Scott Weiland R.I.P.
It’s our sad duty to report the death of Scott Weiland, formerly of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, at the age of just 48. Weiland was on tour with his band the Wildabouts, and his passing was confirmed by his manager Tom Vitorino on Thursday evening (3 December). He is reported to have been found on his tour bus.
Weiland was widely hailed as one of the great rock frontmen of his day. He was a founder member of Stone Temple Pilots, who rose to fame with the massively successful 1993 album Core, which sold more than eight million copies in the US alone. They topped the US chart with the 1994 follow-up Purple, and enjoyed continuingly widespread popularity throughout the decade, although Weiland’s problems with drug addiction became a recurring feature.
He became a member of rock “supergroup” Velvet Revolver, with Dave Kushner and former Guns N’ Roses alumni Slash, Duff McKagen and Matt Sorum, They too had immense success, including a No. 1 US album in 2004 with Contraband. Weiland ultimately left the band, who cited his “erratic behaviour.”
“We opened for STP in 2000,” tweeted the members of Wheatus. “I watched them side stage and Scott Weiland destroyed me, he was the real thing. Seeing him changed me forever.”
“I always looked at myself as an artist in the studio, and a performer onstage, the dark clown playing out dark theatre,” Weiland told Kerrang! in 2004. “It’s performance art. If I can’t be taken over by that character, then there’s no use in doing it at all. I’m not myself onstage, it’s another person who I allow to take over the person you’re speaking to.”
UK English
