First Listen: Stone Temple Pilots, “Meadow”

A new era in the history of Stone Temple Pilots began last night in Los Angeles, when the band took to the stage of the Troubadour for a private show and introduced the audience of the iconic nightclub to their new lead singer, Jeff Gutt.

Gutt – and that’s pronounced “goot,” by the way, and not “gut” – hails from Detroit and has been a part of the Motor City music scene for quite some time, but he’s spent the past year writing and recording new material with founding STP members Dean DeLeo, Robert DeLeo, and Eric Kretz, and you will be thrilled to learn that the first fruit from that crop of songs has been plucked and placed onto digital and streaming services.

The song in question is called “Meadow,” and if you’d like to hear it, you can do so by clicking “play” on the video below.

“Meadow” will appear on Stone Temple Pilots’ as-yet-untitled new album, which will be released in spring 2018 in conjunction with a North American tour. No, we don’t have the specific dates for the album’s release or for the tour, but as soon as we’ve got them, rest assured that we’ll be sharing them with you.

In the meantime, STP fans who subscribe to SiriusXM will want to head to either Howard Stern’s Howard 101 channel or to Lithium, a.k.a. channel 34, on Friday at 5 p.m. ET to catch the debut of the aforementioned Troubadour performance.

Oh, and if you’re planning to remark on Gutt’s vocal similarity to the late Scott Weiland, Kretz and the DeLeo brothers are certainly aware of it – how else could the band do justice to the classic STP songs? – but in the long run, Gutt’s not trying to be anyone other than himself.

"No one will ever fill Scott's shoes and I'm not trying to - he's a legend,” says Gutt. “But these songs deserve to be performed and people want to hear them. I'm just honored that the guys chose me to help them continue to build this band's legacy.”