After two previous aborted attempts at getting the Under The Southern Stars (UTSS) music festival to Australia, the rock Gods have finally sided with local music lovers and look set to allow the spectacular touring line-up the opportunity to hit our stages in March.
Featuring legendary rock acts Stone Temple Pilots, Cheap Trick, Bush and the more recent Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, UTSS is a rock festival for the ages, covering three generations of music lovers in one entertaining package that showcases the golden era of rock.
Aussie rockers Rose Tattoo and Electric Mary will provide support for the nationwide festival, proving once more that our best can match it with that of anywhere in the world.
With excitement building as the countdown runs down, Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo joined HEAVY to talk about the tour and part of being in the highly successful and timeless band that is Stone Temple Pilots.
“My goodness, we’re 0 and 2 man,” he laughed. “You know what was really tough? We shipped our gear down there to and from, not once, but twice! We shipped our gear down there two times over the last year and a half, so we’re just gonna fly down with our gear now. We’re gonna take a lot less of it and use some of your gear down there. We’re pretty thrilled this is finally coming together. Dax and I – Rick’s son Dax Nielson – are thrilled. We’ve all been on the road with one another at one point or another. We did a lot of touring with Cheap Trick back in 1996, a lot of touring in the summer of ’18 with Bush and in 2000 we did a lot of touring with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, so it will be nice to see everybody and get on stage with one another. We’re looking forward to seeing your local heroes down there.”
Despite not having played anywhere near the amount of shows in the last two years as they normally would have, DeLeo insists that STP will be match fit and ready to shake things up when they hit our shores.
“No, not a heck of a lot,” he replied when asked if they had managed to play many gigs. “We’re talking going back to March of 2020… no, we’ve only done a handful of shows. You could count on one hand the amount of shows that we’ve done. I’m gonna say we did about maybe 20 shows in the last two years. We did a nice little tour in the starts with our dear friends Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown, and we almost made the entire run. We made it, and then we had to cancel the last two shows because two of our guys came down with the big 19.”
In the full interview, Dean runs us through what to expect from the shows, travelling to the other side of the world in uncertain times, the amount of shows they are playing in the short time they are here, the early days of the band, Jeff Gutt joining as vocalist and how he got the job and more.
