This Grunge Band Scrapped a Morbid Soundtrack Song After the Film’s Lead Actor Tragically Died During Filming
· Vice
The 90s were undoubtedly the peak of grunge, which means it was everywhere. Especially movie soundtracks. In one wild story, a band actually had to scrap their planned soundtrack song after the film’s lead actor died on-set, because the title was too tragically morbid in the wake of his death.
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Back in 1994, actor Brandon Lee—the son of Bruce Lee—was killed in an accident on the set of The Crow. Before this, grunge rockers Stone Temple Pilots had submitted a track titled “Only Dying”, for the film’s soundtrack. It didn’t seem appropriate, afterwards, so the band scraped the song and wrote a new one.
“That song was a little bit of a different direction for us,” STP bassist Robert DeLeo told Rolling Stone of the track in 2017. “It was based more off jazz-type chordings. As a songwriter, I wanted to spark people into different directions.”
Brandon Lee was killed when a prop gun from the set of ‘The Crow’ fired live rounds
“I remember Scott really wanted to redo the song and quite honestly, the guitar tone we chose on that … I don’t know what I was thinking,” STP guitarist Dean DeLeo added. “Maybe I was listening to too much Robert Smith or something. It’s a song where I don’t think we reached our full potential as songwriters quite yet. But honestly, it really is a beautiful song.”
“We wrote it maybe nine months after Dean joined the band, and we recorded it in a studio in North Hollywood before we got signed,” STP drummer Eric Kretz offered. “It’s cool to hear it now. You can hear all the STP elements in there. You could tell it needed to be reworked a little bit, but you can really hear Scott’s voice taking on its character and the band delving into the sound of the guitar, the special effects, and everything. It’s a great early indicator of where the band was heading. It was trying to dig into our emotions.”
Stone Temple Pilots swapped ‘Only Dying’ for what would go on to be one of their biggest songs ever
Interestingly, Stone Temple Pilots went on to record the song “Big Empty”. This tune wound up on the soundtrack and was the first single off their sophomore album, Purple. It’s also one of the biggest songs of their entire career. “It was a bit more fitting,” Kretz said. “It’s just a different vibe than what we were feeling at the time.”
While “Only Dying” did get the release it was supposed to have, the song didn’t just disappear. “One of the last few conversations Scott [Weiland] and I had was that he really wanted to re-cut that song,” Dean said of talking about the track with the band’s late frontman. “I said to Robert, ‘Maybe we should honor his wishes and maybe cut the band around that vocal.’ Maybe we’ll do that one day; I don’t know.”
Ultimately, “Only Dying” was finally released years later, with a deluxe version of the band’s debut album, Core.
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