According to The Pulse Of Radio, STONE TEMPLE PILOTS bassist Robert DeLeo and guitarist Dean DeLeo defended their use of the band’s name during an interview on Tuesday (February 9) with St. Louis radio station KPNT. Responding to a fan who called in and suggested that the band should change its name in the wake of Scott Weiland’s death, Robert said: “There were three-quarters of us that were responsible with Scott, making STONE TEMPLE PILOTS. For instance, you have a company like Coca Cola, and you have someone running Coca Cola. If they’re not there anymore, do you change the name of Coca Cola?”
Robert added: “It’s easy for someone to say that, and get on their computer, and write that in, but if you’re in that position in life, that’s the last thing I want to do right now.” He explained that it might be easier to change the name if the band were in their 20s and it was relatively early in their career, but that he now “can’t afford to do it.”
Dean DeLeo weighed in, saying: “It’s interesting, because there’s people that say, ‘That was Scott’s band.’ Well I’m going to tell you something, if this was Scott’s band, it would have been run into the ground by 1998. It would have been over.”
Another caller told them they have the right to keep the name, since it’s three of the four original members still performing STONE TEMPLE PILOTS songs.
Weiland was actually dismissed from STP in 2013 after reuniting with the group in 2010. At the time, he was replaced by LINKIN PARK’s Chester Bennington, although some fans called for the name to be changed then.
Robert DeLeo told The Pulse Of Radio not long ago that keeping STP going after changing singers was never in question. “From the beginning, it wasn’t ‘Hey, let’s together and write a song’ or ‘Hey, let’s get together and do this show,'” he said. “It was ‘Hey, let’s get together and continue STONE TEMPLE PILOTS with a lot of integrity.’ That’s really what the intent was. It’s something that Eric [Kretz, drummer] and Dean and myself have worked at for a long time, and we’ve been trying to hold up the whole integrity of this band for a long time.”
Photo credit: Ryan Williams
Source: Blabbermouth
