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Re: Scott Says STP Album Back to rock basics, also VR and Axl
He also discusses more about Velvet Revolver and how him and Axl almost met up once.
Credit: Details Magazine
Scott Weiland Sobers Up . . . Again
The troubled frontman on kicking heroin (but not scotch), his rivalry with Axl Rose, Christmas-caroling in prison, and the first Stone Temple Pilots album in nine years.
By Matt Hendrickson, Photographs by Alex Prager
Q: Stone Temple Pilots are releasing their first album in nine years this June. Did you ever think of skipping the record and just doing the cash-grab tour?
A: We got back together and toured in 2008 and realized pretty quickly that we were going to get burned-out playing the old songs every night. We have just as much fun in the creative process as we do on the road'”it'™s not like when we were in our twenties and it was rock-and-roll hell on wheels.
Q: Do you miss that?
A: No, I don'™t. I had plenty of it.
Q: What does the new album sound like?
A: We have a tendency to make a straightforward rock-and-roll record, then try and spread our wings a bit. Core and No. 4 were rock records'”the others had different touches. We went off the deep end with our last one, with Shangri-La Dee Da. Lived in a house in Malibu, had a film crew there. That record caught people off guard. It was inspired by Grandaddy and Sparklehouse and the Flaming Lips. It sort of divided our audience a bit. The meat-and-potatoes rock fans didn'™t really embrace it. Then we split. I prefer to break new ground, but it gets harder and harder with the territory that'™s already been walked on. We started doing demos and it became apparent that this is a back-to-basics rock record. There'™s some stuff that deviates, like 'Cinnamon,' which is the Beatles meets Joy Division. It'™s a different sound for us, but this is a Stone Temple Pilots rock record.
Q: The band'™s breakup in 2003 was acrimonious. How were you able to put the past behind you?
A: Well, no one does drugs anymore, so it was pretty easy. Dean DeLeo and I were the close runners-up to the Toxic Twins throne. The wounds heal. And we got the humor back in the band. That'™s the most important thing'”to laugh at the same funny stories we were laughing at years ago.
Q: Dean has questioned your sobriety.
A: He'™s probably referring to my drinking. I still drink. If he thought he could drink and not do drugs, he might do that too. I can have a scotch and not want to shoot up.
Q: You sound so matter-of-fact about it now. Why were the drugs so hard for you to kick?
A: Heroin made me feel all right in my own skin. Before I did it I was uncomfortable going into crowds, which is interesting given my profession. But when I did dope, the fear went away. That'™s why I hung on to it so long. But my kids fill up that hole now.
Q: I read that when you were in jail for possession you taught music to your fellow inmates.
A: A counselor gave us some Christmas carols, and I'™d learn all the parts and assign the harmonies. There were some former Crips and a white supremacist in there, which added some levity to the idea of missing the holidays with your family. I ran into a couple of those guys a while back and had a good laugh. As horrible as jail was, there were some first-rate guys in there.
Q: You feuded with Axl Rose after you formed Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N'™ Roses bandmates. Now that you'™ve left that group less than amicably, do you want to trade war stories with Axl?
A: We came close to getting together one time. I had wondered if he was the center of all their problems or if it was a mixed bag'”and it was definitely the latter. When Velvet Revolver first got together it was great. I got to know the guys before: Met Duff at the gym, because he loves to work out and I was obsessed with running. I was in rehab with Matt. I'™d only met Slash twice'”he'™s not the most social person. We had all been through the same experiences, and it felt like a gang. But everyone was a rock star. There were petty jealousies. Then the wives got involved with the business of the band, and that was the beginning of the downfall.
Q: Speaking of wives, your ex Mary Forsberg wrote in her memoir that you got a massage while she was delivering your first child. What were you thinking?
A: What do you mean? I was incredibly stressed-out. She was having contractions and that was tripping me out, so I called up our friend and she gave me a massage. I laid out right next to where Mary was.
Q: You didn'™t think it was weird, even after the nurse kicked the masseuse out?
A: No one I'™ve ever talked to thought it was weird. It'™s incredibly stressful when the person you love is having a child. And I was sober at that time, so I needed something to take the edge off.
Q: Celebrity clothing lines have become ubiquitous. What makes yours, Scott Weiland for English Laundry, different?
A: There'™s a sense of history and classiness there. It'™s very much based in the late-sixties, early-seventies Savile Row style. All of the cloth is vintage from that period. I'™m obsessed with fabric. I prefer a three-piece suit myself. Very sixties rock and roll. But they'™re not too quirky. Businessmen could wear them.
Q: Matt has also launched a clothing line. Do you ever drop in to his store and check out the competition?
A: God, no. We'™re doing totally different things. Mine is London, his is L.A. Let'™s just say there'™s a lot of leather and jewelry.
Q: I hear you'™re a fan of Notre Dame football. You'™re probably the last person I'™d think of as a football guy.
