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On March 16th, Stone Temple Pilots will release their first full-length album since their 2010 self titled effort with Scott Weiland. The new album is also self titled, but fans are referring to it unofficially as "Butterfly" due to the artwork's design. With the heavy last few years that the members of the band have had, it was inevitable that at least some of the new music would be centered around Scott and Chester.

The band wastes no time dedicating the album. Here are some photos of the booklet from the STP Everlasting group on Facebook:

"In loving memory of Scott Weiland and Chester Bennington. We miss you."

stp01.jpg


In Jeff Gutt's "thank yous" in the liner notes, Chester is the tenth person that he thanks in his extensive list.

The new song, "Finest Hour", has deep lyrics penned by Gutt that are a direct message about his friendship with Chester.

"A darkness hid inside", "Behind your eyes there lied a war", "I won't forget that smile, it was contagious like no other", "I'll hold our precious time, up to the sky I'll miss you brother, I hope you know it's true"

stp02.jpg


Since Gutt was only recently announced as the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots, many fans don't know about his friendship with Chester.

Jeff Gutt was a big fan of Chester's and their friendship extended back to at least 2001, when Dry Cell (Gutt's former band) and Linkin Park were both recording at NRG Studios. They would hang out with their good friend Rene Mata from Static Summer, Jacoby Shaddix from Papa Roach, and others at NRG. Gutt said on the Dry Cell MySpace page that Chester was in the studio when they recorded their song "Body Crumbles."

The summer of 2002 must have been an exciting time at NRG with so many artists recording there. When Linkin Park was recording Hybrid Theory at NRG, this was also how Chester met his best friend and brother Ryan Shuck.

Here is a photo of Chester and Rene at NRG Studios in 2002, around the time they were hanging out with Jeff Gutt and others.

stp05.jpg


In a new interview with Yahoo, Gutt says, "I knew Chester. I’ve known Chester since 2001. Chester would come to some of our writing sessions and rehearsals; I’d see him in the studios that we were at. When we were recording, they’d be recording there. We just had a good friendship."

On November 19, 2016, STP performed a private "Family & Friends" show in Los Angeles which was the debut of Jeff Gutt on lead vocals. Chester wanted to attend, so Gutt invited him as his special guest.

Gutt says, "It was my first private audition with STP and he called and asked if he could come. He wanted to be there for that first show. So, I put him on my guest list. It was very cool that he could be there for that,"

Then, midway through the show, Gutt invited Chester up to sing with him on "Pruno"... something Gutt says was a true honor and was humbling.

Here is a photo of Chester that night with he and Rene before the STP private show. Jay Baumgardner, their friend who also founded NRG Studios (where many of Linkin Park's songs/albums were recorded) went with them to the show.

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On July 29, 2017, Jeff Gutt visited the Warner Bros Records memorial for Chester.

stp04.jpg


We wish Jeff Gutt the best of luck in Stone Temple Pilots and are excited to see them on tour.

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I've known Chester was good friends with Rene for a long time, right up until his death. Didn't know about Jeff Gutt and him being friends, though. I did like a few songs on Dry Cell's 2002 album. They weren't a bad band.

 

I really respect STP and Jeff Gutt for honoring Chester like this. Just like how Julien-K did with Time Capsule. You can tell all of these guys were his real actual friends and recognize how amazing of a voice he was. Didn't Kings Of Chaos even perform at this funeral?

very excited to listen to the album, Jeff Gutt is a great fit.

 

Reading the last part of the liner notes broke my heart, it's such a humble and genuine, yet short statement. It's interesting if you think about it, that while Gutt's voice is definitely more akin to Weiland's, he seems to be more inspired by Chester than Scott. That's of course because they were closer, but it's interesting to see that sort of progression.

Yeah that's a good point. His voice is incredibly similar to Scott's. He was definitely way closer to Chester and was an actual friend of his... I don't know that he knew Weiland at all. The STP members describe the Scott situation as just a long downward spiral over years, but Chester's was so sudden. Both are sad but the Chester one has a more devastating impact because literally no one saw it coming. I think that's why Gutt is so like, "...holy shit"

Just wrote up my review of the album. Definitely big, glad to finally see the band sound confident ant excited for what's next. Gutt sounds perfect in STP.

 

http://www.immortalreviews.com/home/2018/3/15/stone-temple-pilots-overcome-tragedy-with-stone-temple-pilots

The album is really good, Finest Hour is just sooo emotional, love it

Wasnt anything special to me at all. Didnt even want to listen all the way through to that track because it was so boring sounding. Looking for an Answer was way more emotional for me.

 

EDIT: After listening to the track multiple times, it's actually not bad. I'm not gonna say that I absolutely love it but it has a great meaning (I can't hate anything dedicated to Chester) and the chorus is pretty good. It just has a different vibe then what I usually listen to. And I think Jeff Gutt and STP are genuinely good dudes so I appreciate the song for that too.

Edited by Geki

Wasnt anything special to me at all. Didnt even want to listen all the way through to that track because it was so boring sounding. Looking for an Answer was way more emotional for me.

But LFAA was by his best friend and was written really short after CB s death, this one is good IMO, the rest of the album is solid too ;)

Dude... that's me in the bottom photo of the first post. Haha. In the gray shirt talking to Adam -- that was on July 21.

 

The album was cool. Personally I loved "Finest Hour," and "Roll Me Under" might be my favorite track. Gutt has pretty much the same vocal timbre as Weiland, which is wild. Me and a buddy discussed last night about how he even pronounces certain words like Chester... probably the best fit for the band that STP could've found.

Edited by mementohiphop

Robert DeLeo also shared some thoughts on Chester in a new interview, wanted to pass it along as it's definitely pretty touching in the same way that song is on the new STP record.

 

https://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2018/03/15/stone-temple-pilots-interview-robert-deleo-new-music/

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