on tour right away! I've got eight songs, let's go! We'll do some covers; Duff and I will sing!' [laughs] But Matt and Slash and I were more like, 'If we're gonna do this, we're gonna have to do it so it's amazing.' I've heard a lot of fans saying, 'Why don't you have Izzy in the band now?' Well, this isn't cut out for him; he's more of a guy who will be here one day and be gone the next, and you won't know where he's gone to. But he added a new energy that we probably needed at that point."

"You have to understand our relationship with Izzy," Slash explains. "lzzy's always been the guy who's sort of there and sort of not there. Duff and I have seen Izzy periodically; I've played on his records a couple of times, and Duff has done the same thing. And then he called up right when we were in the midst of writing, and he actually came over and brought a couple of songs with him. And then we just started hanging out and jamming, and we wrote, like, 10 or so songs. It was just a lot of fun, but he didn't want to deal with the fuckin' long haul at all. As soon as we started to physically audition singers, we didn't see him again.'' Slash laughs. "He's so fucking shattered from his experience [with Axl] that he refuses to ever do anything involving a singer again!"

ARMED WITH A brace of new songs, the band began the endless, agonizing process of auditioning lead singers. "I couldn't envision the guy or the voice or anything like that," says Slash. "I just knew it had to be pretty unique; we already knew what the music was like, so it had to be somebody who could work with that." After placing ads in Rolling Stone and various British music papers, the band was deluged by CDs of singers from around the globe. "There were times when you'd do nothing but listen to submissions and end up wanting to hang yourself by the end of the day," Slash says with a laugh. "You went in going, 'Okay, we're gonna do this! There's gonna be somebody in here! ' And fucking 100, 200 CDs later, you're like, 'Oh, there's no future! '"

"We actually got a lot of good stuff, a lot of interesting stuff," says McKagan. "There were some guys that came out that were really cool -- they just didn't work out with us, you know? This guy from England, from this band Little Hell, was amazing -- like a mixture of Mike Patton and Perry Farrell. We sent him a tape of songs to sing on, and he sounded amazing. Then he flew out here, and something about him just [didn't work]."

Other promising prospects included Travis Meeks of Days of the New, Kelly Shaefer of Neurotica, Mike Matijevic of Steelheart, Todd Kerns of Age of Electric and girl rocker Beth Hart. Former Skid Row belter Sebastian Bach seemed like the odds-on favorite, but even he fell short. "He's an old friend of ours, and I love the guy dearly," McKagan told radio host Riki Rachtman this past June. "The problem we ran up against with Bas [is that] we sounded like Skid Row."

There was, of course, one singer they'd set their sights on all along, but it didn't look like Scott Weiland was available. "He was our first guy that we wanted to work with," Slash reveals, "but he was still in Stone Temple Pilots, and it was too politically fucked up."

"I kind of got to know Duff because our wives had become friends," Weiland explains. "Both of our wives are models, and they'd gotten to know each other, so we went out to dinner a couple times. I'd known Dave, because the Electric Love Hogs used to play with my band when we were both playing clubs in Los Angeles, back in the day. And I knew Matt because we were in rehab together when he first got clean. So I knew those guys, and then Duff and I kind of got to know each other, and he mentioned that they were playing together again. And then I got a call from Slash, and they gave me a CD; I listened to the music, but at that time I was still kind of entrenched with STP. It was sort of unclear where we were going; we were trying to get out of our deal with Atlantic, and we wanted to sign a new contract with a new label. So I was unable to commit, but I kind of kept that thought alive. I waited around for things to start regenerating with STP, and it just sort of didn't happen. So I talked to those guys again and went down to their rehearsal place."

By February 2003, Velvet Revolver had received commissions to record songs for two different film sound tracks but still had no lead singer. Rather than just jam with Weiland, the band invited him to record a cover of Pink Floyd's "Money'' with them for the soundtrack to The Italian Job. "It gave us a chance to jump into the studio right away and start the creative process," says Weiland. When that worked, the band decided to try an original for the movie The Hulk and gave the singer another CD of instrumentals to listen to. One of them, a track written mostly by Sorum, would become "Set Me Free."

"The first CD that Slash gave me had a lot of music that Izzy had written with them, and it was a lot more classic-based," Weiland remembers. "I wasn't as excited about that stuff, you know? But when I got the next batch of songs, it was like, 'Okay, there's a handful of songs in here that I definitely feel I can wrap my head around.' And one of the riffs was the 'Set Me Free' riff. It reminded me of a cross between a classic STP thing and a classic GN'R track. I think it was a good song for us to start with -- not pushing the envelope too much. You couldn't come out with something too 'out there' or people would be like, 'This doesn't make sense!'"

