The Smiley Smile Message Board

As many of you all know, STP happens to be my favorite band besides the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson is second only to the Beatles (...) in Scott Weiland's list of favorite artists. There are actually more similarities between Weiland and Brian (and indeed, the career trajectories between the BB and STP) than one would initially realize.

Anybody else here a fan?

Great band.  I've always been surprised that at least to my knowledge they never released their "Unplugged" appearance on CD.  At the time I found it to be significantly better than Nirvana's much lauded "Unplugged" performance.

Weiland seems to be having some serious issues right now. His current solo tour has been a disaster, and he is starting to come off like Landy-era Brian.

BTW...was chatting with some folks on the STP board and several of them went to the C50 shows!

Pearl Jam knock-offs

What was honestly the issue with STP in the 1990s?

Dude, have you even heard anything from them that wasn't a single off of their first album? That's like saying Girl Don't Tell me is a Surf City knockoff.

I used to be a big fan back in the day. Didn't bother with any of the reunion stuff. It seems that Weiland's drug habits have cost the group dearly in the long run. They should hold the same kind of status that Pearl Jam has these days but Weiland keeps blankety-blank things up. He killed Velvet Revolver's momentum the same way.

Drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.  Plus, the critics hated them because their debut album in 1992 was very much 'of the times' and they wouldn't give STP any credit thereafter, despite the band being more influenced by 60s and 70s music than anything else.

Mike's Beard- I HATE the post-reunion stuff. Their 2010 self-titled album only had a couple of good songs on it. Weiland's current issues aren't just stemming from drugs; he's having personal issues and he's not quite 'there' any more. After his brother died in 2007, Scott relapsed on coke after being clean for four years, and he hasn't been the same since. He quit drugs in 2010 but now is a heavy alcoholic and on a heavy cocktail of anti-depressants. That probably wasn't the best time for him to reveal that a guy raped him when he was 14...


Check out my favorite songs from them:
http://youtu.be/PXjbA_pz1o4
http://youtu.be/sL-Akl7nOjE
http://youtu.be/wiubO7z39Ec
http://youtu.be/enyFv4wqE4s

And here's the band backing up Glen Campbell:
http://youtu.be/skuEiYfnSFg

Yikes Billy, sad times for Scott.

It really is. What's messed up is the fans of STP aren't necessarily fans of Scott Weiland as a solo artist, and he constantly is getting heckled at his solo shows. He had a mini-tour in November that he did pretty well at, but this latest tour...not so much. He's been coming on stage drunk, but also has had a familiar deer-in-the-headlights look about him, and after the first few shows not going over well, has basically began imploding onstage. The last three shows have been out and out disasters. Despite having to use a teleprompter, he still constantly messes up his lyrics, and sometimes is singing a different melody than the rest of the song. Sound familiar?


Now, he is justifiably getting flack for going onstage in no condition to perform , but he's on pretty much  by necessity...he is in so much debt due to alimony (two ex-wives)and child support to the point where he has to bring in $60,000 A MONTH just to break even. You know what the jacked up part is? On the message board, it was brought up how Brian in 1988 was 'much more more together' than Weiland is right now (Scott is going on 46). This is AFTER seeing the BW88 interviews and television appearances, mind you.

FYI...found out recently they did a Beach Boys cover during the sessions for Purple. I had heard rumors about it but I actually got confirmation.

It's 'In My Room', although I personally would've liked something off of Friends!

As much a dick as Scott can be, this is wrong. Why on earth is he expected to give $30,000 a month each to two ex wives? How much does it cost to raise a child these days?

It gets worse when you realize that most of that goes to his second wife and the two kids...I dont think Jannina is still getting anything. Also, the income has been drastically reduced when you realize Scott isn't playing stadiums... he's been playing small clubs and casinos this last tour. Hell the last STP tour they were getting smaller and smaller crowds ( one show had maybe 2000 people). Royalties are drying up as well. And for those who are wondering.... yes he us getting married again, but I'm not sure a photographer's income would be anywhere close to what ex-model Mary brought in. Since he didn't save his money and his designer suit business didn't take off, I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up bankrupt within a year or so.

Watched some solo shows on youtube, Scott is losing his mind.

Yeah, it's not just pills and drink. I've seen him when he's been on drugs, and that's not it either. He's 'damaged', for lack of a better way to put it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KixbfLxexjI

Yiiiiiiiiikes. That was the only video from this tour I had not seen, due to the title. Wow :(

Are Scott and the band even playing the same song?  :brow

These days he plays in the key of SW...

From my perspective they got famous with singles where Weiland mimicked Eddie Vedder and the band aimed to recreate Pearl Jam's Ten sound.

Of course I understand that they're decent songwriters and probably much more than that but it's hard to recognize them as anything more than a cash grab.

