Stone Temple Pilots (& the Controversy of Replacement Singers)

By: Cora Linos 

If you haven’t seen Stone Temple Pilots (STP), go now. I saw them for the third time June 20th in Tinley Park at what was formerly the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre. They were just as awesome as the first two times I’d seen them. Robert DeLeo laid down some of my favorite basslines in all of rock, holding it down with Eric Kretz killing it on drums. And of course the iconic guitar riffs of Dean LeLeo. 

Singer Jeff Gutt ate as always. However, seeing them always reminds me of the controversy of replacement singers. You can’t watch a clip of STP on Instagram without a dozen comments lamenting that it’s not STP without Scott Weiland (RIP), despite the DeLeo brothers having started the band and written the music. 

Having seen a number of bands without their original singers (I am a grunge fan, afterall), these comments always tick me off. I’d have never gotten to see STP or Alice in Chains or Warrant if these bands had simply closed up shop after their singers’ deaths. And why should these bands have to shelve years of epic songs and move on with their lives as if it had never happened? Why should the contributions of the other band members be ignored and pushed aside because their singer died? 

This isn’t the fans’ place to decide what a band does after a tragedy. The band are the ones who lost their friend and bandmate–they get to decide whether it’s appropriate to continue. This is their lives and livelihoods. 

Change is hard. Change is especially hard when nostalgia is a factor. And rock fans hate change more than anyone. They’re nostalgia addicts. And they’re wrong for it. 

I can’t pretend to be much less of an addict myself though, to be fair, as I’ve yet to listen to the sole album INXS released without frontman Michael Hutchence–2005’s Switch. But in the very unlikely chance that they were to reunite and tour with a new singer, I’d be at the front of the queue to snap up tickets. I refuse to let my nostalgia tinted sunglasses shield me from my chance to see my favorite band of all time, nor should anyone else. Can frontmen like Michael, Scott, and Layne Staley truly be “replaced?” No. But that doesn’t mean the singers filling their shoes can’t do one hell of a job and put out albums and put on shows well worth the time and money. 

Anyway, I will always go catch STP on tour. They consistently put on an awesome show. Highlights: “Big Empty” featuring Dean on slide guitar, sliding right into your soul. And “Down” featuring Jeff coming down to walk the rail and the heaviest bass line from Robert. 

Listen to Moving in Stereo, Mondays at midnite CT on WSUM 91.7 FM Madison.