JEFF GUTT Says He Still Has To Pinch Himself Sometimes About Being In STONE TEMPLE PILOTS

Casper from Australia's Silver Tiger Media recently conducted an interview with STONE TEMPLE PILOTS frontman Jeff Gutt. You can listen to the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On staying true to the vocal styles of previous STONE TEMPLE PILOTS singers Scott Weiland and Chester Bennington:

Jeff: "I can't really fake it. People will see right through that. I wouldn't want to do that anyway. Being able to go out there and celebrate the songs — sometimes I go back and listen to them and I'm like, 'I'm not singing it that way at all.' [Laughs] It has to come from a place of truth; otherwise people are going to notice that. I go back to how I remember the songs affected me and how I heard them. That way it just comes from a natural place, which is much better."

On whether the legacy of Weiland and Bennington crossed his mind when he officially joined the band in 2017:

Jeff: "It didn't actually, no. I still have to pinch myself sometimes and think, 'Wow!' It would be like when I'm walking in the dressing room or something and Dean [DeLeo, guitar] is sitting there playing his guitar and I'm, like, 'Dean DeLeo is there. And I'm in STONE TEMPLE PILOTS.' It dawns on me every now and then awkwardly. Making music with people is a very intimate process. I was more in tune with just making music with these amazing musicians who I always looked up to. I forgot about that after a while. It was more, 'We're just in here making a record.' It was kind of where I was with it. I didn't really think about the outside world too much at that point. I just kind of focused on making a great record. I feel like we accomplished that."

Gutt, a 43-year-old Michigan native who spent time in the early-2000s nu-metal act DRY CELL, among other bands, and was a contestant on "The X Factor", joined STONE TEMPLE PILOTS in 2017 after beating out roughly 15,000 hopefuls during an extended search that began more than a year earlier.

Original STONE TEMPLE PILOTS singer Weiland, who reunited with the group in 2010 after an eight-year hiatus but was dismissed in 2013, died in December 2015 of a drug overdose.

Bennington, who joined STP in early 2013, departed nearly three years later to spend more time with his main band LINKIN PARK. Bennington committed suicide in July 2017.