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Album: Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop (1996)
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Songfacts®:

  • This instrumental opens the third Stone Temple Pilots album, Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop. It came out of an impromptu jam where the band, plus producer Brendan O'Brien, picked up instruments and started playing. Robert DeLeo explained to Songfacts: "Dean [his brother, Dean DeLeo] had a really cool '60s Hagström 8-string bass. He just plugged it in, and Eric [Kretz] started playing a beat. Brendan had a tambourine and I had Dean's guitar. It was kind of a goof."
  • The title came about when Brendan O'Brien told the engineer to "press play," meaning to record their jam. Dean DeLeo thought it would be a good name for the song.
  • This is one of the few instrumental contributions from STP lead singer Scott Weiland, who played percussion on the track. Weiland was a wild card at this time; he was arrested on drug charges in May 1995 and started taking on side projects outside the band. The recording sessions for Tiny Music went well, but soon after the album was released in March 1996, they had to stop touring so Weiland could enter rehab. They didn't play another show with him until December.

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