In an interview Stone Temple Pilots co-founders Dean and Robert DeLeo revealed that the band has chosen a new singer and are close to naming him. The announcement comes just a few months after the death of the previous singer Chester Bennington, also of Linkin Park. Original singer Scott Weiland died on December 5th, 2015.
During an appearance on Eddie Trunk’s the “Trunk Nation” show on SiriusXM channel Volume (106) the brothers commented:
Dean:
“I think we have somebody that fits the bill. We’ve been very busy.”
“There was a lot of criteria to fulfill. And it was no overnight decision by any means,” he said. “We were, first and foremost, patient at times.”
Robert:
“Had about fifteen thousand people to audition through. Literally, Dean and Eric and I went through fifteen thousand, twenty thousand people — twice.”
“Yes. Like Dean said, there’s a lot of criteria here; there’s many steps. And it’s not the kind of thing where we’re trying to replace… You can’t replace Scott Weiland — you just can’t — but there’s things that naturally have to be there: songwriting, can he sing? Performing… all these things. It takes a while; you can’t just make a decision like that.”
“It’s a lot to ask of someone to be able to respect the catalog vocally and move forward with new material — it’s a lot to ask of someone,”.
Dean also commented:
“And also, is this a person that we want around our kids? Is this a person that wants to be around me? [Laughs] That’s why it’s taking so long.
“We’re pretty excited. We feel like we’re sitting on the goose that lays the golden egg, man.”
STP are currently promoting the twenty-fifth anniversary expanded reissue of STP’s début album, Core (Atlantic), which released Friday, September 29th.