Stone Temple Pilots' Scott Weiland: People Don't Get 'Sex Type Thing'

Stone Temple Pilots’ Scott Weiland: People Don’t Get ‘Sex Type Thing’

2011-11-30

Story by Charles Ken

Stone Temple Pilots singer explains band’s first hit, ‘Sex Type Thing’

Nearly two decades after Scott Weiland and the DeLeo brothers penned Stone Tempe Pilots’ eternal rock hit, “Sex Type Thing,” they still think the song is a tad misunderstood. Weiland — who is in the news as of late for his jolly album of Christmas songs, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year — recently explained that “Sex Type Thing” is a challenge to sing live, especially since so much has changed since he first envisioned the song back in the ‘90s alternative rock heyday.

When asked, “What’s more difficult: Singing the classic Christmas songs on Wonderful Time, or “Sex Type Thing?” Weiland told Spin, “It’s harder singing a song like ‘Sex Type Thing.’ Particularly that song because I was only 22 when I wrote the melody and lyrics and it’s very blatantly an anti-date rape song, kind of like ‘Polly’ by Nirvana.”

He added that “Sex Type Thing” was Stone Temple Pilot’s first single, and it quickly became huge. “The story about it being an anti-date rape song was well known,” he said. “But there were a couple of shows where I would wear a granny’s dress from the ’60s, and these big huge jocks were moshing. They didn’t even notice the message in the song.

“There have been two generations of music fans and the media is completely different now. So people don’t really know what “Sex Type Thing” is about. So it really bums me out when I see people moshing to that song. It’s basically the opposite of what we had in mind when we wrote it.” Weiland recently released a retro-looking video for his rendition of, “White Christmas.” Watch the video, here. (Courtesy Photo: Stone Temple Pilots via Facebook.)

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Charles Ken

Meet the expert - Charles Ken is a graduate of Michigan State University where he studied writing and history. He's a longtime music buff and covers classic rock for Audio Ink Radio. Contact him at ken@audioinkradio.com.