Dean, Eric, Robert, and Weiland played their first gig as Mighty Joe Young at the Whiskey A Go-Go in Long Beach, California in August 1990. After playing quite a few shows and never rehearsing, they played at The Club with No Name and tipped off Atlantic A&R person Tom Carolan. They were signed to Atlantic on April Fool's Day 1992. They recorded "Core", and 2 days before they were to hand in the artwork for the album, they got a phone call from Eric Greenspan, their attorney, telling them that they have to change their name because there was a blues guitarist who went by the name of Mighty Joe Young, so they had to change the name. After Weiland got a vision of the STP motor oil logo, they tossed names around and came up with Stone Temple Pilots. They said that in a way, they are more fond of the new name, even though changing the name of their band was almost like changing the name of their child.
The band toured North America on a small club tour before being offered a slot to open for Megadeth on their secondary city tour. They were then offered to open for Aerosmith, but they declined, choosing instead to co-headline a tour with the Butthole Surfers cleverly entitled Barbecue Mitzvah. It was on this tour, specifically in New Your City, the Weiland was introduced to hard drugs. He snorted crack for the first time n the presence of Gibby Hayes.
They appeared on Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman in late 1993. In November they did MTV Unplugged. In early 1994 they began to win an impressive amount of awards. Rolling Stone named them Best New Band and Weiland Best New Singer; Billboard awarded "Plush" #1 Rock Track. They won Best New Artist and Favorite New Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Artists at the American Music Awards and won Best Hard Rock Performance for Weiland's vocal on "Plush" at the Grammy awards.
March 1994 the band recorded "Purple" in a matter of 3 weeks. While recording it the band decided to just forget about "Core" and record an honest record. It was a lot easier to make the record that way, they said. They kind of approached it like "Purple" was their first album. When it was released on June 25, 1994, it shot straight to #1 on Billboards Hot 200 charts. The second single, Interstate Love Song, stayed at #1 on Billboards Rock Charts for a record 15 straight weeks.
On May 15, 1995 Scott Weiland was arrested for heroin and cocaine possesion. He was released on $10,000 bail. When his wife picked him up later thatday, Weiland demanded that she take him to his dealer's house. When she wouldn't, he jumped out of the car. When Jannina wouldn't let him come home, he checked into a hotel and got put in the room right nest to Courtney Love. They did drugs together for about 2 weeks when Weiland woke up and realized what he was doing. he and Courtney called up LA's KROQ and Courtney read an apology he had written to his wife, his family, his friends, his bandmates, and his fans. "I have a disease," it said. He couldn't read it himself because he was "embarrassed. It was hard enough to write it." He continues to this day to battle with his addcition. The best thing his fans can do for him is pray.
Stone Temple Pilots released their third album, "Tiny Music... Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop" on March 26, 1996. It was recorded at Westerly Ranch in Santa Ynez, California. The ranch was secluded on 100 acres, and was about 200 miles from Los Angeles. They almost didn't finish recording it. it was started quite a few times in a studio in Los Angeles; however, due to distractions, was not able to be finished. They decided that they would be bst to be away from civilization, and be secluded and reunite themselves together after being off the road and away from each other for so long. Robert really like the Santa Barbara area, so they looked at a few places in that area before find Westerly Ranch. They recorded the whole album there, only having at the most, 12 people + their dogs and cats. Bud, their producer, gave them entire freedom - they would record anywhere that a cord would reach. Bathrooms, hallways, outside, foyers - Eric even actually set up his drums in a cedar closet because he liked the sound it gave off! The album has 12 tracks, including 2 instrumentals, "Press Play" and "Daisy".
Scott Weiland was ordered back into rehab the month after "Tiny Music..." was released. This gave Kretz and the DeLeo brothers time to work on their other project, VO-5. They recorded the album, but that fall, gave Weiland a call to see if he was well enough to go on tour. They sucessfully completed a 29-date tour that ended in Cleveland, OH on December 14. After that they scheduled 3 dates around the new year - one in Alaska and 2 in Hawaii. These were cancelled, however, due to a relapse in which Weiland called Dean instead of running out for another hit. They went back on the road starting April 11, and finished that tour successfully. Their summer tour, however, was cut for unknown reasons. Dean, Robert, and Eric released their other project (whose name was Talk Show) with former 10-Inch Men lead singer Dave Coutts on September 2, 1997. They broke up, having a very short life, and the 3 were looking for a new singer. Lead singer Weiland moved to be a solo artist. His album, 12 Bar Blues, was released on March 31, 1998.
After both acts toured behind their albums, things were cut short by the arrest of Scott Weiland for possesion of heroin. After court dates and hearings, Scott was put on probation for three years which included random drug tests. During the beginning of his probation, Scott, Eric, Dean, and Robert put together a fourth album cleverly entitled "No. 4." However, prior to its release date in the fall of 1999, Scott was picked up for violating his probation and sentenced to one year in the Los Angeles County Jail. He was then released on December 31, 1999 after serving five months of his year-long sentence. He also announced in January that he and his girlfriend, model Mary Forsberg, will be wed at the end of May. A recent letter from Scott cleared up rumours and proved that Mary Forsberg is indeed pregnant with Weiland's child and they first heard its heartbeat at the last dr. appointment. Their son is due in November. They have been touring through late spring, summer, and into this fall - you can check out their tour listing since May of 2000 on my STP News page.
