Chester Bennington on Stone Temple Pilots: ‘Gonna Make a Lot of Music Together’
Stone Temple Pilots and Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington first revealed their surprising collaboration recently at L.A. radio station KROQ’s annual Weenie Roast show. Last night the two acts joined forces at the annual MAP/MusiCares Fund Benefit Concert in L.A., where Bennington was presented the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award for his dedication to MAP/MusiCares and helping other addicts with recovery.
Before Bennington and STP took the stage, the group talked to Rolling Stone and revealed this is not just a musical fling. “When you get together and put a new piece in, there’s a whole different energy. For us the creative juices have just been flowing – we’ve been writing, we have tons of great ideas,” Bennington said. “Next week we’re going back in the studio and hammering out some more music.”
Stone Temple Pilots Sue Scott Weiland
But that does not mean there will be an album anytime soon, or any sort of fixed schedule: With Bennington still heavily involved in Linkin Park, he and STP will disseminate new music the way they did with their first track together, “Out of Time.”
“We don’t have a label,” he said. “Everything we’re doing is on our own, so we’re just taking it one track at a time. We would love to sit down and hammer out a record, but the reality is we’re gonna make music, we’re gonna make a lot of it, and we’re gonna be in a position to release a single at a time, go out and really give people music the way they want to get it,” he said. “It is a good position to be in, and for us, all we care about is going out, making the legacy as great as it needs to be, as great as people expect it to be, and coming out with new music that lives up to that standard.”
About the addition of Bennington, Dean DeLeo said, “It just came about very harmoniously. I don’t want to use the ‘s’ word – serendipitous – but it really was. Very natural.”
For Bennington, to play on this night not just with STP, but with his longtime friends Slash and Duff McKagan – who joined the group for a rousing singalong on the Mott the Hoople classic “All the Young Dudes” – was very special because of what MAP/MusiCares means to him.
“The reason why I come and do the things I do for MusiCares is it’s a program that helps people that really need the help. They go out and change people’s lives, and they give them the support that they need,” he said. “And if they had asked me to show up and just play the first song by myself like I did a couple of years ago, I would’ve done the same thing, and it wouldn’t have mattered about the award or whatever.”
McKagan echoed the sentiment. “I’ve been here the last few years, and good for Chester. Chester is a big name. It draws a lot of people in, they’re gonna pay the high dollars for a table, and that’s what you want. You want to raise money for MusiCares – that’s the most important thing.”