Stone Temple Pilot’s bassist and principal songwriter, Robert De Leo, recently released his first solo album, Lessons Learned, featuring a host of collaborators, including other vocalists on each song except one, but the album also featuring a wide range of De Leo’s own acoustic instruments collected over the years. The individual songs focus on different aspects of relationships, and as the title suggests, each song has a particular idea or mood to impart. The whole project was born out of De Leo’s goal of returning to his guitar playing and enjoying his instrument collection while exploring these ideas.
The album’s first single “Love Is Not Made of Gold”, showcases dynamic vocals from Jimmy Gnecco (OURS) and today, Glide is pleased to premier the video for the track, a video for which De Leo personally did most of the shooting and all of the editing. The autumnal feeling which De Leo feels pervades the whole album is most evident here in a song and video which tries to capture that sense of fleeting, but powerful beauty in the changing seasons. I spoke with Robert De Leo about co-writing and recording “Love Is Not Made of Gold”, creating the track’s video, and his approach to this diary-like album which finds beauty in reflection, even when dealing with emotional subjects.
HMS: Though it’s not exactly a title track, it does seem like “Love Is Not Made of Gold” has a vibe to it that really carries over to the other songs on the album as well. Is that one that you knew would be a good representation of the album?
Robert De Leo: Definitely. Every song kind of fits into a piece of the journey. It was part of my journal. There’s a singer on this record who sings two songs, Pete Shoulder. He’s a brilliant singer and lyricist. I got to “Love Is Not Made of Gold” and I came up with the first three lines, then got stuck. I called Pete up and said that I was thinking of having Jimmy Gnecco sing this song and needed some more heartbreaking lyrics. I just needed someone else’s take on that. When Pete sent me those, it hit me. When Jimmy sang that song, it brought me to tears. Jimmy got those lyrics. That’s how it originated. Pete also wrote the lyrics on “Put Aside Your Sorrows”, the song that he sings.
HMS: I really can’t say enough good things about Jimmy’s vocals, on this one and some of the other songs. I had heard of him before, but after hearing this, I wanted to hear everything he’s done. I was really blown away.
RDL: He has a beautiful voice. We met because when Chester [Bennington] was in Stone Temple Pilots, he talked about Jimmy. I had never heard of Jimmy back then. Chester said that Jimmy was his favorite vocalist. It’s ironic because we played, and Jimmy sang, at Chester’s funeral. We did “Amazing Grace” at Chester’s funeral with Jimmy singing, and there wasn’t a dry eye in that place. That was a heavy moment that we had for our good friend Chester. It was very emotional, so we have a bond there, Jimmy and I. He gets it. He presented that song so beautifully.
HMS: That song feels like a kind of hymn or lament. It’s a heavy, serious song. I feel like it gives dignity to that human experience, though, through using all the symbolic language. It’s a really striking song for a lot of reasons, and the images are part of that. There are so many different ways that this kind of song could have gone, and it doesn’t go down a super dark path, it elevates things, but it allows the sorrow to be there.
RDL: That’s beautiful. When I mentioned the song idea to Pete, I said, “Gold is so shiny. It’s indestructible. But maybe think about things that do break, as opposed to gold.” Pete wrote some beautiful ideas there and it’s what I wanted to achieve.
HMS: I guess it was a bit of a challenge to make a video that goes with this song, but I think you did a great job with the concept, using this beautiful outdoor setting. It has an autumnal feel, with the colors, the water, and the sky.
RDL: This whole record, to me, feels like a Fall record, and I’m so grateful that I got everything done in time to release it on October 21st. Maybe it’s because I’m from back East, but it meant a lot to have the record out in the heart of autumn. I wanted something bright for the video, and maybe that’s my hope and faith in love, that it isn’t dead and gone.
I actually shot that video on my iPhone 10! I edited it all and put it together on my iPhone 10. I’m blind now. [Laughs] My phone and computer weren’t compatible, so I did it all on my phone. Jimmy did shoot his parts down in Florida, and my parts were shot out in California. I was having a really difficult time trying to find leaves that were changing in California, so I drove about two hours to find that. The scenes that I put in between, the landscape scenes, were shot all around the world, from here to Australia and everywhere in between.
I also shot slow-motion into trees and into reflections of water, and then I turned it all upside down. Those trees were then pointing up and you could see reflections. I started shooting that a year ago, and I was trying to get content from around the world. I knew there was something really special there and I’m really happy how it came out. It feels like a live painting. The rainbow was something I recently shot down in North Carolina, so I got that for the dobro guitar solo. It had that contemplation to it, for some reason.
HMS: I never would have been able to guess what a complex story lay behind this video. I can’t believe you edited on your phone! That’s insane. But also, knowing that you shot a lot of this footage means that the video is like a journal for you, too, and you contributed to the video as much as you did the song itself.