With no remaining ties to his old band, label or management, Weiland was at last in a position to join Slash, McKagan, Sorum and Kushner. Except for one big problem -- his addiction to heroin, which had severely reasserted itself during the previous year. "I was definitely in a rut, emotionally and spiritually," the singer admits. "I'd fallen off the wagon pretty hard, and I was very depressed -- like a suicidal depression. I was separated from my wife, I'd really totally distanced myself from all my friends and I was totally isolated. I was living in my L.A. house by myself, and I didn't want to see anybody; the only person I saw was my drug dealer. It was incredibly lonely, and I really didn't see a way out of it, you know? So, like, when [the Velvet Revolver opportunity] happened, I was forced to be around people that were, like, you know, clean, and who had a positive outlook on things. It kind of gave me a different way to look at things, although I was still in it at the time. When I first got with these guys, I was still totally in it."

While it seemed ironic to many observers that three former Guns N' Roses members had essentially traded one major headcase for another, Slash insists that -- a shared history of blown gigs and canceled tours aside -- Weiland's issues represent far less of a hurdle than Axl's. "His work ethic's amazing, and he's an amazing talent; he's been constantly blowing my mind. So at the point where we got together, it was like, 'The drug thing? We can work with that. We've been around that corner so many times.' It's not like the other guy, which is just irretrievably fucked-up and chemical-free!"

"It was out in the open in the beginning, so it wasn't like this heavy thing," says McKagan of Weiland's addiction. "We've all been through it, and he was looking for a way out of it, so it was kind of perfect timing."

"Everyone knew that it couldn't last that way, I couldn't stay in that situation forever, and that it was gonna have to change," says Weiland. "But no one was like, 'You've gotta change this now!' I just kind of, on my own, started trying to make a change. I was trying to detox, and I couldn't do it; I tried again, and I couldn't do it. They were trying to be supportive about it, but I just couldn't do it. So I guess God intervened," he laughs, "and I got busted!"

On May 18, just days after he'd told

Rolling Stone

that he had officially become the band's singer, Weiland was arrested in Burbank after a police officer pulled him over for driving without headlights, then allegedly found heroin and cocaine in the car. The arrest marked the fourth time Weiland had been busted on drug charges; he'd previously been collared in California in 1995 and 1997, and New York in 1998. In 1999, he served a stint in prison when a Los Angeles judge ruled that the singer had violated the terms of his probation with a heroin overdose, and in 2001, he was arrested in Las Vegas on a domestic violence charge involving his wife. But rather than ditch Weiland over his latest brush with the law, the Velvet Revolver guys closed ranks around their grateful singer.

"They fuckin' had my back," says Weiland. "Totally, selflessly, those guys were there for me. None of these fuckers stab my back; there's no, like, 'You motherfucker, why do you do the things you do?' Like, I'm surrounded with a group of guys that are all fucking junkies, you know? They've done everything that I've done to the hilt, so there's no judgment there. After I got busted, my last fix was the morning after I got out of jail, just to get well. I went to the doctor and picked up some medication to kick with, and Duff and Dave flew me up to Seattle. We went up to the mountains, and I started kicking up there."

McKagan, who had gotten clean in the mid Nineties through an intensive martial arts regimen, contacted a teacher he knew in Seattle and booked himself, Kushner and Weiland into an extended stay at a martial arts retreat. "Scott had done his fair share of rehabs, and it just wasn't clicking," he says. "He knew the way I'd gotten sober, and he'd asked me about it."

"It was two-a-day sessions, starting in the morning with a run and tai-chi," Weiland remembers. "And then a light training session in Wing Chun Kung Fu, and then a class working into a heavier session. And then lunch, and then later on in the day a harder training session. It was pretty intense, and I'm still involved in it."

One month later, the band was back in L.A. for the show at the El Rey. Weiland looked shaky at the preliminary press conference, but he poured every ounce of pent-up rage and frustration into the band's raucous set, which included two originals ("Set Me Free" and "Slither") and covers of STP's "Sex Type Thing," GN'R's "It's So Easy," the Sex Pistols' "Bodies" and Nirvana's "Negative Creep.”

"He's a wild card," says McKagan of the singer. "And it's great, because you don't know what he's going to do. The night we played, he was in the audience; he was fucking rolling across the stage. It's not a safe environment -- Scott could come after you! " He laughs. "And that's missing from rock and roll -- that dangerous, 'What's gonna happen?' thing."

"That was really the birth of the band, that show," says Weiland. "After that, we just knew we were gonna move ahead full steam without looking back."

The success of the El Rey show inspired a label bidding war that ended when Velvet Revolver inked a deal with RCA after Clive Davis himself came forward to vie for the band's affections. (Thanks to his financial schooling, McKagan can now effectively translate record company contracts to his cohorts.) In August, Scott Weiland was sentenced to three years probation, with enforced counseling sessions and continuation of his rehab. The singer seems to be responding well to the band's brotherly support and is clearly firing on all creative cylinders.