A: Oh man, massively. My dad played football there, and I go to at least one game every year. I get my Blue & Gold report every morning. My assistant prints it out, and I read it like the newspaper. In fact, I'™m looking at it right now. There'™s this kid, Louis Nix, that we got coming in from Jacksonville. A high-school senior, who is six three, 315 pounds. Wow. He'™s living my dream.
Re: Scott Says STP Album Back to rock basics, also VR and Axl
I guess i've just always thought of him as social. Even pre-VR, he was always at awards shows, or getting interviewed accidentally on Leno.
But you do have to admit that it has become way more prominent now. It seemed like post-VR Slash took a whole different direction.
Re: Scott Says STP Album Back to rock basics, also VR and Axl
I guess i've just always thought of him as social. Even pre-VR, he was always at awards shows, or getting interviewed accidentally on Leno.
Slash does seem like a social guy, but I think he just likes to promote. He himself has said in the past that he pretty much keeps to himself. That's part of the reason he used to drink so much, it loosened him up, and allowed him to be more at ease. And now that he doesn't drink anymore, he doesn't like going out anymore, at least in the nightlife type situations.
It all depends on how you look at it. Axl is as private as they come in his personal life, but he seems to love going out and partying on the town.
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Re: Scott Says STP Album Back to rock basics, also VR and Axl
Yeah I agree...I think Slash is very professional in his use of the media etc, but that's not the same thing as being a social type personality.
In his novel he is pretty candid about how aside from the party side of it, he pretty much drank and used drugs in order to be able to deal with the pressures of being in a sucessful band like GNR, and how he felt pissed was he only way he was able to be in the same room with business types and not feel awarkward etc.
Obviously he's good with his friends and so on, but I do get the impression he's somewhat of a loner personality, does his own thing and much like Izzy and Axl in their own unique ways walks to the beat of his own drum.
Also when going in and out of sobriety, it's hard to be clean and hang with dudes who arn't. So it might be that if Scott was having an "on" phase he wasn't at the same parties as slash in his "off" phase and vice versa.
I assume the thing about the wives getting involved was a direct refrence to perla, and I'm pretty sure it's not the only suggestion we've had that there was some managment conflicts in that way.
Who knows that the deal is. I suspect at the end of the day VR like a some other bands just has a lot of big personalitys in it. Talented people, drugs, fame and the associated pressures can cause anythign to go wrong really.
Re: Scott Says STP Album Back to rock basics, also VR and Axl
I'm pretty sure we'll see another "newly sober" article in a year or so.
Agreed. It's gotten freakin' old with Weiland. It's like he gets hooked, just to get that press, then goes clean, to get that press, because it's the only press he gets.
At least the Corey Haim's of the world deal with it personally.
Axlin08 wrote:I guess i've just always thought of him as social. Even pre-VR, he was always at awards shows, or getting interviewed accidentally on Leno.
Slash does seem like a social guy, but I think he just likes to promote. He himself has said in the past that he pretty much keeps to himself. That's part of the reason he used to drink so much, it loosened him up, and allowed him to be more at ease. And now that he doesn't drink anymore, he doesn't like going out anymore, at least in the nightlife type situations.
It all depends on how you look at it. Axl is as private as they come in his personal life, but he seems to love going out and partying on the town.
Actually, if ANY of them are super-private. It's Izzy. Even his best friends sometimes struggle to contact him.
I guess i've always thought of Axl as "to himself", and Slash as social. I think it's because of Slash's book, and Slash's past comments. When he, Duff, Izzy & Steven and later Gilby & Matt in place of Izzy & Steven, were all hanging out and partying, Axl was keeping to himself. I think Slash even said that Axl wasn't a big partier at one point, and it made them start to think he didn't like them, and that's kind of where the seperation, the riff started to emerge. This was in the AFD days.
Axlin08 wrote:I guess i've just always thought of him as social. Even pre-VR, he was always at awards shows, or getting interviewed accidentally on Leno.
But you do have to admit that it has become way more prominent now. It seemed like post-VR Slash took a whole different direction.
Oh yeah. He where here and there during the post-GN'R/pre-VR stage. But when VR took off, he was as much in the spotlight as he had been since 1992/93.
Re: Scott Says STP Album Back to rock basics, also VR and Axl
Agreed. It's gotten freakin' old with Weiland. It's like he gets hooked, just to get that press, then goes clean, to get that press, because it's the only press he gets.
At least the Corey Haim's of the world deal with it personally.
I don't get how you can say this.
You honestly think it's all Scott and not the press at all? Every interview he does, the press brings up drugs, not the other way around.
And on top of that, all he said was that he still drinks, that's it. He even admitted that he can drink and not want to shoot up, which I think happens to be a good thing. There are many functional alcoholics in the world, but you'd be hard pressed to find a functional junkie at Scott's age.
Keith Richards still drinks, I don't get what the big deal is. I hope Scott's done with the rehab binges now. This time it actually did take away his family, so we will see.
