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Tiny Music… Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop (Super Deluxe Edition)

July 24, 2021

Depending on your perspective, Stone Temple Pilots ’ debut, 1992’s Core , was either the last of the first wave of big-alt rock records lumped under the name “grunge,” or it was the first major album to arrive in the wake of the genre’s success. Either way, it caused enough chop to trouble the already turbulent waters of Puget Sound. For the first three years of the band’s career, most critics and artists viewed them as poseurs grasping at the hem of Eddie Vedder’s cutoffs. In his 1993 Spin cover story, subtly titled “ Steal This Hook ,” Jonathan Gold reports that Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers was fond of calling STP “Stone Pimple Toilets.”

But for the millions of teenaged Gen-Xers headbanging to “ Sex Type Thing ” in their Geo Prizms, the question of whether Scott Weiland and his bandmates—brothers Robert and Dean DeLeo on bass and guitar, plus drummer Eric Kretz—had a cultural right to their Big Muff pedals and thrift-store clothing didn’t matter. They wrote killer rock songs, and that was enough. This, it seems, was also STP’s first priority. At a time when authenticity was considered in terms of artistic novelty and personal torment—and when critics thought authenticity was music’s primary aim—STP understood alternative rock as merely another kind of pop music and were content to work within its established forms. When the flannel grew too warm, they simply shrugged it off.

Remarkably, they didn’t bother putting on anything else. Their third album, 1996’s Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop —reissued for its 25th anniversary with a collection of alternate takes and a 1997 live set from Panama City Beach—is glammy and sexy in a way that would make Seattle’s gatekeepers blush. Its experimental streak—while slightly overstated in later years—showed that they were willing to explore new sounds, but only if they resulted in pop gold. The songs themselves are emotionally direct, conjuring T. Rex , Bowie , and Exile -era Rolling Stones ; like those totems of exhaustion and bravado, nearly every song sounds like it was made at 4:30 in the morning.

Everything moves quickly and smoothly, Weiland’s voice raspy like a skate blade on old ice. While the band’s early singles like “ Plush ” and “ Dead & Bloated ” were more melodically developed, they could come off as plodding and a little pushy, cornering you like a grad student at a party who really wants you to get where he’s coming from. “Pop’s Love Suicide” and “Tumble in the Rough,” which kick off the album, both sound like they’re being hammered out of tin. They move with a newfound speed and ease, but their casual arrangements and flat melodies make them feel slight; you can barely imagine them soundtracking a Surge ad, much less standing against the post-grunge glam that Spacehog were already perfecting.

It may seem unfair to frame Stone Temple Pilots in relation to the artists they were channeling, but originality was never their goal. “The last thing I wanted to do with this band was make everybody believe we invented something,” Robert DeLeo told the L.A. Times in 1994. Accordingly, many of Tiny Music ’s best moments come when the band openly embraces its influences. “Lady Picture Show” is a stately piece of Beatles pop that sounds like a version of “ You Never Give Me Your Money ” that’s been left in the street for a few days. Though Weiland would later say that it’s about “the horrific gang rape of a dancer who winds up falling in love but can’t let go of the pain,” the song never wears its emotional heaviness too proudly; like Paul McCartney delivering “ Eleanor Rigby ,” Weiland comes off as a concerned—if lyrically obtuse—observer, and the distance he places between himself and the subject gives the song a melancholy air that’s light-years removed from the clumsiness of “Sex Type Thing.”

“Big Bang Baby” goes one step further, namechecking Bowie’s “ Station to Station ” and directly nicking the chorus melody from the Stones’ “ Jumpin’ Jack Flash .” While the latter made Pitchfork’s then-editor accuse them of plagiarism in a genuinely deplorable review upon its original release, Weiland was trying to use one of the most famous rock songs of all time as a sly comment on the weight of stardom: “Sell your soul and sign an autograph,” he sings in the preceding lyric. When the band shifts from the churning glam of the chorus to a beautifully chiming refrain of “Nothing’s for free,” the irony is apparent. Rarely had they sounded so in command of their craft.

