CHAPMAN BAEHLER
The current lineup of Stone Temple Pilots includes, from left, Robert DeLeo, Chester Bennington, Dean DeLeo and Eric Kretz.
It’s easy to forget that Stone Temple Pilots is (kind of) a Jersey band. They came together in San Diego, after all, and are still based in California. But half of the band — brothers Robert DeLeo, bass, and Dean DeLeo, guitar — grew up in Point Pleasant Beach after being born in Northern New Jersey, and they still feel a strong connection to the state.
The band’s current tour, which comes to the Wellmont Theater in Montclair on Saturday, is raising money for the Music for Relief organization’s efforts to help people recover from Hurricane Sandy.
Chester Bennington of Linkin Park (which founded Music for Relief) will be handling lead vocals on the tour, as he has since 2013, when he replaced the band’s charismatic but frequently troubled original frontman, Scott Weiland, who recently put together another band, the Wildabouts. Bennington continues to perform with Linkin Park as well.
Below is one of Stone Temple Pilots’ signature songs from the Weiland days: “Interstate Love Song,” a Top 20 hit in 1994, which they still perform, of course, with Bennington.
New Jersey celebrated its 350th birthday in 2014. And in the 350 Jersey Songs series, we marked the occasion by posting 350 songs — one a day, from September 2014 to September 2015 — that have something to do with the state, its musical history, or both. To see the entire list, click here.
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