Well, they started in 1986, although their early recordings & first live shows sounded more like Freakey-Styley era Chili Peppers or Living Colour. And yeah, their 1992 album Core was derivative, but it's their only album in that style. That's usually how a debut album goes for a band. The good ones grow.  Have you heard any of the links I posted here?    http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,15363.msg357277.html#msg357277

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I didnt care for Talk Show much as I thought the vocalist was a bit daft, but I liked the work the DeLeo brothers did with Richard Patrick as Army of Anyone.

Hey Billy, since you're a big STP/Scott Weiland fan, you might want to check out Duff Mckagan's book "It's So Easy: And Other Lies". There is a chapter or two about Velvet Revolver, and he goes into quite a bit of detail about the various issues they had with Scott. He wasn't nearly as sober and/or "with it" as the general public thought at the time.

I need to check it out. He had some issues with Scott and may have to take it with a grain of salt. All other accounts have him relapsing on coke in Oct 2007. He started showing signs of mental issues a few months prior though.  I haven't chatted with Doug Grean in several years but we do have a mutual friend so I'll try to get some info if I can.

Good news is last night's show went very well, and early reports were tonight did as well.

Fun fact: he's worked with Probyn Gregory in the past.

Going from Duff's account, it seems that he went well and beyond the call of duty, or at least at first. He actually stayed with Scott during a heavy dextox period. He actually injected Scott with the detox meds. In his ass.  ;D He personally went through two rehab stints with Scott. I should clarify that Scott was doing the rehab. Duff just personally took care of him and saw him through the brutal withdrawl period. Scott then screwed Duff over, and became a serious liability with the group. Duff mentions that near the end of Velvet Revolver's career, Scott was nodding out during the middle of songs during concerts, and would "come to", only to start singing a different song.

Odd he'd been nodding out... he last did heroin in 2003. He quit using coke late that year until 2007. He might have his dates mixed up. Late 2007 he was an absolute mess through the end of VR and through the first year of the STP reunion.

Duff may indeed have a year or two mixed up. He had a brief relapse in 2004. Twenty two Xanax a day might fog up your brain a little.  ;D That part of his book is a little confusing though, because he seems to go from 2001, to 2004 in just a few pages.

I clearly remember an issue of Rolling Stone with STP on the cover from way back in 1997, and I thought for sure that Scott would be the next Kurt Cobain-esque rock casualty. I think that Scott might be going through his "Dennis Wilson period".

With this thread, you now have me curios about Scott/STP.  ;D Are there any youtube examples of that weird David Bowie phase you described?

Trying to find some video examples. As I expected, they seemed to have vanished from YouTube (one good example was on the Jimmy Kimmel show) but still looking.

Closest one I could find-
http://youtu.be/AplQmt35by8-   This is a cover of a song he did with  Velvet Revolver; this was shortly after he dyed his hair black as opposed to the platinum blonde it was a few months previous (with Weiland, you can usually tell if he's in a bad state by how crazy his hair looks :lol )  Still looking...

I just realised that I confused your pm with this thread.  :lol

No worries :lol

Actually was just about to send you another one

Now that video is  just...strange.  :o Sounds like a totally different person.

That was one of his GOOD nights during that time period. Be glad the Kimmel performance is off-line!

Is it "Brian doing Don't Worry Baby in Long Beach 1981" bad?  ;D

Man, this is sad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGQk_Ysce8g

No, but that 'Creep' performance was!  The Kimmel performance of 'Paralysis' wasn't bad vocally, just scary as far as Scott's state of mind. This, however...um...yeah. Thank God he was much better the past two shows! He actually seemed like the old Scott at times.

But that cash grab was the pinnacle of their career. Other bands have a sketchy first album and this kind of thing but they go on to prove themselves and develope their own style. STP never did anything.

Weiland wrote a mediocre song for Sheryl Crow and she turned it down so STP released it as a single and it was just sad. That was their career!

For all the crap bands like Bush, Silverchair and Creed get I think they were more valuable to rock history than STP. Because there were actually talented songwriters with some ambition in those bands.

Here's the thing... some of the songs on their debut were recorded years before. Wicked Garden was originally recorded in early 1990.... BEFORE Pearl Jam's debut album. Commercial success has nothing to do with quality... core was their weakest prior to the reunion album. The only cash grab was the reunion.

Also... where did you get the info regarding Sheryl Crow?

I recall hearing Days Of The Week was originally written for Sheryl Crow but can't remember if she ever recorded vocals for it. Don't think she did.

Oh I knew that... except that was written by Dean DeLeo and by the time Scott finished the song it would've been very different than the original demo. That song was hardly 'their career'. I thought he was referring to a song Scott had written for her, which never happened. The closing thing to it would've been Lady your roof brings me down, but all she did was play accordion on it! Plus there's that nagging issue of it not being an STP song...

