Artisan News has had their annual interview with Chester and STP at the MusiCares MAP. The video also features parts of Chester’s award acceptance speech.

There’s a new LPTV episode from the guys went out in the streetso f Hollywood to pass out flyers for their Sunset Strip Music Festival.

Yesterday Rolling Stone caught up with Chester on MusiCares Red Carpet and discussed his future with Linkin Park and Stone Temple Pilots as well as MusiCares Foundation. Looks like STP is in for the long haul as Chester said they’ll be making a lot ofmusic and releasing one track at a time.

Stone Temple Pilots and Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington first revealed their surprising collaboration recently at L.A. radio station KROQ’s annual Weenie Roast show. Last night the two acts joined forces at the annual MAP/MusicCares Fund Benefit Concert in L.A., where Bennington was presented the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award for his dedication to MAP/MusiCares and helping other addicts with recovery.

Before Bennington and STP took the stage, the group talked to Rolling Stone and revealed this is not just a musical fling. “When you get together and put a new piece in, there’s a whole different energy. For us the creative juices have just been flowing – we’ve been writing, we have tons of great ideas,” Bennington said. “Next week we’re going back in the studio and hammering out some more music.”

But that does not mean there will be an album anytime soon, or any sort of fixed schedule: With Bennington still heavily involved in Linkin Park, he and STP will disseminate new music the way they did with their first track together, “Out of Time.”

“We don’t have a label,” he said. “Everything we’re doing is on our own, so we’re just taking it one track at a time. We would love to sit down and hammer out a record, but the reality is we’re gonna make music, we’re gonna make a lot of it, and we’re gonna be in a position to release a single at a time, go out and really give people music the way they want to get it,” he said. “It is a good position to be in, and for us, all we care about is going out, making the legacy as great as it needs to be, as great as people expect it to be, and coming out with new music that lives up to that standard.”

About the addition of Bennington, Dean DeLeo said, “It just came about very harmoniously. I don’t want to use the ‘s’ word – serendipitous – but it really was. Very natural.”

For Bennington, to play on this night not just with STP, but with his longtime friends Slash and Duff McKagan – who joined the group for a rousing singalong on the Mott the Hoople classic “All the Young Dudes” – was very special because of what MAP/MusiCares means to him.

“The reason why I come and do the things I do for MusiCares is it’s a program that helps people that really need the help. They go out and change people’s lives, and they give them the support that they need,” he said. “And if they had asked me to show up and just play the first song by myself like I did a couple of years ago, I would’ve done the same thing, and it wouldn’t have mattered about the award or whatever.”

McKagan echoed the sentiment. “I’ve been here the last few years, and good for Chester. Chester is a big name. It draws a lot of people in, they’re gonna pay the high dollars for a table, and that’s what you want. You want to raise money for MusiCares – that’s the most important thing.”

Thanks to Aline for this video, Chester is accepting his Stevie Ray Vaughan award presented by Mike Shinoda. Most important video of the night.

A couple of videos have made their way to us of STP performing, Wicked Garden &  All The Young Dudes featuring Slash and Duff McKagan. There are more but the quality is low. Check out those two HDs and more to come.

Update: “Out Of Time” too, thanks Aline.

So many pics of Chester and Mike came out that I had to make a seperate album for them. Check them out, seems like they’re having their best friend moments.

Check out Chester’s first interview of the night!

Here are some photos from Chester performing with STP and special guests Slash and Duff McKeagan tonight, I will be uploading as they become available.

UPDATE: Still uploading, tons of pics! This has never have happened before!

First pictures are rolling in guys of Chester walking the MusiCares Red Carpet ascorted by Tyler Bennington! More to come so be sure to keep checking!

STP is clarifying things with their fans regarding their recent lawsuit against former lead singer Scott Weiland by just releasing the statement below on their official website.

You may have read we recently filed suit against our former singer, Scott Weiland.  We wanted to clarify a few things:

Our purpose in taking this action is not to hurt Scott.   We want to move forward productively, and Scott’s choices and actions have prevented us from doing that.  We were in the process of putting our 20th anniversary tour together to celebrate the release of our first album, Core.  The plan was for a big tour where we’d perform the album in its entirety, along with some other favorite STP songs.  So, you might imagine our shock and disappointment when, without any notice, we learned that Scott had seized this tour for himself as his solo tour, and decided to do exactly what we as a group had planned. We found out about it the same way you did—we saw an ad for it.

Without getting into legal details, the band has a binding agreement that clearly states what each of us can and cannot do outside of STP.  Unfortunately many of the decisions Scott made violate this agreement, have been harmful to the band, and prevented us from moving forward.  When our requests to Scott and his representatives that they abide by the agreement were ignored, we finally had enough.  So now, we’ve made our choice.  It was beyond time we made some new music, which was impossible in the dysfunctional environment we were in.  We’ve lived in it long enough and have decided to move forward with STP. We wish Scott well. We’re really excited about the new music we’ve been making with Chester, including the song we just released, “Out of Time.”

We love this band and respect everything it means to you. We want to always give you our best and the choice we made is completely in that spirit.

Dean, Eric & Robert