AceShowbiz - New Stone Temple Pilots frontman Jeff Gutt is refusing to sing one of the band's songs live, because he fears his tragic predecessor, Scott Weiland, wouldn't approve.

The rocker tells Rock 100.5's Brad Copeland he has too much respect for the late Weiland to attempt to sing his track Sour Girl.

"It's a personal message, so I don't know... To me, that one's a little off limits," he says. "But other than that, I'm game (to sing anything)."

Drummer Eric Kretz admits that although it took the band a while to name Weiland's successor, Gutt won them over at his first audition, belting out the band's Piece Of Pie.

"No one had the balls to come in and hit something that hard," he smiles.

"I had to do it first song, 'cause it was the one I didn't have memorised," Gutt adds. "I knew every other song... Most of them, I'd been playing for ages. Thank God I did Trippin' On A Hole (In A Paper Heart), like, 10 years before that for many years, so that was, like, second nature."