“Adhesive,” meanwhile, showed that Stone Temple Pilots were still tuned in to alternative radio, its slow blooms of overdriven guitar and subdued vocals floating in the same galaxy as Hum’s 1995 hit “ Stars .” Weiland was in the grips of a heroin addiction that would slowly erode his life over the next two decades. But now, roughly two years after the death of Kurt Cobain, he was keenly aware of himself as a product and how his own death would likely be co-opted by the industry. “Sell more records if I’m dead,” he sings. “Hope it’s near corporate records’ fiscal year.” Even as the song rises to a chorus, his voice remains weak and thin; it’s one of the only times on Tiny Music that he returns to the alienation that marked the band’s early work.

Despite the occasional introspective moments, Tiny Music is primarily an album of expansion. It was recorded in a 25,000-square-foot mansion north of Santa Barbara, throughout its bathrooms, hallways, and even on the lawn. The tracks here that were preposterous to critics at the time now seem like the album’s most carefully considered—and daring—moments. NME called “And So I Know” “blatant easy listening” likely because the cool sway of its starry guitar-jazz was wildly at odds with what passed for sensitivity among male-fronted groups at the time. While the song was never released as a single, it showed that a rock band could be sincere without being abrasive, broadening the era’s narrow conceptions of authenticity and masculinity, even if only slightly. A few years later, Incubus would sell a ton of records playing basically the same kind of song. You can also hear the past and future of alt-rock radio in “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart,” whose burning chorus would’ve fit on Alice in Chains ’ Dirt , and whose choppy, pepped-up verses cleared a happier path out of grunge that bands like Third Eye Blind would gladly follow.

A complete take of the abbreviated album opener “Press Play” aside, the alternate cuts collected on this reissue are more interesting than essential, but the Panama City Beach concert captures Stone Temple Pilots’ power as a live band. Parts of this set aired on MTV’s Spring Break , and if the crowd chatter during the quieter moments is any indication, this was not the most attentive audience STP ever played for. But the band doesn’t seem to notice or care. Dean DeLeo covers so much ground, he seems to be playing rhythm and lead at once, steering feedback and slide guitar through the verses of “Big Empty” and replicating the ripples of organ in “Lady Picture Show.”

Hearing Weiland toggle between the voice he used on Core and Purple and the coy shout he developed for Tiny Music is a reminder that his vocal transformation in the mid-’90s is arguably Tiny Music ’s biggest artistic leap; he takes melodic lines with a tongue-curling insouciance that makes him sound like Bono gone hoarse with jet lag, and his ability to convincingly inhabit both the swirling darkness of the first two records and the bright pop of Tiny Music in this set is remarkable. The tracklist is split evenly among their three albums, highlighting just how many hits these guys had already accumulated by 1997.

In his 1996 review of Tiny Music , Spin ’s Charles Aaron suggested that Stone Temple Pilots fundamentally lacked irony. That’s not quite correct, even if by “irony” Aaron meant the kind of cynicism toward the trappings of rock culture that the alternative movement had been so keen to avoid. While that supposed deficiency prevented them from being accepted by the alt- and indie-rock stars of their day, it also allowed them to embrace big, powerful, goofball rock’n’roll without second-guessing their ambition. Sure, that’s probably how Scott Weiland ended up duetting with Fred Durst and Jonathan Davis on Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other and how we all ended up with Velvet Revolver . But it’s also how Stone Temple Pilots managed to evolve into a much more interesting band without losing their pop appeal. For a band who was regularly accused of chasing trends, Tiny Music proved they were willing to buck the defining characteristic of the era: They made being in a hugely famous—if somewhat dopey—rock band sound like it might actually be fun.

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Stone Temple Pilots (formed in 1985) is an American grunge, psychedelic and alternative rock band from San Diego, California, U.S.

Stone Temple Pilots, formerly known as Swing and Mighty Joe Young, was originally formed of frontman Scott Weiland, bassist Robert DeLeo, drummer Eric Kretz and guitarist Dean DeLeo. As Mighty Joe Young the band recorded and released a demo in 1990, many of which tracks featured on the band’s debut LP. After developing a fan base by playing regularly in the San Diego area they were informed the name Mighty Joe Young had already been claimed and thus came Stone Temple Pilots.

The band signed with Atlantic Records in 1992, the same year Stone Temple Pilots released their debut album “Core” which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. The album claimed significant commercial success, however the band were seen by the critical press as grunge imitators, copying the revered band such as Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.