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I was just trying to make the patronizing observation that in his band he mimicked Eddie Vedder and his big moment as a songwriter came when Sheryl Crow rejected one of his songs.

Can't really say he mimicked him as he was singing like that before Pearl Jam's debut; in fact, when both bands released their debut cds and Weiland was accused of copying Vedder, he went out of his way to change his style purposely (down to intentionally damaging his voice a la Brian Wilson)! Now, marketing-wise, yes...Atlantic Records did try to market them in the whole 'grunge' area. Same thing happened with Alice in Chains as well, despite them having more in common with trad metal than grunge.

Oh yeah...that is definitely true. I want to hear your version of ILS...that sounds like a great idea!  Trying to think of another song that would work...possibly 'Glide' . Would require a tempo shift, but the guitar chords and the vocal melody would work out. http://youtu.be/eNk-JnRwihU

I've always felt they were a very underrated band.  Yes...they do get saddled with being Pearl Jam knock-offs...but that is not entirely fair.  The leap from "Core" to "Purple" was very impressive.  They moved away from that Seattle copy-cat sound and started to incorporate a lot of different sounds.  "Tiny Music" and "No. 4" simply got better and better.  In their prime...there was no band better than STP in writing big, heavy...yet catchy singles.  They developed a real interesting mix of hard rock, pop and psychedelica.  To judge them simply on how they started is to ignore how they grew creatively from album to album.  I really believe they were on of the best bands to come out of the 1990s...which makes their fall even more sad.  It's too bad that Scott Weiland is such a mess.  I saw them live years ago...and Weiland had a broken leg or something so he did the entire show seated in a chair.  It was beyond bizarre...but nonetheless a really solid show. 

Every album seemed like a progression from the last until they reunited.I hated their last album. Every complaint people here have against TWGMTR (which I happen to love) actually describes the reunion album. Nothing about it works for me.

I remember the show you mentioned. He had actually fallen of stage in the middle of the song and broke his foot...got back up and finished the song without missing a lyric. Sadly his current addiction to OxyContin started then...

After having investigated this band thanks to the awesome help of a good friend(thanks  ;)), I feel I can now make a more detailed post about this band. I used to be one of "those fans". You know the type, the guy who hears one or two of the more radio friendly songs and thinks he's a fan. Bullshit.  ;D Believe when I say that most of their best work lay in the album songs that nobody paid attention to. Songs like Adhesive, Lounge Fly, And So I know, Glide, Black Again, and Hello It's Late put Plush and Interstate Love Song to shame.  ;D If you haven't already, seek out this band.

But please, stay far away from Dare If You Dare. Do anything in your power to never listen to this "song".

Sour Girl is also quite...um...that video... :ahh

I agree with everything Jay said, especially the advice to avoid 'Dare if You Dare' which to my ears is one of the worst songs ever recorded by an established band.

Still like it a lot better than 'Don't Hurt My Little Sister' :lol

You kow what I just realised? Dare If You Dare is STP's Drip Drop.  ;D "Give it away, MOTHERFUCKER!".  :lol

You're thinking 'No Way Out'. Yeah, the one time STP DID cash in on a trend and try nu-metal. :lol

I knew I would probably screw that up, but I wasn't listening to it again to make sure.  :lol

I still agree with you though... Dare if you Dare is awfulllllllll

f any of the other songs are like that, I'm not sure I want to hear any more.  ;D

I think I confused the songs, at least partly. They both pretty much suck.  ;D

Ign'ant n00bz really need to listen to this before they're ready to dismiss this band for lame/false reasons:

(http://www.corestp.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/vatican_gift_shop.jpg)

Seriously. I have a pretty good-sized handful of songs I like on their other albums, but for the time they worked on this, they were really, really frigging good. "Pearl Jam knockoff" my dick. I really think you's Beach Boys kids could get into some of this stuff. Give it a shot.

Also glad to see I'm not the only one who noticed that "No Way Out" is a Limp Bizkit song that Scott accidentally did vocals on due to an engineer error while the other guys were taking a smoke break.

Tiny Music and Shangri La Di Da are my two favorite albums. They to me are the most underrated bands of the past twenty years.

Mayhaps I should give Shangri La Di Da a shot? It's the one album of theirs I've heard nothing on (sans one of the singles).

Also, I get tired of hearing so many early/mid 90s bands lumped in together or being accused of ripping each other off. STP sounds f*** all like Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam sounds f*** all like Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, The Melvins, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. into eternity. All of these bands had something really distinct going on for them. I'm not a huge fan of all of them, but they're each worthwhile in their own way and have their own thing to offer.

It's a really good album. The only thing about it is (and it's the same problem with No.4), by this point in their career, their ballads were far superior to the uptempo songs. Also, some of their strongest ever songs (About a Fool, Samba Nova) did not make it on there.


