STONE TEMPLE PILOTS
Size Doesn’t Matter
Despite its title, Tiny Music was a huge album for Stone Temple Pilots. At the time, sadly, frontman Scott Weiland’s drug addiction was also very big and serious. A quarter-century on, we spoke to Dean DeLeo and Eric Kretz about the triumphs and agonies behind their third album.
Words: Henry Yates
Even now, many years later, Dean DeLeo occasionally makes the drive out to the Santa Ynez Valley in California. With his kids on the back seat, the 59-year-old guitarist threads his way along familiar roads to the sprawling Westerly Ranch estate, where in the late days of 1995 the original line-up of Stone Temple Pilots recorded Tiny Music… Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop, the album that confirmed their greatness – and their deep-seated issues.
“I’ve parked at the driveway of the house where we made Tiny Music,” reflects DeLeo. “From time to time I’ll go to the beautiful town of Santa Ynez nearby, to this restaurant called Red Barn, where we used to get a steak at night, talk about the album artwork or the recordings we’d made that day.”
He takes a breath… “It’s joyous. But it’s also deeply saddening, because the guy’s gone, y’know? The guy is gone. So it’s very melancholic. It’s these amazing memories of a time in all of our lives that was wonderful. But then there’s that other side of it, where it’s like, he’s not here any more.”
The ‘guy’ in question is of course STP’s original frontman the late Scott Weiland, six years gone from this world in December. Few doubt that the ringmaster of alt.rock was a truly great songwriter and performer. Equally, though, nobody denies that Weiland also had that insidious, indefinable something inside of him. “Some people never try drugs, others can try them and stop,” says drummer Eric Kretz. “And some, for whatever reason, are hooked and ruin their lives.”