Stone Temple Pilots drummer Eric Kretz discussed how Scott Weiland sang from the ‘disturbing’ point of view of a sexual predator in “Sex Type Thing” in a new Rock.com.ar interview, despite not being like that at all. The quotes below are translated so aren’t exactly correct.
“Sex Type Thing” is one of your favorite topics, but Scott did not like it to be made mosh because the lyrics embodied the “perspective” of a rapist. As a band, how do you feel about that today?
Yes, I think it has a double message: the music is very energetic and powerful, but the lyrics differ a lot. I remember that Weiland told that he wanted to address it in the first person, from the point of view of the author of the act, which was quite disturbing. And we said, “Oh, man, now you’re going to believe that you really think like that!” It was very disturbing because he was an extraordinary and obvious person who did not reason in that way, at all. So at first we deliberated whether people really understood the message, but then we gave it to them, just because we knew that he was not like that.
And in effect, part of the Americans misunderstood it.
For a long time he had to go out and explain it. Although today, being a song of more than twenty-five years, everyone listens to the words and do not analyze so in detail what Scott was trying to say. Directly they get to full with the energy of the subject, they enjoy it and they do mosh. Many of our songs have that challenging feeling and it takes you a lot to understand what we really try to express. It’s great that you mentioned it, because I did not analyze it a lot. So thanks.
