While many fans are aware of Tool‘s Maynard James Keenan appearing on Deftones‘ White Pony album, there was also a lesser known contribution from longtime Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland.
While speaking with Philadelphia’s WMMR 93.3 with Jaxon and Sara, Deftones frontman Chino Moreno revealed the circumstances of how Weiland came to guest on the record. The singer can be heard in an uncredited cameo on the song “Rx Queen” from the White Pony album.
“It was one of those things that really wasn’t announced,” says Moreno. “The way it happened was pretty organic toward the end of the record making process. I met up with him at a studio in Burbank and I was playing him some of the rough music and he pulled out a microphone and started doing his Scott Weiland scatting stuff over it. Then he start of kind of harmonizing with me on the chorus, with this lower register melody.”
The singer recalls, “I was like, ‘Wow, that sounds pretty cool,’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, you can re-sing it if you want,’ and I was like, ‘Okay, whatever.’ But then we mixed the record, I thought that that sounded kind of good on there. It was what it was. It was pretty neat. I don’t know, but you can totally hear his timbre and the way that he sings and it’s totally him. So it was kind of cool the way that it happened and it wasn’t anything that we promoted, but it’s a little Easter egg in a way.”
While their new Ohms album, which drops Sept. 25, is at the top of the band’s promotional efforts at the moment, they also are celebrating the 20th anniversary of White Pony. During the chat, Moreno also revealed that the band is eyeing a probable November release for the 20th anniversary edition of the record, that will include the previously announced guest remixer version of the album titled Black Stallion. “I think it really stands on its own, so I’m excited for people to hear that,” said Moreno.
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