Peter Dolving Recalls His Stone Temple Pilots Audition

Ex-The Haunted frontman Peter Dolving recently recalled when he auditioned to be the vocalist of Stone Temple Pilots. The singer talked about his audition process when he studied STP songs for weeks.

Peter Dolving joined The Haunted in 1997 and left after releasing their first album, ‘The Haunted’ in 1998. The singer continued his career in other areas, including solo performances, and returned to the band in 2004 for another album, ‘rEVOLVEr.’ The singer also auditioned to work with Stone Temple Pilots.

Chester Bennington joined STP in 2013 and performed with them and Linkin Park simultaneously. However, in 2015, the singer left STP to focus more on Linkin Park and his family. He, unfortunately, passed away in 2017. When he left STP without a vocalist, the band decided to hire a new singer.

Dolving had stated, jokingly, that it would be cool to be STP’s new vocalist and many people took it as a joke. It was not a joke, and in fact, he got to have an audition with the band. The fans also seemed happy about the situation even though they were huge fans of Bennington. A petition was raised in Change for Dolving as the new STP vocalist.

However, the singer didn’t get the part, and the band hired Jeff Gutt to be their new vocalist. Gutt is still with the band, along with its members Dean DeLeo, Robert DeLeo, and Eric Kretz. Recently, Dolving recalled his audition and revealed that he realized he did not fit in when he sent the recordings to the band. However, he was happy to try with the help of his friend from his former band, Dress the Dead.

Here is what Dolving said about his STP audition:

“My friend Craig Locicero from Dress the Dead. Craig had worked some amazing session work over the years and had gotten to know some fantastic musicians in Oakland, San Francisco. He knew about the process. He knew the drummer; I don’t remember his name because that’s what kind of a horrific musician I am. I simply care about awesomeness; I forget when it’s not very personal.

Anyway, he told me, this awesome drummer and his band called Stone Temple Pilots are looking for a new singer. I think you should at least try it out, and I said, ‘Well, okay. I should at least try it out.’ I thought it was quite exciting. I think it was two or three songs they wanted you to submit. And then I think the band and the fans picked one that they chose. I recorded three songs, I think. I do not even remember, honestly, in our kitchen. It took a few weeks. To do something like that, you need to get a grip on what the hell. For me, it was an experiment.

I’m more of a scientist with music sometimes, so I learned and studied for about a month. Maybe two months. So I sang Stone Temple Pilot songs and studied lyrics for about thirty songs, over and over. From eight in the morning after we did yoga. Then I would go off, and I would do this for a couple of months. Then recorded the songs and sent them. I didn’t think that I would fit in. By the time I recorded the songs, I had realized that. It’s great music, but it’s music that comes with great conflict.”

You can watch his interview below.