RDL: Yes, it was a journey for me. Being out in California is something that I enjoy, but being somewhere where it actually rains, and there’s puddles, is something I took advantage of out on the road.
HMS: I noticed what you were talking about, where there’s a reflection of trees, and you can’t tell where one thing ends and the other begins. It has an ethereal quality.
RDL: I think Jimmy’s voice really complimented the imagery in the video, too.
HMS: It really works. Actually, he brings a ton of emotion to his visual performance, too! He physically conveys a lot of emotion.
RDL: When I saw how he was portraying those lyrics, it really choked me up. The theme of this record is very universal. Everyone gets their hearts broken and everyone feels that in a different way. But everyone can relate. This is my version of that. I think people get it.
HMS: Something I thought was cool was the title of the album, Lessons Learned, and the way that the songs go together. A lot of albums have one prevailing theme, and some of the songs fit that, but here every song is like a separate example that fits with the title. It’s set up that way.
RDL: It really was a journal for me. I’ve always believed in making a whole record, a whole path to follow. That’s always been important to me, since those are the kinds of records I grew up on. I wanted that path for people to follow.
HMS: When did you realize that you were going to do this album and do this in this way? There are a lot of logistical issues to having so many collaborators.
RDL: [Laughs] You are right about that! People keep asking if I’m going to tour this. Well, I’d have to see if I could get ten people together, ranging from California to England. During all this time over the past couple of years, it was a perfect time to reevaluate where I was in my life, and to sit down and get reacquainted with my guitar playing. That’s what I was really setting out to do. I think these songs inside me forced me to do that, and I had the time to do it. I have a really beautiful collection of old, vintage guitars. I love each one and each one has its own voicing and sound to it. I started getting back into my playing.
That’s kind of where the journey began, and that’s when I started constructing these songs, putting them together, coming up with these lyrics and melodies. I thought about who I wanted to sing what, and figuring out who was available. The people who sang on this record added so much to the color and the feel of it. I was blessed to have great friends who are great singers. It’s amazing what they did.
HMS: Were you writing some of the music first, then, and that became the springboard for matching things up with lyrics and with vocalists?
RDL: Yes. It’s not always easy to Produce yourself, either. It can get extravagant. But the main reason for this album and the main theme of this album was “simplicity”. I wanted to hear the air. If you listen to a song like “Anew”, or “Everything”, that Kara Britz sang, there’s air and space. I wanted to hear that.
HMS: Did you Produce everyone’s vocals remotely, with them singing their own parts?
RDL: Yes, exactly. Though I did do my own vocals on the last song, and I did record Kara Britz’s vocals with my engineer and mixer Ryan Williams. Everyone else was remote. We used old German vintage tube mics for Kara, and that doesn’t hurt. I’ve always been an avid vintage gear collector. It’s stunning to hear someone with a voice like that sing on a vintage microphone.
HMS: Did you bring anything unusual in for your last track, “Is This Goodbye”?
RDL: Yes, I actually was just playing it. There’s a friend of mine who makes “Cigfiddles”. They are cigar boxes. I played this on “Put Aside Your Sorrows”, too. [He plays a sprightly tune during the interview.] It’s a cigar box!
HMS: It sounds absolutely fantastic! That’s crazy.
RDL: A friend of mine gave me one of these and I instantly wrote those songs on this, it was so inspiring. I also love this instrument that I have called the Marxophone. They were sold kind of door to door in the early 1920s and I actually found one. It’s a combination of a Hammer Dulcimer and an Autoharp together. I’ve used that for quite some time on STP songs and other projects. I love that instrument and it has a certain vibe to it.
Those are the two instruments that I tried to incorporate into this album. I incorporated a lot of different types of guitars, too, including nylon string, some electric with different tunings. It really was about what was going to accommodate the person who was going to sing that song. You have to get the right key to sing in to evoke the sweet spot of their voice. That’s Producer 101.
HMS: For the song, “Is This Goodbye”, you give that a really dreamy feeling, rather than a melancholic feeling. How did you approach that?
RDL: I think there are many reasons for that. I think the fact that this is a question kind of keeps it in that place. Music brings out different emotions for me, and the music that does that for me is Jazz. When I listen to Bill Evans on piano, it brings out a lot of different things for me during just one song, all these emotions.
I think the fact that “Is This Goodbye” is a question meant I wanted to keep it in a questioning area. It’s also in a major key, not a minor key. The use of great reverb also keeps it in that place. When I wrote that, it had this Indian quality for some reason. When I had that break in the middle, with the strings that come in, it had that Indian quality to it that I love. [Plays the movement during the interview]. It has a hypnotic quality.
HMS: It really does. My first impression was that it had a dreamy, hypnotic feeling. It brings a sort of gentle and simple positivity to the song.
RDL: As I’ve said, the whole record was like a diary to myself, and I’m trying to be kind to myself. That’s what I really wanted to achieve. That’s really it, throughout the whole record, that journey.
