Guitarist Dean DeLeo talked about Dave Mustaine playing an important role in Stone Temple Pilots reaching the masses by taking them on first major tour in support of their 1992 debut album ‘Core,’ telling Loudwire:

“Dave was a real gentleman to us, man.

“He was very, very kind. He was very loving and very supportive. He may not want me to relinquish that kind of information about him, but he was very loving and supportive and just a great person to us.

“Those early days, no one knew who we were and we were playing arenas opening for Megadeth to people filing in.

“We’d be on our third song and the place is about only a third full. You’re looking like an 8,000-seat room and there’s like maybe 1,000, 2,000 people there and people are filing in.

“The people that were in there were like pimple-faced boys with Iron Maiden shirts giving us the finger. It sucked. [Laughs]

“But I’m going to tell you something: Mustaine saw that night after night and I’m gonna tell you something about Dave.

“He walked out onstage and the place goes f*cking crazy and he grabs the mic and goes, ‘You listen you f*ckers, I handpicked this band and they’re my friends. You better show some f*cking respect,’ and he walked off. [Laughs]”

“What I spoke about earlier, where there were like, 500-1,000 people in there maybe when we were on. By the time ‘Plush’ was out [as a single], they were full. The arenas were full. People were singing our songs and it changed dramatically.”