Artist

Stone Temple Pilots

San Diego, United States · Formed 1990

Stone Temple Pilots is a music group from San Diego, United States, active since 1990. Their discography on Gatefold includes 21 records.

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Albums tracked

526

In collections

1990

Since

Biography

Brendan O'Brien had to drag a massive velvet curtain into Rumbo Recorders to baffle the drums because Eric Kretz was hitting so goddamn hard they couldn't control the bleed. Everyone called them grunge carpetbaggers because they were from San Diego instead of Seattle, but they were actually just a tight-as-hell bar band with a singer who could pivot from a Bowie croon to a Jim Morrison howl on a dime. The DeLeo brothers were writing sophisticated jazz chords and bossa nova licks while their peers were stuck in power-chord purgatory. Scott Weiland’s spiral is the stuff of tabloid nightmare, but the middle of the catalog is where the real gold hides. Tiny Music is a psychedelic masterpiece that saw them ditching the flannel for glam-rock sequins and fuzz pedals, proving they were way more interesting than the 'Plush' radio edit suggested. They spent the rest of their career chasing that high while dealing with courtroom dates and rehab stints, but when they were locked in, they were the most versatile rock band of the nineties.

Bio from The Clerk

The Arc of Stone Temple Pilots

The pivots — what forced Stone Temple Pilots to reinvent.

The Brendan O’Brien Tighten Up
After the Mighty Joe Young demos failed to capture their weight, the band hooked up with producer Brendan O'Brien at Southern Tracks to cut Core. He stripped away the funk-rock excess and forced them into a focused, heavy groove that leaned into the DeLeo brothers' love for massive, rhythmic riffs. You can hear the tension in the room on 'Sex Type Thing,' a track that traded their early jam-band tendencies for a claustrophobic, metallic crunch that defined their early radio dominance.
The Vatican Gift Shop Pivot
Exhausted by the 'grunge' label and Weiland’s growing legal troubles, the band moved into a house in Santa Ynez to record Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop. They swapped out the heavy distortion for 12-string guitars, toy pianos, and a heavy dose of 60s pop irony. The result was a technicolor shift where tracks like 'Big Bang Baby' channeled a loose, Keith Richards-inspired swagger that sounded nothing like the dour Seattle scene they’d been lumped into.
The Malibu Exile
By the time they hit Shangri-La Dee Da, the band was living in a rented mansion in Malibu with O'Brien again, trying to build a cohesive double album while the internal chemistry was dissolving. They were experimenting with baroque pop and psychedelic folk, moving further away from the riff-heavy foundation of their debut. The record ended up a single disc of beautiful, fractured experiments that showed a band trying to survive their own burnout through sheer melodic ambition.

Influences

Led Zeppelin — Robert DeLeo has repeatedly cited John Paul Jones as his primary reason for picking up the bass and learning to lock in with a heavy drummer. You hear it in the swinging, heavy-bottomed groove of 'Interstate Love Song,' which mirrors the melodic but tectonic movement of 'Ramble On.' It’s the secret sauce that kept them from sounding like a generic alt-rock band.
David Bowie — Weiland explicitly modeled his chameleonic stage persona and vocal shifts on the Thin White Duke, particularly the low-register crooning on 'And So I Know.' The band’s cover of 'Andy Warhol' on their MTV Unplugged set wasn't just a tribute; it was an admission of where they got their art-rock DNA. He wasn't just singing lyrics; he was playing a series of characters.
The Doors — The band famously performed 'Break On Through' with the surviving members of The Doors for a VH1 Storytellers special, with Weiland filling Jim Morrison's leather pants. That baritone theatricality is all over 'Dead & Bloated,' specifically that megaphone-intro style Morrison loved. They took the dark, psychedelic blues of the Sunset Strip and updated it for the CD era.
The Smiths — Dean DeLeo has pointed to Johnny Marr as a major influence on his chord voicings and the use of open strings to create texture. Listen to the jangling, sophisticated guitar layering on 'Big Empty' and you’ll hear a direct lineage to Marr’s work in the mid-80s. They were one of the few heavy bands of their era who weren't afraid of a major seventh chord.
Aerosmith — The band frequently covered 'Toys in the Attic' during their early live sets, and the DeLeo brothers have praised Joe Perry’s sleazy, rhythmic guitar playing. The strutting, funk-adjacent riffing on 'Vasoline' is a direct descendant of that mid-70s Boston hard rock swagger. It gave them a stadium-ready swing that the more punk-leaning Seattle bands lacked.