"Melodically, arrangement-wise and lyrically, I'm happy with the whole package of where I'm at right now," he says. "The music is just really exciting to me. There's enough of a classic feel -- just like this fuckin' stab-you-in-the-gut rock and roll, this fuck-you rebellion. And then there's also total modern experimentalism going on."

The band is currently whittling its backlog of 60-plus songs down to 16 favorites, while auditioning prospective producers for its debut record, with an eye on an early 2004 release. "The record has to be 'in your face,' "says McKagan. "It's gotta sound like us. We just want guitar, guitar, bass, drums and vocals, everything just bashing you, with as little between the mic, the chord and the tape as possible."

As long as their producer search is shorter than their hunt for a lead singer, Velvet Revolver's debut album may well be out before Axl Rose puts the finishing touches on Guns N' Roses' long-awaited Chinese Democracy. But really, being able to wag a middle-finger salute at Axl isn't the point; that these five scarred-but-smarter rock vets have come together around something new and vital is the real story.

"The people who are skeptical, it'll take us touring a bit," says Weiland. "They'll understand when they see it."

The little girls, of course, already understand. "I was driving down the street last week," says Sorum, "and a couple of little chicks pulled up in a car next to me and yelled, 'Hey, you're Matt from Velvet Revolver!' I'll tell you, man, that was the best fuckin' day of my life!"

As previously reported, Velvet Revolver will be reuniting with singer Scott Weiland for a one-off performance at an upcoming charity gig in honor of late songwriter John O'Brien. The concert, titled Love You Madly: A Concert for John O’Brien, will take place January 12 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles.

There's been a lot of speculation as to why the group would decide to reunite with Weiland, if only briefly, and now Dave Kushner has explained the band's decision.

"I found out he passed away on August 20, and it was like out of nowhere," Kushner told Rolling Stone. "Next day I was in shock and my wife said to me, 'You gotta have a benefit concert for his wife and you have to get Velvet Revolver back together.' That's how it started."

He continued. "We did a benefit show for this thing called Road Recovery — me, Duff [McKagan], Slash and Matt [Sorum] — in New York, and that's when I asked those guys individually if they would agree to do it. Once they said so then I got in touch with Scott, and he agreed."

VR have been searching for a new lead singer since Weiland's dismissal from the band back in 2008, leading many to believe this may be the beginning of a full-blown reunion. While Kushner didn't rule the possibility out, he was careful to note that the band are taking it one step at a time.

"We haven't played together in four years, and so we're really just like, 'Let's see how this goes,'" he said. "I know everyone's got other commitments, but I think everyone's like, 'Let's get this thing done and get through this and then we'll see.'"

Drummer Matt Sorum recently confirmed that the band planned to audition Ours singer Jimmy Gnecco for Velvet Revolver last month.

Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland has just debuted a new music video in support of his new Christmas album, The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year. You can watch the video for "Winter Wonderland" below.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year was released last month.

In a recent interview, Weiland revealed that Stone Temple Pilots will be starting work on a new album sooner rather than later.

According to vocalist Scott Weiland, Stone Temple Pilots will begin working on a new album in the very near future.

Speaking to Billboard.com about his new Christmas album, Weiland said "there is another album coming," in regards to following up Stone Temple Pilots' self-titled 2010 album.

On the band's songwriting process, he added: "They usually start before me, just getting some rough ideas together and then putting rough ideas down on ProTools with no lyrics and no melody. And then I start listening to it and see if it's just a straight-ahead rock 'n' roll record or if it's more of a concept album like (2001's) Shangri-La Dee Da was. Once we decide that, it should go full speed ahead."

You can read the full interview here.

Even if your stocking is a big empty this year, Scott Weiland's new Christmas album, The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, is sure to brighten your holidays.

The record is out on October 25 via Rhino, but you can now stream the album in its entirety over at Spin. Click here to listen.

Stone Temple Pilots are hitting the road early in November for a run of shows that we see them play one U.S. date before hitting Central and South America.

You can check out the band's remaining 2011 tour dates here.

Stone Temple Pilots/ex-Velvet Revolver lead singer Scott Weiland has just released a compilation of cover songs digitally through his online store. The set -- aptly titled A Compilation Of Scott Weiland Cover Songs -- includes takes on songs by David Bowie, The Flaming Lips, The Rolling Stones and more.

Weiland is currently promoting the release of his new autobiography, Not Dead & Not For Sale, which was released back in May.

In a surprising public statement, Weiland recently told Classic Rock that he would be open to rejoining Velvet Revolver, if only for a few live shows. "We can never say never," he said. "Who knows, maybe we'll do some shows some time."

You can read more here.

