Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo will never forget the moment that he came up with the title of the song that would become one of the band’s biggest hits. Interstate Love Song, the gripping mid-tempo rock anthem taken from their era-defining second record Purple, would go on to reach number one on the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart and its UK release turns 30 this month. For DeLeo, coming up with the name of the song remains one of his most treasured memories.
“We were on the bus, throwing around titles,” he told this writer last year. “This was just before we’d gotten done with the record. Some of the songs had titles but one that was missing a title was this beautiful piece. We’re on the bus and going down the interstate and I was hearing what Scott was saying lyrically and I said to the band, ‘I have a great title for the song. Interstate Love Song. Everybody went, ‘Yeah, alright!’. It was a real nice moment because we were all together on the bus. I was really thinking about where Scott was coming from lyrically and here we were on the interstate, and we were away from home a lot.”
Perhaps it made sense that the final word on the track should come on the road given where it started. The first time that Dean heard its warm chord pattern wasn’t in a studio or a rehearsal room, but loitering with his bassist brother Robert in a hotel car park. “We were in Atlanta and we’d just gotten up,” he recalled. “We’d spent the night in Atlanta in a very dodgy hotel and were getting ready to leave. We were out in the parking lot and Robert had an acoustic guitar and I think we were sitting on the bumper of our Ryder truck that we were renting that was holding our gear and Robert was sitting on the bumper and I was sitting next to him.”
It was at this point, Dean said, that his brother nonchalantly said, ‘Check out this idea I have’. “He played Interstate on the guitar and whistled the melody. I remember it vividly. Robert laid that idea on me and I remember knowing deeply it was a very special song.”
Their fans agreed, and Interstate Love Song remains one of Stone Temple Pilots’ all-time best tracks three decades later. Watch the video for the classic below:
