Stone Temple Pilots say their second album, "Purple", released by east west on June 6, is a far more personal collection than their debut, "Core".
Singer Scott Weiland told The Maker: "Because of our sudden elevation and the attacks we had received from the rock press, I started to go through certain
personal traumas; and those things came to a head in the months leading up to the writing process and the recording of the album. There was so much negative
energy swarming around the four of us that it was a real weird situation.
"On one level, we were feeling that it was a complete necessity to purge these feelings and get them out of our system. On another side, I was dealing with my own
demons and exorcising them. Writing these words was therapeutic for me. So, because of that, it's a much more personal and less observational album than the last
one."
"I don't like being thrust into this position of being a role model. With 'Sex Type Thing' I tried to speak out on something that I felt was important, and suddenly half
the people were painting me as a poster boy for the neo-feminist movement, and the other half thought I was glorifying rape and violence against women. I then felt
this responsibility to do these benefits for various organisations, and it was great that we did that. But I don't want to be defined by a political platform."
"We finished the album about two months ago, right before we were supposed to come here and tour. That became impossible, because physically and mentally I
couldn't have done it. I needed to rest and pull myself together after the making of the album. It wouldn't have been fair to me, the rest of the band or our fans to go
out and pretend that I was having a good time when I wasn't. So we thought it would be better for everybody to put it off and do it when we were all in the right
frame of mind."
Asked how he had reacted to the death of Kurt Cobain, Weiland commented: "It was a shock, or course. But the music industry sets these examples for young kids
based on a myth and a fantasy, because it's easy to sell that way."
"So then you grow up wanting to be a rock star, you think, 'I want to be Keith Richards! I want to be able to do what I want to do, not pay the consequences and
be happy and rich and make music all the time.' You never learn about the other things that go along with it. Going straight from being a club band playing for beer to
being like a superhero is not easy."
"You can get to a point where the music's not worth all the rest of the shit, and you decide to fold, or you can decide to try to enjoy at least the positive aspects. I
think that's where we're at right now. I think the making of this album was a rebirth. It gave us a chance to live again and start to enjoy things, instead of feeling like
trapped animals."
The LP's 12 tracks include the single "Vasoline" (sic), described by Weiland as "a metaphor for being trapped" -- and a strange bonus track, "My Second Album",
by US cult crooner Richard Peterson.
Weiland explained: "The guy is a kind of autistic savant who has this bizarre obsession with Johnny Mathis."
"He follows him around on tour when he's in the north west, and he collects money on the street to fund his own recordings."
"We kept playing this song on tour before we went out, and it seemed fitting to put it on the end of the album."