A Compilation Of Scott Weiland Cover Songs Track Listing

• 01. I Am The Resurrection (STONE ROSES)
• 02. Personality Crisis (NEW YORK DOLLS)
• 03. Frances Farmer Will Get Her Revenge On Seattle (NIRVANA)
• 04. Let Down (RADIOHEAD)
• 05. Into Your Arms (LEMONHEADS)
• 06. Dead Flowers (THE ROLLING STONES)
• 07. Waiting For Superman (THE FLAMING LIPS)
• 08. Revolution (The Beatles; recorded by STONE TEMPLE PILOTS in 2001)
• 09. But Not Tonight (DEPECHE MODE)
• 10. Reel Around The Fountain (THE SMITHS)
• 11. Fame (DAVID BOWIE)
• 12. Jean Genie (DAVID BOWIE)

Founded in 1992 in San Diego by vocalist Scott Wieland and bassist Robert DeLeo, the Stone Temple Pilots exploded onto the music industry while riding the coattails of the Grunge scene of the early 1990s.

While they fell into more of a post-grunge genre, the Stone Temple Pilots (STP for short) has a more unique sound, comparable to the likes of Led Zeppelin and the doors. Robert DeLeo and his brother/lead guitarist Dean DeLeo’s frantic craftsmanship of their riffs, specifically, gave STP an eclectic and psychedelic sound.

Drummer Eric Kretz’s slow and groovy style, and Weiland’s low vocals and picturesque vocals filled out the rest of the bands old-school sound.

STP released their debut album, Core, in 1992, and instantly became a rock powerhouse. Off of the success of the singles “Plush” and “Creep,” Core would go on to sell over eight million copies in the U.S. Though commercially and fan friendly, STP’s sound was disliked my many critics due to their similarity in style to previous Grunge bands.

In 1994, STP released their sophomore effort, Purple, once again to great commercial success. “Interstate Love Song,” the bands highest charting single to date, was a high-energy and radio-friendly rocker that peaked at fifteen on the Billboard’s Hot 100. Two other singles, “Vasoline” and “Big Empty,” also received great airplay. You cannot help but continue to draw comparisons to Led Zeppelin with tracks like “Pretty Penny,” a slow acoustic-driven song.

The Pilot’s sound took a more psychedelic turn after Purple, and Weiland dealt with a drug problem, which would then lead to on-and-off legal issues. The band broke up temporarily in 1995, but soon got back together, and STP released their third album, Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop. Another multi-platinum success for the band, Tiny Music… was a more frantic album than the past two, with songs such as “Big Bang Baby” and “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart.”

Weiland continued to face major drug problems. In 1996 and 1997, Weiland entered rehab multiple times, and the band would go on hiatus. After band members went on to do their own side projects in 1998, STP would release their fourth album, No. 4, in 1999. STP’s last major commercial single would come off the albumwith the pop hit, “Sour Girl.” In 2001, the band would release the album Shangri-La Dee Da, and STP would later break up.

The DeLeo brothers would go on to form super group Army of Anyone with Filter’s Richard Patrick. After releasing one album, the band would call it quits. Weiland would have great success with a super group of his own, Velvet Revolver, along with members of Guns N’ Roses.

The Stone Temple Pilots would reunite in 2008, and released their self-titled comeback album in 2009 to mediocre success. Currently, the band is still touring and is contemplating the release of a seventh album.

Scott Weiland has been in the press a good deal lately dropping hints that he would be willing to rejoin Velvet Revolver, at the very least for a few shows.

Weiland told Classic Rock magazine, ""We patched things up and we get along. I see them every now and again, we text each other. And you know, we can never say never. Who knows, maybe we'll do some shows some time."

The singer, who parted ways with the band in 2008, had nothing but positive things to say about his former band. "It was a great band to see live," he said, "and I think we made two exciting albums."

Indeed Weiland has proven hard to replace since his departure, with the band effectively being on hiatus ever since. On the state of the band, drummer Matt Sorum recently told Brazil's Lokaos Rock Show: "After [we parted ways with] Scott Weiland [in 2008]… We had such a great first record, especially. The second album is still a good album, but… It's hard to replace Scott for that particular band, I think.

"When we did Velvet Revolver, we wanted to make a modern rock album, and we had to figure out a way to make that work. We didn't wanna be like Guns N' Roses. We knew we had that in us anyway, especially the Slash and Duff sound was the initial sound of Appetite For Destruction, the way they played together and everything. Part of that chemistry was there, and when we added Scott, it brought it into a more modern rock element. He came more from grunge — the Seattle [sound like] Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and bands like that. So it took it sort of forward. We became more of a modern rock band and we were on modern rock radio."

Right around the time of his departure from Velvet Revolver, Weiland rejoined his former band, Stone Temple Pilots, with whom he has since toured and recorded a new album.