Stone Temple Pilots debuted the song “Big Empty” on an episode on MTV Unplugged in 1993 in anticipation of their sophomore album “Purple” in June 1994. Selling over three million copies in just four months, “Purple” was led by the hits “Vasoline” and “Interstate Love Song”.

Taking a more glam rock, psychedelic rock direction Stone Temple Pilots’ third studio album “Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop” was recorded at a rented mansion in Santa Barbara, California, U.S. The album was a favourite of the band’s among critics although it failed to hold such popular commercial appeal as its predecessors. After the release Weiland, who had previously struggled with a heroin addiction, relapsed and the band cancelled their tour and support lot on Kiss’ reunion tour.

The band without Weiland under the moniker Talk Show released one eponymously titled album in 1997 before calling it a day. A year later frontman Weiland released his debut solo album “12 Bar Blues” in 1998 to moderate critical acclaim. The same year Stone Temple Pilots reunited and began work on “Shangri-La Dee Da” which got its release in the summer of 2001, although with a lack of label promotion the album was a commercial disappointment.

In 2003 label Atlantic Records pushed a greatest hits album, and frontman Weiland formed the successful supergroup Velvet Revolver with Guns N’ Roses members Slash, Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan and former Wasted Youth guitarist Dave Kushner. After releasing two album “Contraband” in 2004 and “Libertad” in 2007, Weiland left the group.

Stone Temple Pilots’ members reconciled with one another at a private beach party they were asked to play which led to the announcement of a 65-date North American tour and an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Shortly after in 2008 Weiland released his sophomore solo album ““Happy” in Galoshes” and the Stone Temple Pilots release a self-titled sixth studio album on May 25, 2010.

In 2013 it was announced Weiland had been fired from the group and his official replacement Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. Stone Temple Pilot's include Bennington release the single "Out of Time" in May 2013.

Live reviews

If Scott Weiland is sober, he could’ve fooled me. Sober or not, I have to say Scott and the rest of Stone Temple Pilots are proving they arn’t just some over-aged rockers trying to cash in on a fading popularity. I only saw STP once in their heyday, at SDSU in 1995. I have now seen them 3 times in as many years since their reunion and they have never let me down, as improbable as that might sound. When STP announced their comeback in 2008 I probably would have laughed it off if I had not seen Velvet Revolver rock the shit out of the Live 8 stage in London a couple years prior. That show made me a believer in Weiland‘s rock-star skills, if not in his new found sobrity. The Berkeley stop was not only nostagilic, as I hoped it would be, it was a kick-ass rock show. This didn’t seem like a band just reliving the 90′s; they seemed current, fun and non-apologetic. They did the same thing at the Fillmore here in Denver the next year. I had serious doubts Weiland, who now resembles Eminem in his wife-beater, would make it long enough for me to see them once, much less twice. And now, here we are, 3 years later and they are headliningg Red Rocks…in support of a new album?!!! An album that doesn’t live up to their first 2, but is actually pretty damn good?!!! What the hell is going on? Unfortunately for STP, there is a difference between 2010 and 1995. In 1995 they would have been able to sell out back-to-back nights in any given city. In 2010 it’s hard to sell out two venues in the same city within an 8 month period. The Fillmore show was pretty packed last October. Red Rocks was much less so on Tuesday night. That being said, those who didn’t make it missed a great rock show. The weather was perfect; it doesn’t get much better than a warm evening with a cool breeze coming through Red Rocks. STP performed all their major hits like Wicked Garden, Interstate Love Song, Vasoline and Sex Type Thing. They did 4 or 5 from the new album, of which Huckleberry Crumble really resonanted live…a down and dirty blues number. A real highlight for me was Still Remains, a song from Purple they had not performed live in over 12 years. That, along with a cover of Led Zeppelin‘s Dancing Days, both brought me back to the carefree days of beach living in San Diego. The encore of Dead & Bloated and Trippin’ On a Hole in a Paper Heart (dedicated to the troops) ended the night right. To be honest, I wasn’t going to attend this show, but my wife had never seen them and we were able to score 15th row seats. The sound was amazing down there and the light show was pretty impressive. This was one of the few shows I have seen where the band didn’t prefer the natural rock backdrop on this iconic stage. But even though STP were labeled grunge, they always tilted away from that scene and more toward the glam of L.A.’s sunset strip…so I can see them prefering an over-the-top light show vs. some old red rocks.