Amen. The idea of AIC sounding like Pearl Jam makes me :lol

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That's actually pretty awesome.  ;D

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On a similar note, I now have a full and complete orchestral arrangement of "Dead And Bloated" going through my head. I unfortunately can not play any  instrument whatsoever, so in my head it shall remain.

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Rob's badass. A seriously funky dude. To add to that, Eric Kretz is a hell of a drummer. He's said one of his main influences was Nick Mason. Dean has kind of a Phil Manzanera (circa 1974-1975) trip going on.

That was indeed a killer performance above. All four were at the top of their game.

Never cared for STP until I heard these songs.. Blew me away at first listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t2VSB5EJxc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it-K9uXXWlo

...is Chester Bennington from Linkin  Park...

Johnny those two songs are what turned me into a diehard.

And So I Know reminds me of Dennis's "You And I".

Who the HELL thought this was a solid idea?

Noticed that exact thing at first listen..

I think Chester is a good vocalist but the new song sucks and he sounds off on the live clips. Trainwreck but getting good reviews on the STP forums. Then again the STP fan base is a lot like the BB fan base and Weiland is looked at the same way many of us view Mike Love, so....

Fans of a band can be a strange bunch, huh?  :lol

Well, this sucks. http://www.spin.com/#articles/stone-temple-pilots-scott-weiland-lawsuit-response/

Always liked me some STP.

I'd say Core is my least favourite album of theirs, with Tiny Music being my fav. One of the most underappreciated albums of the 90's....along with Soup by Blind Melon.

Purple was a big step forward in their evolution and a solid album from start to finish.

No.4 is so-so. The slower songs really shined. I Got You and Atlanta are gems.

Shangri-La Dee Da is a pretty varied album. Perhaps just a little bit too much filler on it. I think it would have worked better as a double album, as it was originally planned. Still, this album has some of my favourite STP tunes.

Their 2010 album is my second least favourite offering by them. Some good songs on there, but overall it kind of bored me.

Also, I'm usually not one for wild and showy guitar solos, but some of their solos just blow me away.

My man! It's so rare to find folks who appreciate these two albums. The lack of love for Soup really gets me down, and it's hard not to imagine where things would have went from there had Shannon lived. :(

I despise the 2010 album. It doesn't sound like them for starters. The mix is horrible and the production was clunky. You can tell they weren't together when the songs were written never mind recorded.

 Core is next bottom.the songs are good but the sound is very dated...too much reverb and the kick drum sounds like a mouse punching a pillow.

A wise man once described the 2010 album as "It's extremely decent".  ;D

:lol

It's one of those albums that gets worse the more i hear it.

That's actually a really good way to describe it though. You could say the same about MIU.

Plush came out when I was in High School.  I can just tell you that was, to my livin' in the burbs sheltered from everything ears, the coolest sh*t that had ever happened int he history of music for about 3 weeks there.  The video was something else. 

You look at it and hear it now and it's not that big of a deal, but at the time that song was a monster.  Rock bands used to be able to make great pop songs like that, I don't hear anything even resembling that kind of a monster hit anymore.   Scott was great at one time.  So sad to see what's become of him. 

I saw them live in about 2003 or so.  Scott was in between relapses, and was basically great at the show I saw. 

The last rock song I was really interested in was Cochise by Audioslave. Or possibly Woman by Wolfmother.

I seem to have picked a really bad time to become a Stone Temple Pilots fan. Scott hasn't been himself in years, and might not ever be again. But as long as Scott Weiland is not in the band, STP will never be the same. What a strange paradox.

Weiland is having other issues besides drugs...he is starting to resemble Landy-era Brian in many ways. That said the lawsuit by the DeLeo brothers is bullshit.

Sad Scott is becoming landy-era Brian... :(

About all I can share is he has had a problem with oxycontin which is doubly bad when you are bipolar and on a cocktail of psychotropic drugs...

He's on psychotropic drugs? Man, oxy is bad enough on it's own.

The lawsuit thing is indeed bullshit, but I guess I can see how they might feel about Scott I guess. I mean, the guy's had about a good 15 years to clean up. But trying to stop him from playing STP songs at his shows is just petty. Why should he stop doing the songs that he had a hand in creating? They're as much his songs as STP's.

Exactly! And anybody can play anything as long as the proper fees are paid. Didn't Brian allegedly demand the same thing in 1975?

I don't know anything about the lawsuit, but I remember back when he first had his issues, thinking "Damn, sucks for the band!" they pretty much put everything on hold with STP until he cleaned his sh*t up.

Weezer is the exact same thing.  Rivers isn't as f***ed up as Scott is, but the band is completely, horribly dependent on him.  No Rivers, no Weezer.  No Scott, no STP.  So Scott fucks up and they all lose money.

With that said, if their lawsuit is trying to keep him from playing the songs he wrote and made famous that's b.s.