STONE TEMPLE PILOTS Drummer Talks Reunion, Upcoming Studio Album

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS drummer Eric Kretz recently spoke to Steve Forstneger of the Illinois Entertainer about the band's decision to reunite in 2008 after a six-year layoff.

According to Kretz, he welcomed the time apart. "That's when I started building my recording studio," he says. "Pretty much right away. It's something I'd always wanted to do. Just found a building to do it in. Here's the opportunity, just jump in there to work on different bands and different projects. One of the things I was doing was music supervising for 'The Henry Rollins Show', which was great. We had DAMIAN MARLEY, SLAYER, THOM YORKE, BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB, RYAN ADAMS, IGGY POP — so many great bands came through my studio and it was fun being on the creative side of a TV show."

"We've still got it, never lost it," he insists. "Sometimes it's really therapeutic to take time away from each other. Since 1992, we'd been seeing each other on a daily basis . . . nightly basis, morning basis. When a band's on tour, you're just with each other. Everywhere. Shaving. Showering. Performing. Arguing. Business decisions, artistic decisions. It's a very close relationship. After several years, it's therapeutic to step away, gather your senses, and say, 'I really miss that pace of running in that pack and how wonderful the music side of it is.'"

On the band's forthcoming self-titled album, Kretz says, "It's kind of weird. Our reunion was in 2008 and we toured for a year and a half. We did quite a bit of festivals and headlining gigs. At the end of 2008, we decided to make a record because things were going great and we were getting along so well. So from March 2009, we'd tour and come back, balance family, and then the record was finished in December. It's hard to say, 'This is the reunion.' This is the recordings. It's a new statement of where we are right now."

"We had the luxury of not having to play it safe," he adds. "That sophomore slump — that's the curse. Playing it safe . . . you can't really play it safe because it never works. I'm trying to think of a band that's tried to do that, but you don't remember them because you don't remember those records. If you try to formulate it and play it safe and think 'this is what's popular right now' it usually doesn't work, because people listen to it, 'Oh, it sounds exactly like the last one.'"

Read more from the Illinois Entertainer.