Robert DeLeo Explores Stone Temple Pilots Present, Past & New LP’ Perdida ‘ (INTERVIEW)

I thank you for the memories I’ll carry

But time has said to move along

For Stone Temple Pilots, the opening lyrics for the title track of their ninth studio album, Perdida, out February 7th, truer words have not been spoken. With the deaths of singers Scott Weiland in 2015 and Chester Bennington in 2017, the sadness and scars will forever run deep. But as the song says, there comes a time you have to move on. And Perdida is both a requiem and a rekindling. Ten songs, laid back with the breeze of Laurel Canyon and the revitalizing spirit of something new and different, STP – singer Jeff Gutt, bassist Robert DeLeo, guitarist Dean DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz – has accomplished something not all bands can pull off: gone as close to acoustic without losing some of the vitality of electric and having it actually sound interesting.

Welcome to the present-day Stone Temple Pilots, which began with the addition of singer Jeff Gutt in 2017, whose first album with the band was 2018’s Stone Temple Pilots. Retaining the heavy rock power without being too heavy, the band decided upon an aberrant feel for the follow-up. But according to Robert DeLeo, the younger of the New Jersey born and bred brothers, this is not a nesting place, he told me in an interview last week; only a stop on their musical journey.

Unfortunately, the band’s planned acoustic tour, which was to start next week, has had to be cancelled due to Gutt’s herniated disc which will require immediate surgery and recovery time, a press release on Friday (January 24th) stated. The band members had been very excited about the short tour as it was giving them a chance, “To play songs from our catalog that we’ve never played live, or in some cases, haven’t played live in more than twenty years,” said drummer Kretz when the tour was announced. Their spring Australian tour with Bush and Live, and the summer tour with Nickelback, are still on.

For DeLeo, who grew up surrounded by a multitude of musical genres due to his older siblings eclectic record collections, he was naturally drawn to funk and R&B. To this day, you can hear that in his bass playing, always the underlying foundation of the songs he would write for Stone Temple Pilots. Just the mention of Motown bassist James Jamerson brings out the excitement in his voice, like a kid looking upon his idol. 

Upon the release of their debut, Core, in the fall of 1992, STP skyrocketed up the charts with hits like “Plush,” “Creep” and “Wicked Garden.” Album #2, Purple, exceeded the debut, sending “Vasoline” and “Interstate Love Song” to #1. Weiland’s substance problems would eventually rear it’s ugly, sad head and the band went through some tough times. In 2013, Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington would come aboard for a few years. 

I recently spoke with DeLeo about the new album, discovering new instruments, the greatness of Scott Weiland and moving forward with Stone Temple Pilots.

The band has done ballads before but with Perdida, it’s taking it another step further. Was that intentional from the beginning?

When I write songs, they all come from an acoustic guitar. At that point, after they’re written, you have a choice to kind of take the song wherever you want. Over our career, there’s been songs that have stayed in the acoustic format, going back to “Creep” off the first record. It was a song that I wrote that for the most part I kept acoustic. But there is something about when you keep a song there, consciously keep a song there, like we did with this record, it exposes the original intent of the song. I think that’s what we were trying to do, was keep the song in a place where how it was written originally, you know.

What song kicked all this off?

“Fare Thee Well.” That’s the song that kicked it off for me. It came to me in about twenty minutes and it was just kind of what I was feeling. You know, an acoustic guitar can be a very powerful therapist (laughs). So sitting down with an acoustic guitar is kind of a part of my therapy and sometimes things come up right away and sometimes things don’t. I guess when you’re feeling it and you just start playing, I don’t know how to describe that, it just happens, you know (laughs).

Which song would you say changed the most from it’s original conception to its final recorded version?

You know what, I think the vision that I had for the title track, “Perdida,” I think that one kind of built the most considering there’s strings – there’s a lot in that song – but I heard all that stuff when I wrote it. I definitely heard it all but it was just a matter of getting it all together. It was quite a process but I think that song had the most steps.

Did you hear all that on “Miles Away” as well?

Yeah, when I wrote “Miles Away” I definitely heard the violin in there. You know, there are certain instruments that I’ve always admired listening to and as a listener I think it’s really fun to be able to incorporate the instruments that you enjoy listening to into your own songs. Whether it be oboe or violin or harmonica or trumpet or saxophone or flute, it’s a matter of hearing something different in there that you really enjoy listening to as a listener. I like to be able to listen to my music afterwards; a lot of times I don’t really listen to my music afterwards but I think if you keep yourself in the position of being a listener of music and a fan of music, for me it’s healthy for me to do that. 

How early in the process does Jeff come in to write with you?

