Filmed MTV Unplugged

In 1993, the band filmed an episode of MTV Unplugged , where they debuted the song ” Big Empty “. In a January 1994 Rolling Stone poll, the band was simultaneously voted Best New Band by Rolling Stone’ s readers and Worst New Band by the magazine’s music critics. The following month the group won Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Heavy Metal/Hard Rock New Artist at the American Music Awards . In March 1994, the group won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance for the song “Plush”. In the spring of 1994, Stone Temple Pilots returned to the studio to work on their second album, Purple . Completed in less than a month, Purple debuted at number one in the United States upon its release on June 7, 1994. The radio-friendly ” Interstate Love Song ” quickly became a big hit, spending a record-setting fifteen weeks atop the album rock tracks chart. Other hits from the album included ” Vasoline ” and “Big Empty” (the latter also being featured on the soundtrack to the film The Crow ). By October, just four months after its release, Purple had sold three million copies.