New Stone Temple Pilots singer Jeff Gutt called his first 2016 rehearsal with the band “a little awkward” in a recent Rock 100.5 The KATT interview.
“It felt like I needed their permission, in a way, to take ownership of the songs — I couldn’t just walk in and do it; it would have felt wrong to me. So it was more of a personal thing about getting to know them as people and them getting to know me and then pretty much letting me know it was okay to go do that, ’cause to take the reins on something like that, you really need their blessing, so to speak.”
“I was one of the very last people to go on one of the very last days. That was seven songs, and after that, I couldn’t get a setlist; I had to pretty much go through every single record, just going over everything constantly for months. So it was a lot… I pretty much knew most of [the songs] anyway, but there were a couple of records that weren’t ingrained in my memory, so I had to go over those a little more.”
Gutt also discussed his friendship with Chester Bennington, which his STP bandmates weren’t aware of.
“No, they didn’t know at all, actually. We did a couple of those private showcase things, and Chester actually called and asked if he could come to the first one, ’cause he wanted to see my first performance with STP. So he was on my guest list. And they were looking over the guest list, and they go, ‘Wait. Chester is on your guest list. How do you know Chester?’ So I went through the whole story. And then he came, and I brought him up to do a song, and it was great.”