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Californian rockers Stone Temple Pilots, or STP have been recording and touring as a collective for over 40 years apart from a short hiatus in the mid-00's. This well oiled machine of rock knows how to fill stadiums and rock audiences despite their growing age. One of the appeals of seeing the veteran rockers live is the sheer intensity in which they tackle every show and the assurance that the audience are going to experience a genuine rock performance.

From the moment the moody lighting goes down and the stage design illuminates, the crowd cheers in unison before the screeching guitar introduction of 'Vasoline'. It is worth noting that Linkin Park's Chester Bennington is doing a great job of filling the shoes of dismissed band member Scott Weiland. He has great charismatic energy and knows how to conduct himself as a rock frontman.

They soon rattle through the hits such as 'Interstate Love Song' and 'Wicked Garden' which evoke rapturous singalong. The whole show is well crafted, expertly delivered and a brilliant display of classic rock.

I have been a fan of STP since they came out in the 90s and I still love them. I never had a chance to see them with Scott Weiland which still makes me sad but last night’s show was outstanding. The opening act: Rival Sons was a fantastic way to start the show. I had never heard of them before buying these tickets but so glad we arrived early enough to see them. The voice of the lead singer was off the charts.

When STP took the stage the crowd was ready to erupt and at the first note we did. They sounded like all the CDs I owned only cranked up to about ten thousand decibels. The new lead singer who I’d never heard before rocked it big time. He did not disappoint even one time. I wanna go see them again...right now dammit!!!

Reviewing the Seattle Show at the Paramount Theater on Wednesday April 8, 2015

STP stepped out with a blast from the past with Lounge Fly. Right from the start I knew Chester was a great fit for the band. They went through most of the Core Album and blazed into many of my favorites from the mid to late 90s.

Here is the set list:

Wicked Garden

Sex Type Thing

Pruno (played live 1st time!)

Big Bang Baby

Outa Time (off new EP)

Adhesive Love (played live 1st time)

The Big Empty

Plush (awesome version 1/2 acoustic)

Interstate Love Song

Sex and Violence

Trippin on a Paper Heart.

Great Show...go see them!

Gosh, where to start. I knew STP was down 2 of their original members, but had assumed they would have come up with some semblance of the original band's sound. The music was so loud it was nearly impossible to even hear the music. The songs sounded vaguely familiar but nowhere near what the original lineup sounded like. It was more like a poor attempt at a cover band.

STP is just as good with Jeff as they were with Scott. The rest of the bands deserves to play the music that made them who they are. The 2 new songs they played from the album with Jeff have that STP feel. It was great to see Rival sons and I see why they are on tour with STP. Looking forward to seeing STP again.

@wiszfanshawn I have been waiting many years to see STP in 2016 concert was cancelled he was to sick to come out then he died Wiland. Can't wait to see on my bucket list would have liked to see with wieland but same songs that I love hope sound good see @northerninvasion in May.

I was honored to be on this show to watch a legendary band of mine performing.

It was a comfy place, not overcrowded; 1500 people, club feeling, perfect sound.

The band played sincerely. The new singer has a gorgeous voice. Authentic appearance.

STP had a couple new songs, but also did all of your favorite hits (minus army ants, because apparently I like that song more than most people)! Vocals are as strong as ever, and light show is pretty fun (though nothing spectacular)

Amazeballs. Stone temple pilots still gives it up in large doses. They played for almost 2 hours; 20 songs. The vip experience was other worldly and the guys are incredibly gracious and super nice. Best. Day. Ever.

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Agony and ecstasy: How Stone Temple Pilots overcame heartbreak to make Tiny Music

Despite its title, Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop was a huge album for Stone Temple Pilots. A quarter-century on, we spoke to Dean DeLeo and Eric Kretz about the triumphs and agonies behind their third album

Even now, many years later, Dean DeLeo occasionally makes the drive out to the Santa Ynez Valley in California. With his kids on the back seat, the 59-year-old guitarist threads his way along familiar roads to the sprawling Westerly Ranch estate, where in the late days of 1995 the original line-up of Stone Temple Pilots recorded Tiny Music… Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop , the album that confirmed their greatness – and their deep-seated issues. 

