As most of you know by now, a few days ago Scott Weiland, the former lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots stated he heard Chester Bennington left the band. A lot of speculation rose around his statement, and although it was just a rumor, it was picked up by several bigger news outlets. Today, it has been officially confirmed by a post on Stone Temple Pilots' official website. You can read the post in its entirety below. The post, albeit mostly very clear, leaves some loose ends, the biggest one being what happens with all the music the band recorded with Chester through the past few years. There's a possibilty the band will still release it as "Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington", but it's more likely they will either re-record the songs with a new singer or discard them completely. The band has apparently been searching for a new singer for a while now, as Highly Suspect's lead singer Johnny Stevens recently tweeted that the band approached him about the gig back in August. Tonight the band will perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live with Joss Stone as "Joss Stone Temple Pilots", as part of his Monday mash-ups, however, Joss Stone is most likely not going to be the permanent replacement for Chester. So, how do you feel about this? Were you excited to hear more Stone Temple Pilots music or are you glad Chester will be fully devoted to Linkin Park from now on? Join the discussion in the forums! Source: Stone Temple Pilots website via Elaine.
Unlike quite a few here, I'm kinda happy over this news so that Chester can put forth all of his creative energy and effort into LP. I wasn't a big fan of High Rise, sorry to anyone who really enjoyed it. I'm ready for the LP7 hype to begin.
As I mentioned before, this is really sad news. They had a great amount of potential and its clear that Chester definitely enjoyed his time with the band. Seeing them live was one of those days I'll never forget, absolutely amazing. Only hope that they can pull out of this as soon as possible and find another great vocalist to keep it up.
I hope that the new music with Chester gets released as an official EP, or maybe an album with the other EP's tracks filling gaps that they might not have finished. I enjoyed the first EP and was looking forward to more tracks, though of course I'd take new LP any day and am glad that this means the LP7 hype will probably start rolling around soon enough.
Honestly, STP should probably just disband or go under a new name now. They tried to sell the "Chester was the only replacement we could imagine" line to their fans when they first brought him on board, and the fanbase was already fairly critical of the DeLeo brothers because of Chester, they're not going to take kindly to a new singer again. Personally, I'm disappointed, I've always felt that in some ways Chester's talent had been wasted with LP, it seemed like he had more creative freedom with STP in terms of lyrics, and I imagine we would have seen him use his voice in more traditional rock ways as opposed to the way he sings with LP. Shame that we probably won't ever get to hear him put down vocals on a pure rock and roll album.
I'm sorta happy and sad. I wanted to hear Chester with STP as I believed STP would use him in a way that LP couldn't, so I'm sad about it. I am happy tho that Chester won't get hated on by STP fans. He certainly does not deserve any ounce of that hatred on him for being the great person and amazing talent that he is. Hope Chester uses whatever creative output he had in store for STP on LP 7 and takes the album in a whole new direction.
That's what STP fans are like. It ain't news - we found out when Chester's involvement with the band was first announced.
Chester seemed to step up his lyricism with STP when you compare those songs on the High Rise EP with recent LP material. I think there was definitely some vibrant energy being tapped into on the part of Chester with STP as opposed to LP. I do hope those songs do not go to waste and that STP finds the replacement fitting to continue the band's legacy.
Kinda sad this happened before a full-lenght got released. Though, to be fair, I actually enjoyed the old STP songs sung by Chester more than the new material.
I for one am glad with this outcome. It must be heartbreaking for Chester to leave his childhood superhero band but it should all turn out for the better for Linkin Park.
So did I... ...and I made the bad decision of responding to one of these commenters that believes that we're still in 2003 with Meteora... #riskylifedecisions
What a pity . Despite all that it's good that he chooses what he loves the most and don't try to bundle everything despairingly. It was surely a hard move since STP is one of his absolute favorite groups and he was a part of them.
Chester leaving STP because he wants to contribute 100% to Linkin Park? Why is everyone so sad? This is awesome. STP is a dead band anyway, what I think is sad is that they keep trying.
I never expected this to last very long. Juggling your time between two bands and your family must me tough. Even though STP isn's really my kind of music, I was looking forward to seeing what Chester could do with them in terms of lyrics and vocals, so I'm sad that we probably won't get to hear the new material. On the other hand I'm glad that this means he gets to give his voice a bit more rest and that he can focus more on LP. Sad for Chester that he had to make this decision though. He really seemed to enjoy performing with STP.
I do have mixed feelings on this, though I am definitely feeling more relieved that Chester won't be stretched so thin between projects and bands. While it would have been interesting to hear what more STP songs sounded like with Chester, I was never a fan of STP to begin with, on account of not really knowing who they were (or their songs). I guess I was just too young to know who STP were during their peak and period of highest popularity. I suppose that this doesn't really come as much of a surprise, though. Chester had received a lot of backlash from long-time STP fans the moment he announced his intentions two years ago. I even know someone who really liked/likes STP's music and felt that Chester should not be performing with a band going by that name. He felt that Scott Weiland was the only fit for STP due to his iconic voice, which is totally understandable. That said, he still really likes Chester as a singer, just not as a member of STP.