no scott weiland, no stone temple pilots

scott weiland is no longer a member of stone temple pilots. depending on who you ask, you'll hear different reasons for it. the rest of the band will say he's fired. scott will say that he wasn't fired or that they never told him he was fired or as far as he knew, they were still a band. either way, weiland's touring solo with a backup band called the wildabouts and the rest of the stone temple pilots replaced scott with chester bennington (of linkin park fame) and continue to use the same name.

as a fan of stone temple pilots AND scott weiland, i find the whole thing to be a bummer... even though i did  see scott weiland live at irving plaza a couple months ago and thought it was awesome. not only did i find it to be entertaining, but it was awesome to see scott in such a small venue. stp's an arena band. they're just too big to tour that circuit. but weiland solo can get away with it and i'm glad i was there.

i've strayed a bit off my point.... but my opinion on the matter is this, i believe scott weiland has the right to tour solo as 'scott weiland' and cover stone temple pilots songs. i believe the rest of stone temple pilots have the right to tour with another singer and play whatever they want as well, but (and this is a big BUT), i think they should use a different name. without scott weiland, they are no longer stone temple pilots. and i don't care what any court of law has to say about it. as an stp fan myself, i won't acknowledge it.

when a lead singer leaves a band (or more specifically, a famous band that's been famous for years), i think in almost all cases they're completely irreplaceable. and honestly, if both entities decide to tour separately, you're gonna probably get a closer replica of the original product at the lead singer's show as opposed to the show that features the rest of the band. it's way easier for a new batch of musicians to replicate what the former musicians did than it is for a new singer to replicate the sound of the original singer.

and it's even bigger bullshit when the old band picks up a new singer and writes new music under the old name. that's what stone temple pilots are doing right now. other bands are guilty of this as well... i'm looking at you alice in chains and sublime (w/ rome). granted, with those two examples, their original singers died... but death should be the end of it anyways. how are bands more concrete than marriages? it should be till death do us part... not till death do us part unless we can tour the country and make some fucking money off of the nostalgia.

i'm sure some of you are thinking, "yea, well what about van halen?" what about van halen? they got famous with david lee roth. they conquered the rock and roll pop market with david lee roth. sure, they made some hits with sammy hagar... but there's no way that if van halen started out with sammy hagar in the first place that they ever would have gotten as big as they did... no way at all. i'm not accepting any requests to even debate this.

in fact, as far as i know, there's only two successful exceptions to the rule...the first one being ac/dc. i don't know how they did it. maybe 'back in black,' just rocks that hard. i don't know. i have no explanation. it's the exception damn it. i'll always be a bon scott guy myself, but it's hard to deny that ac/dc probably became more popular than ever when they enlisted brian johnson's vocal services.

the other exception is the dropkick murphys. i'll fight everyone in the world to the death in my defense that the murphys best two albums were the first two with singer mike mccolgan. but al barr did the job on every album since and the murphys, much like ac/dc (on a smaller scale), became more popular. however, the dropkick murphys are punk rock. and al barr was in another punk band before the murphys (the bruisers) and mike mcclogan eventually went on to start up another punk rock band called the, 'street dogs,' and that's just what punk rock bands do. they share and rotate vocalists and it works but you hardly ever hear about it cuz it's punk and not mainstream.

but the stone temple pilots are far from a punk rock band and they need to stop all this bickering and agree to put the moniker, 'stone temple pilots,' to rest. i can't stand reading about the two sides locked in bitter disagreement. stp's suing weiland. weiland claims stp has no right to use the name. it's like an ugly divorce. and stp comes from an era of grunge and alternative music when a lot of kids sought out bands as an escape from their problems. stp was part of that get away for kids of the 90's. and now that we're all grown up, a band that used to be part of the solution can't solve their own problems. it's time to put an official end to, 'stone temple pilots,' and let the legacy stand on it's own. and whatever you do, don't tour under the name, 'linkin park.'