Stone Temple Pilots

Categories: American musical groups | Grammy Award Winners | Grunge groups

Stone Temple Pilots (abbreviated STP) was a popular rock band formed in 1990, after Scott Weiland and Robert DeLeo met at a Black Flag concert in Long Beach, California and discovered that they were dating the same woman. They got to know each other, rather than fight over the woman, who eventually fled to Texas; the two moved into her old apartment and started playing together. Robert got his brother Dean DeLeo to join their jamming sessions and also found Eric Kretz, who was then with another band, to do drums.

In 1990, going by the name Mighty Joe Young, they played at Whiskey in Los Angeles, California. In 1992, Don Mullen, a booking agent for Triad Artists, saw them perform and led them to Atlantic Records. On April 1, 1992, they signed a contract and began recording tracks with Brendan O'Brien. During the recording, STP's lawyer called and told them there was a blues musician who had already claimed the name Mighty Joe Young. They changed the band's name to Shirley Temple's Pussy, but ended up changing it because of pressure from the record label. Wanting to keep the band's initials, they came up with Stone Temple Pilots, after seeing the STP Motor Oil Company logo. In September 1992, they released their first album, Core, including the hit songs "Plush", "Creep", "Wicked Garden", and "Sex Type Thing". The critics initially disregarded the group, writing them off as a derivative of grunge bands such as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains.

In 1994, STP released their second album, Purple, which debuted at No. 1 and stayed there for three weeks. 1995 saw the band take a turn in the wrong direction, when Scott Weiland got involved with a side music project, Magnificent Bastards, and with heroin. In May 1995, Weiland was arrested for possession of rock cocaine and heroin. Weiland was given one year's probation and during this time the group recorded their next album Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop. Although this CD got better reviews than their previous albums, it failed to generate as many sales. Still not having kicked his drug habit, Weiland was ordered by a judge to go into a drug rehabilitation program. Weiland had left the program at Impact House, without notice, but returned the next day. In October of that year, suggestive pictures of Weiland and Courtney Love surfaced and, luckily for Weiland, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt refused to publish the pictures. On November 4th of that year, Weiland was released from the rehab program and STP began touring again in Los Angeles, but again, Weiland went back in rehab, starting rumours that the band was breaking up, which turned out to be untrue.

In September 1997, while STP was on hiatus, Weiland released a solo album, Twelve Bar Blues, while the remaining members of STP formed the one-time band Talk Show, with former Ten Inch Men singer Dave Coutts. Neither release did well commercially.

STP soon reunited, releasing No. 4 in 1999. Shortly after its completion, Weiland was sentenced to a year in a Los Angeles county jail for violating probation.

During the summer of 2001, STP released Shangri-La Dee Da.

On November 11, 2003, STP released a CD/DVD entitled Thank You, a greatest hits album.

Meanwhile, since that year, Scott Weiland has performed with members of Guns 'N Roses, plus Dave Kushner, with the band Velvet Revolver.

Band members (and brothers) Robert DeLeo and Dean DeLeo recently announced the formation of a new band "Army Of Anyone" led by Filter frontman Richard Patrick.

Eric Kretz currently plays drums in the band Spiralarms.