the guy has chops and tone

I saw them last week. Deleo has awesome tone and just a real rock n roll style. No tricks or flem just straight ahead rock ........

I think a requirement of a good player is to WRITE your own songs. He does not. His brother, the BASSIST does. He's basically playing cover songs. His tone comes from Demeter amps, which are indeed very nice. But you and I would sound just the same. And no, he's not all that great of a guitarist either.

While I do agree that it is a little less than "noble" that he does not write his own songs, I do not think that you or I would have the same tone even if we played through his exact setup....You seem to be confused about where true tone comes from; not the guitar, not the amp, not pedals, but your own hands. Therefore, unless you're a Deleo clone, I don't think you would sound even remotely the same. Just think of Hendrix; sure, he had a huge Marshall Plexi behind him, but he just played whatever strat he could find. Nobody has been able to really duplicate his tone, and that is because HE was jimi hendrix and all that tone was in his hands, not his gear.

While I hate to be that nitpicking guy, but saying that a good player has to write his own songs is simply not true. Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck are both outstanding players, but not songwriters. On Beck's best releases, he was not the principal songwriter. Maybe Eric SHOULD write some songs, so we wouldn't have to hear more "Change the World" Dreck.

For the record, on Tiny Music by STP, Dean is credited as writer on 3 songs, on Talk Show he had 4 or 5 credits, and I don't have the others handy. While he may not write the majority of the songs, I think it's safe to say he's coming up with his parts for the others. I doubt very much that Robert is saying "Okay Dean now put your ring finger there" They talk a lot about coming in with the basic song structure and jamming on it to get the details.

Yeah that Coltrane could blow a horn, but he was just playin' standards. That boy was no good. Yeah, right. And before the flame starts, I'm not comparing Deleo to these big names, just using them to illustrate an example

I like his diversity: acoustic, rocking guitar, and even jazzy solos(Big Empty). Of
course, he's at his best with moody chorus
settings or just raucous Wah solos. People seem to forget that grunge guys like him and Kim Thayil and Jerry Cantrell busted some sweet wah solos.(oh yeah, Pearl Jam, too.)