Between the Lines

Album: Stone Temple Pilots (2010)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the first single from Stone Temple Pilots' self-titled sixth studio album. It was their first release for over six years, their previous single being "All in the Suit That You Wear," which came out in the fall of 2003. The band debuted the track live at SXSW in March 2010.
  • Bassist Robert DeLeo described the song to Spin Magazine as "musically is like Paul Revere and the Raiders, with that '60s sound that I've always been a fan of. It's a '60s rockin' basher."
  • Some critics have pointed out the similarities between this song's "get out of the way" bridge and Nirvana's "Stay Away."
  • Stone Temple Pilots marked the first time that Robert DeLeo and his guitarist brother Dean had written together since Army of Anyone's self-titled album in 2006. They told Spin Magazine about the band's songwriting process, which is a collaborative process between the brothers, vocalist Scott Weiland and drummer Eric Kretz.

    Dean explained: "Robert and I will usually bring in a piece of music completely finished. As far as Scott goes, he's hearing these songs for the first time. These are all songs that Robert and I have played one another over the past several months. Scott has to come up with melodies and lyrics for songs he's hearing for the first time. It's a lot to digest."

    Robert added that Stone Temple Pilots was recorded differently to their previous albums with Weiland worked on it separately from the other three band members. He said: "The fact that Scott, Eric, and I have our own studios gives us the luxury of working at home. We recorded at Eric's studio, then would send songs to Scott and he'd record vocals at his studio. The band wasn't in the same room as much as we could have been, but I think we've been making records long enough to know what to expect from each other. Plus, it added an extra bit of excitement to see what that person was going to record."
  • Seventeen years and two weeks after Stone Temple Pilots first appeared on the Alternative Songs chart with "Plush" on April 10, 1993, they finally achieved their first #1 on the tally with this song.
  • The song refers to Weiland's past history of drug use in the chorus. The vocalist told MTV News: "The verse is sort of an 'I Am The Walrus' kind of thing, where it's a bunch of stuff that phonetically sounds good. And then you get to the meat of the idea in the chorus... it's a reference to my ex. It's a real rock-and-roll song that has our own individuality."
  • The song's debauched, druggy music video was shot in Los Angeles and directed by Eric Kretz. Weiland told MTV News: "It's sort of like an off point of view, similar to [the Prodigy's] 'Smack My Bitch Up.' [It] was one of the coolest videos that came out in the last 15 years."
  • Dean DeLeo told Musicradar.com about Weiland's lyrical contribution to this song. He said: "Musically, when I write a song, I know what I want it to be melodically. But where Scott went with the verse, he just killed what I had - in a good way. Lyrically, he wrote a real love song. 'You always were my favorite drug, even when we used to take drugs.' Think about that. That's Scott… who does like his hallucinogenics."

Comments: 1

  • Sarah from Yuba City, CaAhh this is the best comeback single these guys could've possibly made! Yes, the bridge is similar to "Stay Away" but im not sure if that was even intentional. Maybe a tribute of some weird sort? Either way, this song is just as good as anything STP has done in the past. (PS I saw them in Reno a few months back...very well done. Great show.) :)
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