Stone Temple Pilots Stream Unreleased Song 'Only Dying'

(hennemusic) The Stone Temple Pilots are streaming a demo of "Only Dying", a previously unreleased song that will appear on the September 29 release of multiple 25th anniversary deluxe editions of their debut album, "Core."

Demoed early in their career, the band had considered contributing the tune to the soundtrack to 1994's "The Crow", but decided it would be in poor taste after the film's star, Brandon Lee, was accidentally shot dead on set during the final weeks of production. The Stone Temple Pilots track, "Big Empty", was included in the official soundtrack release.

"That song was a little bit of a different direction for us," bassist Robert DeLeo tells Rolling Stone about 'Only Dying'. "It was based more off jazz-type chordings. As a songwriter, I wanted to spark people into different directions."

"I remember [singer] Scott [Weiland] really wanted to redo the song and quite honestly, the guitar tone we chose on that ... I don't know what I was thinking," adds guitarist Dean DeLeo. "Maybe I was listening to too much Robert Smith or something. It's a song where I don't think we reached our full potential as songwriters quite yet. But honestly, it really is a beautiful song."

"We wrote it maybe nine months after Dean joined the band, and we recorded it in a studio in north Hollywood before we got signed," recalls drummer Eric Kretz. "It's cool to hear it now. You can hear all the STP elements in there. You could tell it needed to be reworked a little bit, but you can really hear Scott's voice taking on its character and the band delving into the sound of the guitar, the special effects and everything. It's a great early indicator of where the band was heading. It was trying to dig into our emotions." Stream the song here.

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