New West Records
It was simply a matter of time. Scott Weiland — frontman for Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver and a bipolar addict for years — died Friday in his sleep, reportedly of a heart attack. He was 48. Weiland was on tour in Minnesota with his latest project, The Wildabouts. Cocaine was found on his tour bus.
Weiland had a long history of bipolar depression. He also bounced in and out of rehab and shot heroin – he said – until 2004.
I saw Stone Temple Pilots in 1993, when I was 13 years old, at Milwaukee Summerfest in Wisconsin. It was my first true alternative-rock concert and it was eye-opening. The previous summer at the same festival, I had seen Bon Jovi. But STP was different. Raw. Edgy. Primal. Different. Just different.
The band was at the top of its game, with MTV repeatedly airing the music video for “Plush,” a song that would go on to win a Grammy and earn the band the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Along with Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots had a sound that was dubbed “grunge.”
It seemed as if Weiland had cleaned up his act by the spring of 2005, when I saw him at Jones Beach on Long Island, New York, as lead singer of Velvet Revolver, a supergroup that featured Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum from Guns N’ Roses.
R.I.P. Scott Weiland
1967-2015
