Stone Temple Pilots Discography
From LoveToKnow Music
The Stone Temple Pilots discography is short but is filled with top selling, award winning albums. The band has had an enormous amount of ups and downs over the years, and they have disbanded and reunited many times, but through it all, they released albums that sold millions of copies.
Stone Temple Pilots History
Stone Temple Pilots got their start when singer Scott Weiland and bass player Rob DeLeo met when they found out they were dating the same girl. Soon, the girl was gone, and Weiland and DeLeo were sharing her old apartment and putting together a band. After a few early line-up changes, they settled on Eric Kretz as a drummer and DeLeo’s brother Dean as a guitar player.
Initially, the band called itself Mighty Joe Young and took to the stage in strip clubs in San Diego, in the hopes of avoiding the same old music scene. It didn’t take long for problems with the band name to surface. They soon discovered that the name Mighty Joe Young was already taken, and so they switch to a somewhat vulgar name including the name Shirley Temple. They soon realized their dirty Shirley Temple band name wasn’t very radio or record label friendly, but they did like the STP initials that that name had. The next variation was Stereo Temple Pirates, which stuck for awhile, until they finally settled on Stone Temple Pilots.
Stone Temple Pilots’ live shows helped them build up a following, and eventually the band signed a deal with Atlantic Records. The band headed into the studio to record their debut album, Core. Core came out an in late 1992, and spawned a few hits – notably, the song Creep – but the critics were lukewarm at best on the band. This split between listeners and critics would become a constant theme in the band’s career.
The promotion of Core brought many big opportunities for Stone Temple Pilots, including a tour with Megadeath and an MTV Unplugged session, and the following for the band only increased. The critics never came on board, however, and at the end of 1993, Stone Temple Pilots had the unusual distinction of being voted Best New Band by Rolling Stone magazine readers and Worst New Band by Rolling Stone writers. In 1994, Stone Temple Pilots were awarded a Grammy for best metal performance.
The follow-up to Core was highly anticipated by Stone Temple Pilot fans, and when Purple came out in Spring 1994, it shot straight to the top of the Billboard Charts. The first single from the album, Interstate Love Song, was the number one rock single for 15 weeks straight.
Things took a turn for the worse after the release of Purple, however, when Scott Weiland was arrested for drug possession. The arrest sparked the first of several split-ups of the band, although they re-grouped later in the year.
A third album came out in 1996. Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop was still well received but only reached position four on the Billboard charts. Touring for the album was disrupted by Weiland’s drug problems, and eventually all shows were cancelled so he could receive treatment.
Stone Temple Pilots put the band on hold until 1999, when they released No.4, but again touring was disrupted when Weiland violated probation for his earlier drug arrest and was sentenced to a year in jail right after the album release.
When Weiland was released from jail, the band released Shangri-La Dee Da, which debuted to significantly less fanfare than the band was used to. They had plans to try and return to their early sound with a follow up album, but violence between Weiland and Dean DeLeo while on tour to support Shangri-La caused the band to have another breakup.
Stone Temple Pilots remained disbanded until 2008, when they decided to reform for a few festival performances. Weiland, who was singing with Velvet Revolver at the time, claimed Velvet Revolver froze him out the band when he announced his Stone Temple Pilot plans. In turn, STP planned a much more extensive tour and planned to head back to the studio to record a new album.
Stone Temple Pilots Discography
The Stone Temple Pilots Discography is as follows:
- Core
- Purple
- Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop
- No.4
- Shangri-La Dee Da
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