“I’ve parked at the driveway of the house where we made Tiny Music ,” reflects DeLeo. “From time to time I’ll go to the beautiful town of Santa Ynez nearby, to this restaurant called Red Barn, where we used to get a steak at night, talk about the album artwork or the recordings we’d made that day.” 

He takes a breath… “It’s joyous. But it’s also deeply saddening, because the guy’s gone, y’know? The guy is gone. So it’s very melancholic. It’s these amazing memories of a time in all of our lives that was wonderful. But then there’s that other side of it, where it’s like, he’s not here any more.” 

The ‘guy’ in question is of course STP’s original frontman the late Scott Weiland , six years gone from this world in December. Few doubt that the ringmaster of alt.rock was a truly great songwriter and performer. Equally, though, nobody denies that Weiland also had that insidious, indefinable something inside of him. 

“Some people never try drugs, others can try them and stop,” says drummer Eric Kretz. “And some, for whatever reason, are hooked and ruin their lives.”

At the time of Tiny Music… Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop , Weiland could be either side of the coin, depending on the day. In April 1995 the recently married singer told Spin magazine that “drugs fuck things up… I’m trying to make the best out of the time that I do have right now”. 

Weeks later, in May, he was arrested for possession of cocaine and heroin. He escaped lightly, with just a year’s probation. In June, in a Rolling Stone interview, he was repentant: “I’m going to do something about it before it kills me or fucks up everything in my life.” 

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It was this unsettling stop/start pattern that bled into the sessions for Tiny Music . DeLeo doesn’t want to talk about the lows. Before our interview, we are asked by management not to push for the gory details of Weiland’s addictions. And to hear the guitarist’s rose-tinted account of making Tiny Music , you might imagine these sessions as a blissful summer camp without a cloud in the sky. 

It falls to Kretz to give the full picture, to explain the heartbreak and frustration when what he calls the singer’s “demon” took charge. But Kretz too is at pains to point out that when the days at Westerly Ranch were good, they were some of the band’s happiest times. 

“Recording and living together in a house just lent itself to a more playful atmosphere,” he says. “Y’know, play tennis, drink margaritas, ‘I just had an idea, let’s go jam…’”

Ideas were the currency of Tiny Music . Like most bands clumped under the ‘grunge’ banner, by late ’95 Stone Temple Pilots were sick of their perception. 

“ Pearl Jam had the same problem at first, being compared as a cheap Nirvana or a fake alternative band,” Weiland said in that same Spin interview, “which is ridiculous in the first place.” 

But while STP’s 1992’s debut album Core and its ’94 follow-up Purple had at least partially invited the ‘grunge’ tag, this third album threw sub-genres at the wall. With all four members on the writing credits, to revisit Tiny Music is to hear everything from Beatles-esque jangle (Lady Picture Show) to Django Reinhardt gypsy jazz (Daisy). 

“It was the full spectrum,” says DeLeo. “I don’t know about my favourite guitar riffs on that album, but I do like the trumpet solo on Adhesive .” 

“We just knew we didn’t want Tiny Music to be similar to Core or Purple ,” says Kretz. “We weren’t afraid of having some camp, like Art School Girl . Or with Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart , that one came because I was a big fan of David Garibaldi’s drumming in Tower Of Power, along with some Steely Dan guitar chords off of Peg or something. 

"Big Bang Baby has the beat and glitter of seventies glam-rock stuff like Sweet . Nobody was tapping into that then. But when that stuff would come in the roller-rink when you’re at junior high looking at the girls, that’s rock’n’roll to me, y’know?”

When it came to recording, the band were outgrowing the studio floor and control room. 

“For Lady Picture Show ,” says Kretz, “there was a big closet in a master bedroom, so I went in there to record the drums. But there was no air conditioning and, my god, it must have been 110 degrees. I was down to my underwear, towels underneath the drum stool, because I was dripping with sweat. With Big Bang Baby , we ended up setting up on the front lawn.” 

Both Kretz and DeLeo agree that Weiland’s performances back then were astonishing to witness. 

“His voice changed drastically between Core and Tiny Music ,” says DeLeo. “He was a true singer, able to capture half-step inflections.” 

