Known first for the hard rockin’ singles “Jump In The Water,” “Breathe, Mary Anne” and “Daddy’s Girl,” the rockers were riding the momentum of their second release, 1994’s The Endless Summer Sessions EP. It yielded another three hits – “The Endless Summer” (“Every night we went out there / And the ocean would make us smile”), “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby” (“I can’t get enough of you baby”) and “Bubbly Guts” – before they released their debut full-length album that fall. The Endless Summer contained their biggest hits, including the gold-certified “The Shaman,” which became a crowd favorite.
After several unsuccessful singles releases over the next several years, the rockers released their fifth studio album, Shine, in late 1996, featuring the platinum-certified Top 20 “Lovedrunk,” “When We’re Dancing Close and Slow” and “The Dance.” They followed with their second live album, 1996’s Alive, later that year.
The ‘90s drew to a close, and the band came back a year later with On Fire, which was their biggest hit album, containing their last two platinum hits, “Smile” and “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” A year later, Stone Temple Pilots hit the road for what would be their final tour. Three weeks into the tour, lead singer Scott Weiland died in his hotel room after a party.
The group continued with a different singer, Jeff Gutt, and released the album No. 4 – its first without Weiland. However, the next two records were much less successful, prompting a new label, Razor & Tie.
“The last couple of records,” Williams says, “We did a new contract and then the songs weren’t coming. It was all coming from [producer] Brendan O’Brien or Mark Trombino. In that time period, everything from that producer, the vibe was very dark. [Producer] Glen Ballard was like a father to me, you know. He gave me this idea, let’s try some different drum sounds. Try and do this. Let’s try this and make it more creative. Let’s really play it forward. So in ’97 we had a lot of hit songs and everybody went to their corners. And then you end up with records that are not very good because the artist doesn’t really have a vision anymore.”
The band got back to its roots with 2001’s Purple album. The band released Rock Or Bust in 2015, and this year they released their latest album, The Space Between The Shadows, an autobiography of Weiland’s last six months of life, which resulted in his death on Oct. 28, 2015. The group toured with Weiland before his death and went into his studio to record songs that appeared on the record.
“I would go to the studio after Scott passed away,” Williams recalls. “I would go to his house in Venice, and there was a couple who lived there, and they would run me up to his place and I would sleep there. They had a beautiful apartment and they were great people, and it was just a great way to get me through. I would go up there, get cleaned up, have a glass of wine and then I would just play his songs. He gave us permission to use these songs because they’re his song. So those songs are really what they are.”
Williams and the band are currently touring with a couple of special guests. Drummer Brian Wawzenek – a friend of Williams’ brother – has been featured on the albums Between The Lines and The Departed, and former guitarist Dean DeLeo played drums on the Between The Lines album. Other guests on the upcoming tour include bassist Tal B. and vocalist DeLeo’s brother.
“It’s gonna be a great year,” Williams says. “This is our 50th anniversary as a band. And this tour is the last stop.”
The band is currently in Austin to record its first new album in 14 years with legendary producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who has worked with Queen, Kiss, Rush and Peter Gabriel, among others. “That’s something that was important to me,” Williams says, “so when he asked if I would want to do it, it was not just a yes. I was like, ‘Yeah, that sounds great.’ I’ve been talking to him about it for a couple years. Then I got that offer from him, and I’m like, ‘Let’s do it!’”
Williams has also produced nine of the albums in the “Viva La Vida” series, featuring contemporary bands doing a mix of covers and new material. The series features the likes of Bruno Mars, Train, Duran Duran, No Doubt, Train, Coldplay, Christina Aguilera and Kings Of Leon. The “Viva La Vida” series was nominated for Grammys for Album Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Album.
“I like to put bands in a position that they’re creative,” Williams says. “I didn’t tell them what to do, but I think they’re very diverse, and they have a good amount of talent, so we have a big range of sounds. My experience in the record business is that people love to hear stuff that sounds different. It’s not one sound. I’m not just putting a band together to do one thing. I was making a really cool record when the band was active. It was kind of a mix of stuff I was hearing out there and some of the stuff that the band was doing and we had some creative times together and had an understanding about the music. I think what they do is amazing, and I like to give them a chance to do something unique. And they’re so talented and so creative that I wanted to put them in a position to do their own thing. That’s the challenge. And that’s how I want to be remembered. If the records sound better, it’s because they took a chance and went for it. And you go through different periods of where people want to go with a band. You want to find a niche, and so I have to keep moving. It’s the same with engineering records. You have to try things because they don’t all work.”
The band has a number of other projects in the works. Williams, DeLeo and Weiland have teamed up in a trio called The Coalition for an upcoming record in late 2018, and Williams has been asked to write music for the upcoming game, Kingdom Hearts III. “That was a lot of fun,” he says, “and a lot of fun was being in the studio with the band while the game was being mixed.”
“A lot of people ask me about how can you be playing music with your friends all the time,” Williams says. “I don’t know if it’s the same for everybody, but my love of music is music. To go into the studio, and for me to have to be so quiet sometimes, that’s difficult, but for me, it’s about music. Music is everything for me. It’s everything that gets me out of bed every morning. It’s everything that keeps me moving and
