Today we’re paying homage to Dean DeLeo’s magnificent talents, with a look at the opening track to Stone Temple Pilots' debut album Core, which recently celebrated it’s 30th birthday!
Get the tone
You'll need a bridge humbucker for the thick riff tones here. I’m playing my Suhr s-type for this one but it has a HSS pickup config, and it’s likely Dean would have used a Gibson LP for this.
In terms of tone you'll want a decent distortion pedal and a chorus pedal. The use of chorus is very subtle though and used to give the guitar a thicker sound, so I’ve gone for the Walrus Audio Julia as that has a blend knob, which is really useful on dialling back the amount of wet signal.
Fun fact: Scott Weiland's vocals on the intro of the song were recorded as he sung into the pickup of Dean's guitar. “We knew how microphonic pickups were, and I think I just got done finishing a part on the song, because the guitar was plugged in," Dean told MusicRadar. We were probably just finishing a guitar part and it was very loud. Scott wanted to sing the intro it into the bullhorn [megaphone], and we said, ‘Sing it into the guitar pickup and see what happens.’"
Technique tips
The intro/verse riff is a six-bar phrase, with some interesting rhythmic accents and I initially thought this was in a Drop D tuning as it sounds so heavy, but it’s just Dean’s clever use of chord inversions at work here.
You start with a D power chord but with the 5th added to the root on the 5th fret on the E string. From there it’s a series of double stops with pull-offs and slides.
For the next riff you’re into more familiar territory but again a Bmsus4/F# to a G and some percussive string mutes keeps things interesting before hitting the E major. Beyond that it’s straightforward enough with those three riffs repeating around and some tasty chords in the bridge. Have fun!