“Man, I still remember hearing Scott do that scream thing at the end of Big Bang Baby in my headphones,” says Kretz. “And the lyrics he put down for Trippin’ On A Hole are just so angry. Y’know, ‘ I’m not dead/I’m not for sale ’. Fuck, man. We were having problems with the management at the time, and it’s like he’s letting you know. The only similar song I can think of is [Queen’s] Death On Two Legs , with Freddie just throwing it out there. The vitriol is amazing.” 

Such moments of intensity were offset by an after-hours levity that we don’t tend to associate with Weiland, with his spiky interview persona and serpentine stare. 

“We invented a game called Run Bitch,” Kretz says, laughing. “It was on the tennis court. Basically, you just try to whack the other person as hard as you can with a hundred-mile-an-hour tennis ball in the rib cage. Throw that in with some margaritas and I think we have a dysfunctional Olympic sport there.”

At times like those, you can believe DeLeo’s assessment that the sessions were “too much of a paradise to feel anything other than joy and laughter”. But the pendulum would swing suddenly. If the hope was that recording outside of the big city would cut off Weiland’s supply, Kretz says it was naïve. 

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Scott would be sober for a while and he’d be the most beautiful person again, like, laughing and witty and enjoyable to be around. And then the demon would come back and it’d be like: ‘Oh shit, here we go’. Sunglasses on, day and night. And you’d just kinda know. 

“It definitely put the gloom and the ugliness in there,” Kretz continues. “That record was what we were going through: the good, the bad and the ugly. Because Scott was deep in his throes at that point. He’d disappear for a few days at a time and come back just looking like shit. He hadn’t slept. He stank. You want to help, but he doesn’t want your help. It was heartbreaking.”

Against the circumstances, Tiny Music clung to the rails. The album’s release in March 1996 was preceded by the single Big Bang Baby , complete with a video with rock-bottom production values that were intentionally risible. 

“This was at a time when Guns N’ Roses were doing one-and-a-half-million-dollar videos, with the helicopter shots and the whole thing,” Kretz reminds us. “So we were like: ‘Let’s make a video for ten thousand dollars.’” 

While Tiny Music received only so-so reviews at the time – its improving critical status underlined by the release of a Super Deluxe Edition earlier in July – the album’s breadth didn’t deter the fans, who sent it to No.4 on the Billboard chart. 

Once Weiland had completed that summer’s court-ordered program at the Impact Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center in Pasadena, the most illustrious venues of the band’s career awaited. 

“We were at our height,” says Kretz. “We sold out Madison Square Garden in ten minutes. We were selling out all these beautiful venues across the country, and Scott’s performances were incredible, especially when he was in a great mood. He would be one of the greatest showmen out there.”

Today, DeLeo claims not to remember the tour being struck off for Weiland to attend rehab, although the guitarist was more forthcoming in a Rolling Stone interview at the time (“Scott called and said: ‘I’m fucking up, I need help’”). 

Kretz has never forgotten it. “I think we’d done six weeks. It was heartbreaking to see Scott self-destructing on that tour. Like, ‘No, man, come on’. When it came to touring Tiny Music , he was closing off conversations with everyone. As anybody who has family members with addiction problems knows, it’s not easy. You might get a heartfelt conversation – until they start getting the itch again. Then whatever was talked about just gets ignored and they’re back on the train.” 

Weiland would never quite shake off his demon. On December 3, 2015 he was found dead on his tour bus while travelling with stopgap band The Wildabouts. Cause of death was ruled to be an accidental overdose of alcohol, cocaine and MDA. Kretz says that when current Pilots vocalist Jeff Gutt performs Tiny Music material, his sound is uncanny. 

“Jeff has those same tonalities, and he’s not trying to force them. In my monitors it sounds so similar, in such a beautiful way, that it makes me happy to be able to play those songs.” 

DeLeo says working on the Super Deluxe Edition of Tiny Music was the like a time capsule, for better or worse. “I hadn’t heard that record in a long, long time. Digging through that stuff, I loved what I heard. But whenever we delve into something like this, you unearth things you forgot about, then you hear it and it takes you right back to the room. There’s things I had to sit through to put this reissue together. 

