I recently had a friend post that bands should change their name if they
change their singer. This was in response to the new Stone Temple Pilots
track with Chester Bennington from Linkin Park. Immediately, I thought
of all the bands that were as successful, or even more, after changing
singers: Van Halen, Pink Floyd, Genesis, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Iron
Maiden, Marillion, Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac, Journey, Rainbow, etc.
There are always two sides to every story and I am sure we never hear the
full truth. While posting about STP, I made the comparison to the Pink
Floyd vs. Roger Waters battle. When it is many against one in musical matters, I
tend to side with the group. Floyd was better as a whole, but after
the split, their group work stands up much better than Waters' solo efforts.
Queensryche had a similar split last year, with the band deciding to
carry on after Geoff Tate left. Unfortunately, Geoff, decided to create
his version of Queensryche. I waited until I heard from both projects
and again, I have to go with the band.
This morning, Stone Temple Pilots released this statement:
"You may have read we recently filed suit against our former singer,
Scott Weiland. We wanted to clarify a few things:
Our purpose in taking this action is not to hurt Scott. We want to
move forward productively, and Scott’s choices and actions have prevented
us from doing that. We were in the process of putting our 20th
anniversary tour together to celebrate the release of our first album,
Core. The plan was for a big tour where we’d perform the album in its
entirety, along with some other favorite STP songs. So, you might imagine
our shock and disappointment when, without any notice, we learned that
Scott had seized this tour for himself as his solo tour, and decided to
do exactly what we as a group had planned. We found out about it the same
way you did—we saw an ad for it.
Without getting into legal details, the band has a binding agreement
that clearly states what each of us can and cannot do outside of STP.
Unfortunately many of the decisions Scott made violate this agreement,
have been harmful to the band, and prevented us from moving forward. When
our requests to Scott and his representatives that they abide by the
agreement were ignored, we finally had enough. So now, we’ve made our
choice. It was beyond time we made some new music, which was impossible
in the dysfunctional environment we were in. We’ve lived in it long
enough and have decided to move forward with STP. We wish Scott well.
We’re really excited about the new music we’ve been making with Chester,
including the song we just released, “Out of Time.”
We love this band and respect everything it means to you. We want to
always give you our best and the choice we made is completely in that
spirit."
-Dean, Eric & Robert
And there you go.
All the above being said, it comes down to the music. I like the new STP. And I think the "band" Queensryche sounds more like Queensryche than Geoff's version. What do you think?
I would love to hear your thoughts!
(-']
