By SCOTT WEILAND, exclusively for Alternative Nation (In 2015):
Robert DeLeo used to come and watch my first band Soi-Disant play at a place called Kiss the Club. When we were teenagers, we’d play there three times a week, and he would come and watch us play, and he would come up and play on a song or two.
When I decided with my best friend and guitar player, Corey Hickok, that we needed to make a change with the band, we got a hold of Robert and started writing songs with him. It was more Red Hot Chili Peppers oriented, like early Chili Peppers oriented. A punk funk kind of vibe.
[When Robert’s brother] Dean came in as our new guitarist, it started with “Where The River Goes”. Dean came in at our first rehearsal, and brought that song in. At first it was clean guitar, then we made it distorted guitar, and it went from a Cure sounding riff into a Led Zeppelin sounding riff.
[We released Core in 1992, and] in the early days, the [Grunge comparisons] didn’t matter to me so much, because I felt it was the first real movement in rock and roll since punk rock. It tapped into sociopolitical connotations, and pop culture. It just had a vibe. It influenced fashion, I mean it was a huge, huge movement. But after that, I wanted us to be a band that changed, and we were, we changed from Core to Purple, then Tiny Music especially, we made a garage sounding album.
Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver sold 6, 7, 8 million records at a time, and that just doesn’t happen in rock and roll any more. Taylor Swift might sell, might smell, a million records.
FAQs
Eric Kretz: At that time I was listening to a lot of Tower of Power. Dave Garibaldi was just such a fucking great drummer, that kind of (hums beat), writing those kind of beats he’d be doing. I was playing a lot of guitar back then, so I just grabbed the guitar and [did] kind of a cross of between a little Tower of Power, a little Steely Dan “Peg” [on the song]. I just kind of put the whole thing together and started figuring out, you’ve got the accents thing on the down beat on the 2/4, then throwing them in on the off beats. I remember somebody telling me once, “Hey man a great chorus always has the accents on the off beat.” I was just like, you know what would be great, if you write a song that has down beats on the 2/4 and then on the off beats. So it was kind of just playing with stuff and putting that whole thing together. I had a really rough bassline too for that. When I put it together Dean was jumping right on it, I showed Robert the bassline and he just kind of took it from there, added a bit more notes. The song was basically played how it was written. We recorded the song with Scott not having any vocal input to it yet. Scott was capable of doing this sometimes, I’d say 30% of STP’s songs were recorded this way, with no idea whatsoever for vocals. But we still had choruses, bridges, kind of figured out parts. Then Scott would miraculously just that day in the studio bam, lyrics and everything. We just had the whole song. As stressful was it was sometimes, some really great hits came about that way.
Eric Kretz: Back in that time in the early 90’s, Scott was my best friend, we were roommates for years. We would always discuss and argue about poetry, literature, movies, life, politics, love, war, you know what I mean? He was my best friend. So when it came time for “Plush” he was like, “Man, I just don’t know what to write about.” We’re jokingly in a hot tub, we’re sitting at the Oakwood Apartments making that record Core, and they actually had a jacuzzi there. We’re just drinking a bunch of beers, and just kind of started working on stuff we’d been talking about as friends for so many years. The intrigue of it all, the intrigue of those things: the politics of love, of literature, of movies. At the same time [we] were trying to prey on words, we were kind of [doing] a counter thing of you saying one thing, him saying another. Or him saying something to me and countering with something, it was kind of a very natural way of friends putting together a lyrical song. Then strangely enough, Opera Man [Adam Sandler's SNL character] on KROQ was doing that song one year and it was pretty funny (laughs).
Dean DeLeo: So we were asked to record a song for The Crow soundtrack and we jumped at the wonderful opportunity and we went and recorded this song. We titled it “Only Dying.” During the shooting of that movie, we all know what happened [as Brandon Lee died]. I was like, “There’s no way we’re releasing this song, there’s no way we’re giving them a song called Only Dying.” So we pulled the plug on it. That’s why that song never saw the light of day really.
Scott Weiland: I was a member of Sub Pop, and used to get singles every month. I saw Nirvana in [1990] I believe it was, at Raji’s.
Dean DeLeo: I don’t know why we didn't release it. I don’t have a good answer for that. I will tell you, our dear friend Chapman Baehler shot that. I don’t know if I ever really have gone through much of the footage, I don’t think any of us really have. I don’t know, maybe it will one day see the light, I highly doubt it though.
Scott Weiland: When Dean came into the band, the name was still Mighty Joe Young, and it was when we got signed, as well. We had to change the name because of the Chicago blues guy Mighty Joe Young. [The name Shirley Temple's Pussy] was there for a laugh for a few minutes.
Scott Weiland: We did with all of our records with Brendan [besides 2010's self-titled album], where he was the guy where if it came to it, he had the last word.
David Ellefson: We would get a stack of CDs that our management would kind of filter out for us and say, 'Hey, we think these handful of bands were the best contenders based on music, based on what the record company is going to do to support the album, support the tour, blah, blah, blah.' Because Megadeth, we never took cash buy-ons. We never did that. All bands sort of buy on a tour to some degree – their record company is putting money into it, supporting it, radio ticket buys, etc. But Megadeth, we never personally stuck cash in our pockets. 'Who's got the most money?' We never did that. We always looked at it, 'Who's the best sound? Who do we like? What do we feel is the best musical fit for our fans for the show?' That always was the benchmark for us. So, as Core came across our stereo on the bus, I remember specifically the day we listened to it on the bus. Kind of like Alice in Chains, we went, 'Wow, this is really freaking good. This is something we like. We'd love to have this on tour with us, and we think this would be a good mix for our fans.' And again, it wasn't a thrash band. By Countdown to Extinction, we were thinking sort of beyond thrash music, because thrash had had its biggest day with the Clash of the Titans Tour. And we knew that. So, we knew going into the making of Countdown to Extinction that we needed to level up to a whole new level and really create a record that was going to be timeless, that was going to be epic, and that was going to move Megadeth far beyond where we had ever gone before. And I think we did. And so bringing Stone Temple Pilots with us was, I think, just part of that journey of how we were thinking at that time. And, of course, after our tour, they went on to again, huge heights, and they didn't need us to sing their praises anymore. They did it all on their own after that.
