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Stone Temple Pilots Page 2
by Martin Popoff

Dean continues. The songwriting in STP is very formulated. I think we're very strong believers in a lot of applications where less is more? It's moreso about the songs than anyone's virtuosity. It's really just about the song, man. But I've been begging for 16 bar solos since '91 (big laugh from Rob).

Rob continues the thread. But that's the challenge of being in a band with however many people who are in the band. When you are doing it for the song, there are obviously areas of your own talent that you need to surrender. And I think if everyone contributes. . . I mean, just thinking about Yes. I can't even imagine the creative daggers that were being thrown in the studio at those recordings. It's not like that with this band. We are perfectly capable, and I think we WERE perfectly capable from our first record, Core . . . we could have made that record Tales From Topographical Oceans. Musically, we were capable of doing it. But I don't think it was the right thing to do at the time.

So you went grunge?

Rob answers (in retrospect, probably really struggling to be polite!): Really? You look at it like that?

Eric: I would agree with you only for the fact that all of the influences we just talked about, it was all the same bands, and the fact that you have bass, drums, guitars and singers, without keyboard, without saxophone.

Rob: Basically, I think we all grew up as bands listening to guitar-oriented music.

Well then, just like the bands from Seattle, were you disgusted with L.A. heavy metal and the whole hair band thing?

Rob: Yeah, of course, I mean we were living it on Sunset Boulevard. I used to see those people come in immediately after they got signed and treat me like shit because I worked at a guitar shop and they just got signed.

Dean: Robert worked retail on Sunset and Gardiner for six years (laughs), from about 1987 to 1991.

Rob: Those bands you're talking about, those glam or hair bands, were my blueprint to show me how to and how not to treat people. It wasn't just the music. It was the whole attitude that went along with it. I don't think this band has ever been about, 'you know, let's rape and f**king pillage and conquer, dude. That's not what we grew up on. Musically, I think there is an overall influence of Led Zeppelin. There's no denying that. Personally, I think Led Zeppelin had everything you could want from a band; they had a funky backbeat, a great drummer. You know, I think people totally overlook the aspects of Zeppelin that were special. John Bonham was into f**king Motown and James Brown. And John Paul Jones was emulating Motown stuff. And I think we have that aspect in our music. I think our backbeat reeks of that.

Dean: But we were into everything. We're basically pop whores. I'm 38. And I got to say man, I could not wait to get home from school and sit in front of the AM radio and hear songs like 'Cisco Kid' from War. I would sit there until they played that, and listen to 'Stuck In The Middle With You' by Stealer's Wheel, and 'Close To You' by The Carpenters. My mom actually took us to see The Carpenter's when we were kids, and the music that was filtering down from what my mom was playing, all those killer Andy Williams records, those Carpenters records, Dusty Springfield records. And then from my older brother's bedroom you would hear Hendrix. And from our sister's room you would hear Spanky and Our Gang, Rascals, Motown. And then our dad had this incredible collection out of Edith Piaf stuff. I mean we could go on and on.

The Stone Temple Pilots Story Page 3