"There’s times you could just hear us talking in the room. I’d hear Scott talking, and it was like, ‘Oh man. I miss that cat.’”

Tiny Music… Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop: Super Deluxe Edition is out now on via Rhino .

Henry Yates has been a freelance journalist since 2002 and written about music for titles including The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Classic Rock, Guitarist, Total Guitar and Metal Hammer . He is the author of Walter Trout's official biography, Rescued From Reality , a music pundit on Times Radio and BBC TV, and an interviewer who has spoken to Brian May, Jimmy Page, Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie Wood, Dave Grohl, Marilyn Manson, Kiefer Sutherland and many more. 

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Stone Temple Pilots’ Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop Remains a Prized Relic of the Grunge Era

A thrilling, genre-hopping opus that captures Scott Weiland and co. firing on all creative cylinders

In the 1992 comedy Wayne’s World , titular protagonist and lay philosopher Wayne Campbell tells his best friend and hockey partner, Garth Algar, “Led Zeppelin didn’t write tunes that everyone liked. They left that to the Bee Gees.” Apply that sage wisdom to the hard rock landscape of the mid-1990s, and you can make a convincing case for Stone Temple Pilots being their generation’s Led Zeppelin while the Bee Gees in this case were, well, any of the myriad contemporary grunge titans that critics accused STP of mimicking.

Just as critics learned to worship Jimmy Page’s monolithic riffing and Robert Plant’s banshee wail, they slowly came around to Stone Temple Pilots’ effortless pop savvy and staggering musicality on their third album, Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop , which turns 25 this week. Not only does Tiny Music mark STP’s tragically short-lived creative zenith, but it remains one of the most stylistically adventurous albums of the grunge era.

The press dismissed Stone Temple Pilots as fifth-rate Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains wannabes on their 1992 debut, Core , which nevertheless sold eight million copies in the United States on the strength of piledriving grunge anthems “Sex Type Thing” and “Plush”. (Case in point: Rolling Stone crowned STP Worst New Band in its 1994 critics’ poll while fans voted them Best New Band.) The San Diego quartet’s critical standing improved somewhat on their sophomore LP, Purple , which debuted atop the Billboard 200 and sold 6 million copies in the US, fueled by soaring alt-rock smashes “Interstate Love Song”, “Vasoline”, and “Big Empty”.

But Stone Temple Pilots only finished recording Purple by the skin of their teeth, as frontman Scott Weiland was caught in the throes of an all-consuming heroin addiction that would dog him for years. Cops busted the singer for possession of cocaine and heroin on May 15, 1995; after his wife, Jannina, posted bond, he hopped out of their moving car to go score from his dealer, then holed up at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles and embarked on a cinematic bender with his floormate, Courtney Love. Weiland spent the rest of 1995 bouncing between rehab centers, as the future of Stone Temple Pilots hung in the balance.

When the band — Weiland, guitarist Dean DeLeo, bassist Robert DeLeo, and drummer Eric Kretz — finally regrouped in October of ‘95 and headed to Santa Barbara with producer Brendan O’Brien to commence work on their third album, the pressures they faced were manifold. They had to reassure fans that they were in it for the long haul and make amends for the tour dates they scrapped so Weiland could go to rehab. They had to show critics that their upward creative trajectory from Core to Purple wasn’t a fluke. And they had to prove to themselves that they could hold this operation together by a thread long enough to make another album.

On Tiny Music , Stone Temple Pilots passed every test with aplomb. Following the slinky, 81-second instrumental “Press Play”, the album roars to life with the punchy “Pop’s Love Suicide”. Fundamentally, it’s not so different from Purple opener “Meatplow”: a straightforward hard rocker anchored by Dean’s beefy guitar riffs and ornamented with shimmering, ‘70s FM rock trimmings. But it also hints at STP’s radical reinvention, which becomes more apparent with each song on Tiny Music . Weiland completely ditches the gruff, Eddie Vedder-esque baritone that dominated Core and parts of Purple ; in its place is a raspy, mid-range sneer lifted from Bowie and Jagger, augmented with bubblegum falsetto harmonies. He underwent a physical transformation, too, slimming down considerably and growing his once-buzzed hair out into curly locks. The bulky, hyper-masculine jock from the Core era now sauntered across the stage with serpentine grace, as seen in the band’s David Letterman performances from 1996.

