Article by Troy Augusto for CDNOW
Stone Temple Pilots first burst out of the San Diego and Hollywood club scene in the early '90s, part of a new wave of West Coast bands that introduced alternative rock to the masses and helped to erase the last traces of the lingering hair metal scene.
Though the group (singer Scott Weiland, guitarist Dean DeLeo, bassist Robert DeLeo, and drummer Eric Kretz) has endured more personal and professional ups and downs than most any other band in recent memory, their latest album, the personal, moody Shangri-La Dee Da, is as challenging and engaging a record as STP has ever produced.
CDNOW: You started making this record right after finishing your last tour. Did you come off the road energized and ready to get right back into the studio?
Scott Weiland: Yeah, we spent all of last summer sort of getting our heads ready for making the record, and talking about the kind of record we wanted to make. Our heads were filled with some much positive energy while we were touring, and we wanted to capitalize on that, and not go home for too long and let too many distractions hinder us from getting back in the studio. I don't think any of us like to sit around too much, I think we prefer to be working. That's also the reason why we decided to make the record in a house as opposed to in a conventional studio, because we could capitalize on the unity of the band.
CDNOW: Once you started recording, did things go fairly smoothly?
Weiland: Yeah, it did. The first six weeks of the recording process was really the most amazing part of the whole experience. That was before Brendan O'Brien, our producer, and his crew got there so it was just the band, and we were just there completely open-minded and with really no direct concept. We didn't set any parameters as far as what the album should be like. I think we knew we wanted to break new ground, and we knew we wanted to really challenge ourselves and to go into uncharted territory, musically and sonically, and sort of achieve some of the goals we have had over the last couple of albums, but really sort of see them through.
Eric Kretz: To elaborate on what Scott was saying, on every other record we've always rented a rehearsal room, had all the instruments there, played full volume, and bashed out the songs, arranged them that way, and then took those ideas into a studio and then developed them in a studio atmosphere, putting all the different layers on. Whereas this time, like Scott was mentioning, the first six weeks we decided to take these songs that needed a little more care and needed a little more maturing to work on and develop. It was such an amazing experience for us for those six weeks to not have any pressures from producers, management, label, anybody. We just got to completely have the freedom to be on our own and develop the sound of the record from that.
Weiland: Also, I think we've gotten to a point where we've had such great success over the last nine years, since our first album, Core, came out in 1992, that we're above the fray, and we don't regard ourselves as being part of any flock, or in any fold. And with that realization comes a certain amount of freedom, and the freedom is that we don't need to, nor do we, pay any attention to what's going on around us, musically.
We don't pay attention to any current trends, nor do we feel a part of them. It has sort of given us the feeling that we can chart our own path. And being now at a point in our career where we're starting to leave an indelible mark on the face of music, we look at it more like a contribution. And we want to make albums that are going to be important records 20 years from now.
CDNOW: The middle part of the album really distinguishes itself in its adventurousness. Was that part of the plan, to really challenge your fans?
Weiland: Well, you know what? It's where we needed to go at that time because that's where we were. It's like throwing caution to the wind, throw it up in the air, and see where it lands, and you just hope that people come along for the ride. Those songs are just as special, if not more, to us than the heavier stuff, but it's the kind of thing you need to acquire a taste for. Our fans, I guess it'll stretch some of them. I think we have different groups of fans. Half of our fan base is -- I think for the most part are traditional hard rock fans, probably the same people that buy Metallica records. And then the other half of our fan base is younger kids more into experimental music, a little bit more your art-school-type kids.
And that's what makes our fans so special to us is because there is such a wide cross -section. But at a certain point, to feel healthy about what you do, you really have to satisfy yourself. Because if you're not being true to yourself as an artist, then you're short-changing everybody else.
CDNOW: Eric, when things were at their low point with Scott, how close was the rest of the band to throwing in the towel?
Kretz: It gets to the point for every band, after being in this for 10 or 15 years, where creatively and as far as the unity of the band, it gets to the point where something has to change. We've lived so tightly together, the four of us, through highs and lows, elation and depressions, traveling, sickness, health. It just really gets to the point where everyone needs to try something different and creatively as well. At the time we did the [Weiland-free] Talk Show record, and Scott did his 12 Bar Blues record, it was really an exciting time just to try something creatively that's not in the STP category. And I think we've learned a lot from that year that we kind of spent apart from each other.
CDNOW: Scott, it's well documented you've been sober for some time now. Do you feel like you chose to be where you are now, or did circumstances work to force you to do what needed to be done?
Weiland: I think it's both. I decided just to not continuously walk down the same path that I was walking down before. And you know what? When you hit a bump in the road, when you tread unknowingly across an icy patch, and you slide a little bit, it's learning through experience what works and what doesn't work. How to pick up the pieces and to continue to move on in a positive way, and to learn positively from mistakes you make, instead of wallowing in the fact that you make them, I think that's a huge lesson to learn from life. What kind of decisions you make when you do make mistakes, and to not allow that to chart its own course and to carry you to a place where you don't want to live continuously. I was forced to come to that kind of understanding or continue to suffer a lot of the negative consequences that I started to suffer.
It's just another extension
of the journey that I was on when I was doing drugs. I was really
on some kind of journey of self-understanding, some kind of
journey towards self-enlightenment. A spiritual journey to try to
find out what really fuels me and come to some kind of answers
about questions that I've had. Just how to deal with life as it
happens on a day-to-day basis. I think everybody has defining
moments like that in his or her life. And it's what you do with
the information that you find. Whether you grow from it and grow
a little wiser and become a little more flexible or whether you
allow it to consume you.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]