10 Great Guitarists In Terrible Bands

Stone Temple Pilots' rise to fame in the early '90s was simultaneously the best and worst thing that ever happened to the grunge movement. The songs were catchy as all hell, but there were also plenty of Seattle fans who were none too enamored with Scott Weiland's blatant copying of Eddie Vedder's singing style. Though the guitars of Dean DeLeo have that alt-rock crunch, there was a lot more sonic intricacies going on underneath the hood.

While the other guitarists on the scene like Mike McCready and Kim Thayil were pulling from the blues and art rock scene, Weiland tended to gravitate towards jazz and fusion styles in his solos than the standard rock and roll approach. There were a ton of weird sounds coming from the Pacific Northwest, but there was no one else on Earth who could develop those weird chords on "Interstate Love Song" and then transition into something as downtempo as "Creep."

Aside from the rhythmic structure, a solo like on "Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart" was completely unique for the time, where every single note was almost eerily precise. STP certainly deserved better than their '90s treatment, but Dean DeLeo might be one of the most unsung heroes of the entire decade.