fter a decade of hit records, platinum sales and no shortage of upheaval, the Stone Temple Pilots knew they had crashed and burned in the fall of 2002 when singer Scott Weiland and guitarist Dean DeLeo capped the overall letdown of the "Shangri-La Dee Da" experience with a backstage fistfight.

Rather than finish a new album that was in the works, the San Diego band, which scored radio hits such as "Plush," "Vasoline" and "Interstate Love Song" while being ridiculed as grunge-lite, scattered in three directions.

Mr. Weiland, who had long demonstrated as much love for heroin as fame and success, joined up with three members of Guns 'N Roses to form the chart-topping, platinum-selling and Grammy-winning Velvet Revolver. The DeLeo brothers, Dean and Robert, assembled Army of Anyone with Filter singer Richard Patrick and Ray Luzier, now the drummer for Korn. STP drummer Eric Kretz launched his Bomb Shelter studio and served as music supervisor on "The Henry Rollins Show." All the while, they were in the process of learning to be fathers.

Even with all these post-STP ventures going quite well, there was a lingering question.

"It seemed like the common thread," the drummer says, "was you'd run into all these bands and musicians and they'd go, 'Oh great, everything looks good, sounds beautiful, your studio is great. So, when is STP getting back together?'

"From talking to Robert and Dean it was the same thing. They'd be on tour with their new band and it was like 'Great band, great record, so when is STP getting back together?' It was coming from so many areas of what people really wanted to hear. Scott was going through some of that, too. I'm sure the guys in Velvet Revolver were getting that with Guns 'N Roses, too. Maybe it's what people feel they need to talk about, but either way it was continuous over the years, so when we got offers in 2008 to headline quite a few festivals, it was like, 'It's been long enough and I really miss playing music with these guys' and that was the beginning foundation of it."

In 2007, Mr. Weiland encountered the DeLeos at a beach party, where a possible reunion was discussed. Soon after, the singer abruptly told Velvet Revolver he was bailing, and STP was set for a major U.S. tour. (That one didn't stop in Pittsburgh, making the band's appearance at the First Niagara Pavilion Saturday its first area show since the Rolling Rock Town Fair in August 2001).

Despite all of the band's problems -- many emanating from the singer's addictions, arrests and incarcerations -- the members were able to push the personal things aside when they got back to work.

"Everything was cool," the drummer says. "Time heals a lot of stuff. We get back together and sometimes that stuff is still there, and sometimes it's not even noticeable. We've been doing this for so long, and as far as playing music, that always remains consistent. Everyone in this band is such a good musician that playing and performing is so natural. That part of it never leaks into what was going on the week prior or the day before. We can always separate those two elements, and what goes on behind the scenes is our own situation, our own things to work out, as any business or workplace would have issues to deal with."

After reconciling for the 2008 tour, the logical next step was adding a sixth record to the catalog, which the band did with the release of this year's self-titled album. The instrumental tracks were cut at the drummer's studio -- self-produced, despite the record company's protests -- and the singer added the vocals later on with help from producer Don Was.

"There's never a shortage of new material with this band," Mr. Kretz says. "Within the first three weeks we had probably 18 new song ideas going down in demo form, and then at that point Scott was doing a solo tour, so it was a matter of getting him in there and saying 'OK, let's work on these songs.' We narrowed it down to about 13 songs and recorded those. So it was just a very natural process of touring and then jumping into the studio. Making music is very natural for us. There's never any big problems."

The band, never one to shy away from its influences, struts them proudly on the record, from the Lennonesque "Dare If You Dare" to the Dylan-style vocal on "Between the Lines" and the heavy Aerosmith vibe of "Huckleberry Crumble."

"Most bands do a retro thing and apologize for it. We're unapologetically retro here," Dean DeLeo has said about the record.

"We still love our classic '60s and '70s forms of rock 'n' roll and some of the newer stuff as well and, definitely, Scott was getting into his Leonard Cohen/Dylan kind of phase lyrically on some of the songs."

One of the obstacles to making the record was a lawsuit Atlantic Records had filed -- and later withdrawn -- against the singer and drummer for breach of contract. What was it like making a record for a label that took legal action against them?

"I'm sure you have a good idea of what that feels like," the drummer says. "You could imagine if you're writing for the Pittsburgh Gazette and you've been with them for 20 years and all of a sudden they're suing you or claiming to sue you, it makes things very uncomfortable -- not the way we would want to go about the relationship, but we worked things out in the end and delivered a fantastic record. The record company business is in a tough bind with digital downloads being the most popular way of people gathering music and sharing music. It's a hard struggle right now."

Sales of the record are a good indicator of that. "Stone Temple Pilots" debuted at No. 2 in May with sales just over 60,000, about a tenth of what the band sold for releases in the early '90s.

"Yeah, about 600,000 back around 'Purple' and 'Tiny Music.' Things are different and music is more disposable than it was 10, 15 years ago," the drummer says. "Part of that is you're just downloading to an MP3 player, your phone, whatever device you have. You listen to it for a while, and that's it. Not to be nostalgic, but there's something so great about buying a product and pulling it out and opening it up and reading and looking things over and actually holding something in your hand. I'm still a diehard purist that way. I still love vinyl and buying CDs and getting [ticked] off 'cause 'Why are these things sealed so well?' "

One thing that STP doesn't have to contend with, as it did with the first few releases, are the savage reviews comparing them with Pearl Jam and other bands farther up the coast. Around the time of when STP was finding its more psychedelic flavor on "Tiny Music," the critics were coming around.

"After getting flagged in the press so much in the early '90s, after 'Tiny Music' came out and started being a lot more critically acclaimed, at a certain point you stop worrying about it. You gotta be honest and say, 'No one wants to read that you [are terrible]. No one wants to read that you're a [jerk].' People always want to hear compliments 'cause it makes you feel better, but at a certain point you just kind of disregard them. I have to say, it is very nice to see great reviews on the record and go, 'At least they're listening now,' as opposed to wondering, 'Were they really listening to the music or just reading someone else's review and copying half the article and putting their own words to it?' "

In 2010, a lot of the bands to which STP was compared are either still rolling or back in action, including Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains.

"Probably they went the same type of same path that we did," Mr. Kretz explains. "They're all around the same age. We all grew up on same types of music, we were all very popular in the early '90s, and the music industry changed -- everyone wanted to try different types of music and at a certain point maybe they went through the same situations, where every time you try a new product, people go 'This is great. When's your big-name band getting back together?'

"Also, more so than the individualistic ego we carry, it's the fans that just really want to hear some of the big hits from that era. I saw AC/DC a year ago, and hearing some of those songs brought me back to junior high school and it truly affects you and inspires you and brings back childhood memories that make you feel great. For the bands in the '90s a lot of people were in college, so it brings them back to that era, too. I just think there's such a need for it, and the fan base is still there."

In the end, he says there's more than just nostalgia driving the comebacks.

"What I like from bands from our genre is how good the bands are, how good the songwriting is, how good the musicianship is. It seems after so many of the newer bands being computer-based music, it's not the same deal as the honesty that you get from of a guitar-bass-drums-and-vocal-type band performances."

Critics Andrew Druckenbrod and Scott Mervis talk about music on "The Beat," available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.