Stone Temple Pilots continue to synthesize glam, punk, arena rock, and grunge on the breathless “Tumble in the Rough”, on which Weiland acknowledges his demons without self-pity: “I made excuses for a million lies/ But all I got was humble kidney pie/ So what?” Weiland scorns the celebrity industrial complex on “Big Bang Baby”, a swaggering glam-rock romp that tips its hat to both The Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and R.E.M.’s “Orange Crush”. Tiny Music is littered with these classic rock Easter eggs: “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart” reworks the riff from Led Zeppelin’s “Dancing Days” in its arena-sized chorus, in which Weiland bellows that he’s “not dead and not for sale” before Dean rips one of the most scorching solos this side of “Good Times Bad Times”.

Tiny Music ’s harder songs gave it a presence on modern rock radio, but its softer, more experimental tracks established Stone Temple Pilots as fearless genre benders. Robert flexes his love of jazz and bossa nova on the lithe “And So I Know,” and the band delves into Beatlesque jangle-pop on the bittersweet “Lady Picture Show”. Weiland exorcises more demons on the disarming shoegaze ballad “Adhesive,” musing that he would probably “sell more records if I’m dead” and “[hoping] it’s near corporate records’ fiscal year.”

Even at his most introspective and forlorn, Weiland avoided melodramatic navel-gazing, singing about his precarious position with tongue firmly rooted in cheek. Critics rarely gave Stone Temple Pilots credit for their fine-tuned sense of irony, but it oozes from the wickedly funny (and catchy) “Art School Girl.” Weiland gushes in an affected whine about hitting up underground art parties with his hipster, leather-clad girlfriend, before the chorus explodes and he howls, “I told you five or four times,” as the band kicks up a garage-punk cacophony behind him. It was STP’s way of taking the piss out of themselves and getting ahead of the critics who saw their art-rock reinvention as just another soulless, opportunistic rebrand.

Tiny Music managed to sway some of Stone Temple Pilots’ most venomous critics. Rolling Stone ’s Lorraine Ali awarded the album three out of five stars and wrote, “Crappy tunes aside, STP hit at gut level with an album that’s bolder and more street savvy than those of obvious precursors such as Journey or Def Leppard.” (David Fricke later profiled the band for a 1997 cover story detailing Weiland’s drug-related misadventures.) Pitchfork ’s Ryan Schreiber was less generous, giving the album 0.8 out of 10 and begging Weiland to kill himself. (“Don’t just do it for yourself, do it for me.”)

Retrospective assessments have been kinder. Stereogum ’s Michael Tedder wrote that the songs on Tiny Music were “some of the most melodically rich Stone Temple Pilots would ever write,” while Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan praised the record in a tribute to Weiland following the singer’s death on Dec. 3, 2015. “It was STP’s 3rd album that had got me hooked, a wizardly mix of glam and post-punk, and I confessed to Scott, as well as the band many times, how wrong I’d been in assessing their native brilliance,” Corgan wrote on his website. “And like Bowie can and does, it was Scott’s phrasing that pushed his music into a unique, and hard to pin down, aesthetic sonicsphere.”

Unfortunately, Stone Temple Pilots would never again take such exhilarating creative risks or enjoy the same level of stratospheric success after Tiny Music . They canceled much of their 1996-97 tour so Weiland could return to rehab, and Tiny Music subsequently only sold two million copies in the US, versus Purple ’s six million and Core ’s eight million. After taking time off to work on other projects, STP regrouped and released the back-to-basics bruiser No. 4 in 1999, but the landscape had changed drastically. Grunge had been supplanted by post-grunge and nu-metal, and while Stone Temple Pilots were still a strong concert draw, they no longer ruled the hard rock roost.

It’s tantalizing to think what Stone Temple Pilots might have accomplished if Weiland had kept his demons at bay and the band had completed the Tiny Music tour and stayed together immediately afterward. As it stands, Tiny Music captures a band firing on all cylinders, triumphing over internal strife, exhaustion, and addiction to craft a thrilling, genre-hopping opus. With grunge already withering in 1996, Stone Temple Pilots delivered a high-water mark for the genre and the crown jewel in their discography.

Pick up a copy of Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop here …

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