Mina Caputo Really, Really, Really Wants to Sing for Stone Temple Pilots
If you were following Life of Agony at all in the mid-to-late ’00s it was difficult not to notice that Mina Caputo (then still known as Keith) had begun to really, really idolize Scott Weiland. Starting with Broken Valley in 2005, Life of Agony started introducing more hard rock elements into their sound and Caputo’s image went with them, morphing into a sexually charged, androgynous performer very much in Weiland’s mold (see video below).
So it’s no shocker that Caputo is gunning hard for the allegedly still-vacant vocalist spot in STP, and even submitted her own audition video when the band made a public call. In a recent interview with Alternative Nation she spoke more about that, her relationship with the surviving band members of STP and her deep appreciation of their catalog:
“Absolutely. I feel like I know the DeLeo brothers and Eric Kretz. But I’m much more closer to rock n’ roll than a lot of people – I was born with a Led Zeppelin record in my hand, y’know? And that being said, the Stone Temple Pilots – to me – have always been like the modern day Led Zeppelin. And I really always felt like I understood Scott’s melodic sensibility. I always understood his masculine/femininity.
“I just feel like it’s so meant to be. I feel like I’m the right person for the right equation, because not only would I do my damndest to honor the Stone Temple Pilots catalog – which is extremely Biblical to me – but more so than ever, I would love, love, love to create new music with the Stone Temple Pilots. With the DeLeobrothers. They are pretty much my top favorite of all musicians of all time. And I just feel like lyrically, melodically, the shit I’ve been through, that I would be able to deliver really.
“I honestly don’t think they really know the true essence and limitlessness of who I am as an individual, or a vocalist, or a front person. I think the only really good way for them to judge would be to actually get me in the room with them, or doing something new with them – to show them. Because I definitely have the sensibility. I know what they’re looking for. I know what they want.
“I’ve watched many, many interviews with Dean and Robert, talking about kind of singer they want. And I’m the person. I know I am. And I know as far as loyalty…and if they wanted to do a lounge version of “Plush,” or a bossa nova version of “Big Bang Baby,” or a Spanish version of “Where the River Goes” or “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart,” I know they’re looking for that singer that if they present like a jazz version of let’s just say, “Dead & Bloated,” they need a vocalist that can “chameleon” their way vocally, lyrically, melodically into a new song or this already existing song that they would want to do, and make it into this different kind of version. Because that’s the kind of band that they are – they have no limits.
“And the songwriting ability, they’re some of my favorite songwriters. Robert DeLeo is one of my favorite bass players, one of my favorite songwriters. Only because I know what I would put into that project too, and I know my own personal love of music and what music means to me, and what the Stone Temple Pilots’ music means to me. Everything that they were and everything that they contributed to rock n’ roll…I would lose my mind if I got a call to just be like, ‘Hey, come on and come down. Maybe we’ll jam on something new.’
“I think a lot of great people might be getting lost with the way that they’re doing it. Because I haven’t heard anything about anything – since they put that whole thing up. And I actually went that route. Just because I’m in the business or didn’t think I should get any kind of special treatment because I’m in somewhat of a successful act or whatever, I went through the rings like everybody else, and then I didn’t hear anything.
“I spoke to Eric a year ago, and I haven’t really spoken to Eric since. God knows what they were going through – or went through…”
Mina seems plenty busy promoting Life of Agony’s forthcoming album A Place Where There’s No More Pain, but I’d be allllll about seeing her front STP. She is correct: she’s the right person for the job! Certainly better than that X Factor tool.
[via The PRP]