On these songs of mine, you know, most of these songs kind of came to light because of the physical place we were in. I had these feelings inside and then sometimes when you’re in a physical place it causes it to kind of come out more. We were on a tour of Canada in the wintertime and we were playing these ice hockey rinks and ice hockey rinks are these big, cement, cold, windowless places and you’re sitting there all day and you’re like, I better do something. And I think when the guitar was picked up, I started writing these musical pieces and writing the melodies and at that moment I would have Jeff, cause he was in the same boat as I was and got to find something to do, so what better to do than start writing some music. At that point, in the beginning of showing him the melody and the lyric – I think showing the melody to a singer as quickly as possible gets them going and generated into writing some lyrics – I made sure I had those melodies with Jeff right from the beginning. I think that was really getting him familiar with the sentiment and the feeling of the songs, you know.

You are playing something called a Marxophone. What can you tell us about it and when did you discover it?

I discovered it from records that I’ve listened to, whether it be The Doors or the Lovin’ Spoonful. It was kind of an instrument that was used on 1960’s records and I just really loved the sound of it. It’s like a mixture of an autoharp and a Hammered Dulcimer. It’s a very rare instrument that they actually, from what I understand, sold door-to-door back in the teens and 1920’s. It’s one of those things that I always try to find a place for because it’s got such a beautiful sound to it. I used that on “She’s My Queen” and I used it on “Miles Away.” So I always try to find a place for it in my songs. It’s one of my favorite go-to instruments.

When did you first pick it up?

Oh I’ve had that for about ten years now. I got it off of ebay (laughs). It’s one of those things that you just scour around and go, wow, that’s interesting, cause a lot of people don’t know what a Marxophone is. They are really beautiful sounding and great to record.

I hear a lot of funk in your sound

Oh yes, I started playing bass because of funk. My main person is definitely James Jamerson, who bass-wise played on most of the Motown songs. That still is my main influence and inspiration. But you know, it’s all a combination of being fortunate enough to be old enough now to have had a great listening experience through the 1970’s. There was a lot of really great music and Larry Graham from Sly & The Family Stone was one of my influences as a player. There are so many funk players out there that inspired me that I think that’s what made me gravitate towards bass, is R&B and funk. It’s something I still enjoy playing and listening to.

When you first started playing guitar, cause I understand you started off on acoustic, what was the hardest thing for you to get the hang of?

You know, you have to have a vision and drive to do anything, whether it’s playing guitar or anything else, and I look back and I think, I don’t know if I really chose music, music chose me. I just had a passion and between just learning how to pick and learning how to play chords and getting bloody fingers from the strings, I withstood all that because I knew there was something in there that not only becoming a good player but it really paid off for me when I learned how to write songs. It was learning how to write songs that really broke it through and I saw the vision. That’s when I really saw everything clear.

Your first album with Stone Temple Pilots, Core, was such a big hit. How did it affect you as a live performer? 

I think I know what I wanted to project and I think it just started there. I knew what I wanted to project and being in a live position like that you really have to think about what kind of entertainer you want to be. I always think of what I would like to see and I think keeping yourself as a fan of music, even though you’re a musician, really helps you kind of see the other side of it, as a fan and as a listener, to really project what people want to see. And I think the main thing for me from the beginning was giving people a great live show. That was always the intention from the beginning.

Do you think that was one of Scott’s greatest qualities was his performance, how he projected himself onstage?

Oh my God, yes, yes. He didn’t always have that. He learned that, like we all did. We didn’t come out of the gates from our first album knowing what we were doing. But you learn your craft as you go along because you were never really in that situation and going from playing to twelve people to 20,000 people, it’s a different area and you have to kind of learn how to do it differently and it’s something that we all learned as we went along.

In the STP catalog, what was the song you worked on the longest to get right?

Let me see, it might have been a song that Dean wrote called “Army Ants” off of Purple. My brother tends to write songs that are a little longer and they need a little more thought and it might have been that one. 

What do you think is the biggest misconception about Stone Temple Pilots?

I don’t know, I mean, I think that’s really putting a lot of power into other people’s hands. I mean, I know what happened and that’s really what matters to me. A lot of people have different ideas of what happened and what’s happening but let them keep on guessing or thinking that. I know what’s happened and what is happening and that’s something that we are proud of continuing and I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished as a band with Scott. I couldn’t have written songs without him. He was one of the greatest writing partners, you know.

With this album being as laid back as it is, how will that affect the vibe of your setlist on the upcoming tour?

Well, I look at this album as it’s not the sound of the band now, it’s just a stop off to observe and document life. I think what this is, is more of a listening experience for people, to really see where these songs originated from, whether it be a song off this record or a song off Core, to see where these songs came from, cause every one of these songs really just came from an acoustic guitar and it’s always nice to let people in on that, to see where this came from and what it is and where it went and what it became. And that’s special to me.

 

Band portrait by PR Brown; live photos by Leslie Michele Derrough

Related Content

2 Responses

  1. I drove almost 2 hours to see STP in Miami Oklahoma in late 2018. Awesome show. Luckily I can relive a few of the songs on YouTube from camera phone people lol.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter