Army of Anyone Extra

Army of Anyone plays the House of Blues tonight (Thursday, December 14). The supergroup features Richard Patrick, the Cleveland expatriate and former Filter frontman who's now fronting half of Stone Temple Pilots. Scene talked to Patrick and guitarist Dean DeLeo. Pilots was one of the '90s' biggest rock bands, but they could have been bigger. Long derided as mere grunge emulators, Stone Temple Pilots ultimately outsold Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, finding a permanent home in rotation on classic-rock radio, next to their heroes in Led Zeppelin and Kiss. The band might still be touring today, but it was submarined by singer Scott Weiland's protracted, drug-induced drama at particularly inopportune moments. STP was going to open the triumphant 1995 tour that saw Kiss re-don its makeup, but Weiland flaked, and the band was forced to pull out. DeLeo says the timing was bad, but not exceptionally bad. "You've got to liken it to a marriage," he says. "Is there any good time for it to fall apart? I don't think it was particularly bad timing -- it was just a sequence of events. But man, I feel like I'd be a pretty miserable guy to moan about what STP accomplished. It was hard sometimes, but I'm very grateful to be able to make records with those three cats, and to make the mark we did in music." To its credit, Army of Anyone sounds like STP with the guy from Filter on vocals. The DeLeos have tried to replace Weiland before. In 1997, three quarters of STP recruited singer Dave Koontz and recorded an album as Talk Show, which tanked. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Thankfully, Army has the spark Talk Show lacked. Check them out live, or buy the album -- it's cheap at Amazon, like seven bucks. Seriously. Read this week's Scene to find out why. -- D.X. Ferris