Stone Temple Pilots

About

Also known as: STP

Stone Temple Pilots built their reputation on a sound that refused to sit still. Forming in San Diego in 1989 under the name Mighty Joe Young before landing on the STP name, the band signed with Atlantic Records and dropped their debut Core in 1992, a record that shot to number three on the Billboard chart on the strength of tracks like "Plush", "Creep", and "Sex Type Thing". Critics at the time called them grunge imitators, yet Rolling Stone readers simultaneously voted them Best New Band while the magazine's own critics voted them Worst, which honestly says more about the times than the band. Their follow up Purple arrived in 1994 and debuted at number one, with "Interstate Love Song" sitting atop the album rock chart for a record fifteen weeks. The band kept pushing their sound through psychedelic rock, bossa nova, and classic rock territory across later records like Tiny Music and Shangri La Dee Da. After a turbulent stretch that included separating in 2003, stints in Velvet Revolver and Army of Anyone, and the deaths of vocalists Scott Weiland and Chester Bennington, STP regrouped with Jeff Gutt on vocals and released Perdida in 2020. Worldwide they sold 40 million albums in the 1990s alone.