On Dec. 3, 2015, Scott Weiland was discovered useless on his tour bus, bringing an abrupt and tragic finish to his difficult profession.
The singer rose to stardom within the ‘90s as the frontman of Stone Temple Pilots, who formed in San Diego and made a name for themselves in the local music scene before signing with Atlantic Records. The band mixed glam-rock influences with modern grunge sounds, creating a style that was both dynamic and appealing to mainstream audiences.
The group quickly became one of the bestselling bands of the ‘90s. Across that decade, Stone Temple Pilots released four albums – Core, Purple, Tiny Music … Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop and No. 4 – selling a total of more than 17 million copies in the U.S. alone.
To put it into perspective, across that time span STP sold more albums than such vaunted acts as Aerosmith, Radiohead, Oasis, Rage Against the Machine, Weezer and U2.
Watch Stone Temple Pilots’ ‘Plush’ Video
As high as the band was soaring, the new millennium brought a precipitous fall. Although 2001’s Shangri-La Dee Da nonetheless did reasonably effectively, incomes gold gross sales standing, it paled compared to the band’s earlier efforts. The group quickly broke up, due largely to Weiland’s drug dependancy. His frequent use led to manic habits, arrests and infighting with bandmates.
Cocaine had been a part of the rocker’s life since highschool, nevertheless it was heroin that he embraced in stardom. “There was always an intrigue for me when it came to heroin,” the singer admitted in a 2005 interview with Esquire. “Most of my musical and artistic heroes were connected to dope. Everyone from William Burroughs to Keith Richards and Gram Parsons to Bird, all the jazz greats — if you listen to the fluidity of that music, you can hear heroin in that music.
“There was one thing about it that I used to be undoubtedly drawn to. I questioned why this substance had a lot highly effective attraction, had such an influence to have an effect on music and artwork and lives in such a method that appeared to be so stunning but in addition so darkish and damaging on the identical time. Those two parts, the wonder and the darkness, are what created that seduction for me.”
Watch Stone Temple Pilots’ ‘Interstate Love Song’ Video
After the disbandment of STP – and one other try to get clear – it appeared that the singer had once more landed on his toes with the arrival of Velvet Revolver, a supergroup that includes Weiland and former members of Guns N’ Roses.
“I just thought he was a great singer, and he’d always been on my mind for [Velvet Revolver],” Slash mentioned of Weiland in his autobiography.
“He was the one vocalist that I knew had the kind of voice that would serve what we were going to do: He had a John Lennon-ish quality, a little bit of Jim Morrison and a touch of almost David Bowie. He was the best singer to come out in a long time, in my opinion.” Even although 2004’s Contraband was a multiplatinum success for Velvet Revolver, their follow-up, 2007’s Libertad, did not stay as much as expectations. The group quickly disbanded, once more weighed down by Weiland’s drug abuse.
Watch Velvet Revolver’s ‘Slither’ Video
From there, the rocker ventured right into a largely unsuccessful solo profession. With every of those failed releases – a poorly executed cowl album or disappointing acoustic effort – Weiland’s superb heights with Stone Temple Pilots light additional within the rearview mirror.
Even although the singer rejoined STP in 2010 for a brand new album and intensive touring, they had been unable to rekindle the hearth that made them nice. Weiland performed his last present with the band in 2012, fired for the final time shortly afterward.
Slightly greater than three years later, he could be useless, the results of an unintended overdose.
“It was a feeling I had never experienced,” STP guitarist Dean DeLeo admitted to Billboard of the second he was advised about Weiland’s demise. “My heart dropped. It felt like a part of me fell out.”
“He was so tenacious in his lust for life in the early years,” STP drummer Eric Kretz recalled to Rolling Stone. “I really hoped he would come back — and have a second chance.”
Weiland’s demise despatched shockwaves via the music world. Billy Idol remembered him as a “super-talented” musician who “owned the stage.” Aerosmith’s Joe Perry known as him a “gifted performer,” whereas Myles Kennedy described Weiland as “a captivating frontman who had a gift for writing great melodies.”
In a heartfelt eulogy posted to his weblog, Billy Corgan famous that Weiland’s phrasing and supply “pushed his music into a unique, and hard-to-pin-down, aesthetic sonicsphere.” The Smashing Pumpkins frontman went on to admit: (*7*)
Watch Stone Temple Pilots’ ‘Creep’ Video
Despite these and lots of different posthumous honors, Weiland’s legacy stays cloudy. Although Stone Temple Pilots achieved huge business success, they’re typically considered a second-tier act of the ‘90s, well behind such revered acts as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.
Indeed, it’s intriguing to match Weiland’s profession to that of the latter band’s frontman, Chris Cornell. Both males skilled meteoric rises within the ‘90s fronting hugely successful bands. Both singers enjoyed second acts with supergroups – Weiland with Velvet Revolver, Cornell with Audioslave. Both men struggled in their solo careers, though Cornell can definitely boast better sales numbers. And both men died far too soon. Yet, why is Cornell held in rarefied rock air while Weiland is the more forgotten frontman?
In a Vanity Fair article published immediately after Weiland’s demise, writer Maura Johnston famous that STP had been typically unfairly lumped in with grunge copycats, somewhat than their extra direct influences reminiscent of Bowie and the Beatles. In Johnston’s view, Weiland was key to STP’s “shape-shifting” between numerous rock kinds: “When he was on, he was absolutely magnetic, his wiry frame becoming electrified by the rhythms backing him up. He was a shrewd observer of his peers’ showmanship, and he went for it with the type of zeal that was often viewed with suspicion by the denizens of alternative nation.”
Watch Stone Temple Pilots’ ‘Sour Girl’ Video
Future Rock Legends, a web site specializing in predicting the nominations and inductions for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, suggests Stone Temple Pilots could possibly be inducted as quickly as 2021. While that prediction appears like a stretch, contemplating like-minded however extra critically hailed acts – Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine and Sonic Youth – have but to be enshrined, there’s no denying the overwhelming business success STP loved.
Still, it’s unattainable to take away Weiland’s achievements from his demons, as any dialog concerning the late rocker inevitably entails his many addictions. In that method, the singer’s legacy turns into much less about what was and extra about what might have been.
“His body had suffered an enormous amount of abuse – that’s no secret. But he was not done,” Jamie Weiland, Scott’s widow, admitted to Billboard. “The notion that we’re not supposed to ‘glamorize him’ [because he did drugs]? Fuck that. He’s an icon.”
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