Photo credit: Corey Hickok
A very rare video feature has surfaced featuring Seattle musician Richard Peterson, whose song “My Second Album” appeared as a hidden track on Stone Temple Pilots’ second album Purple in 1994. Peterson and STP guitarist Dean DeLeo are interviewed in the feature, with Peterson revealing the first paycheck he received for his track’s inclusion was for $10,000, and that he would receive the same amount for every million copies sold. Peterson is seen cashing the check at a bank in the video.
Scott Weiland discussed the song in a 1994 RIP Magazine interview.
“Oh, The Richard Peterson song. He’s a guy from Washington somewhere, a small town-not Aberdeen-but I guess Dean did a radio interview up there in Washington, and he saw this picture of this guy in the Wall posing with Johnny Mathis. And he was like, ‘Wow, who’s this guy?’ And they said, ‘Oh, that’s Richard Peterson, he’s got his own records out.’ We got a tape of his stuff, and it was just fucking great, so we instantly put it on, you know, the music before we go on stage, and just were listening to it all the time and turning on all our friends to it. And the song is the first on his second album, you know? It’s just so self-explanatory to how he feels about his second album that we felt it kinda fits our situation too.”
Weiland also said, “It’s written by this really weird guy named Richard Peterson. He makes these records with his own money. He gets a friend to sing his songs that he writes that have to do with this obsession with Johnny Mathis. We heard it and we freaked. It was the weirdest thing we had heard in our lives and it just kinda seemed like it fit close to our album.”
Watch the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHvihLjyPcE&app=desktop
