Scott Weiland – An Appreciation – 1967 – 2015 – by Killian Laher

We were saddened to hear about the death of ex-Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland.  From their early days in 1992 on the Core album they were derided as grunge bandwagon jumpers, probably because they weren’t from Seattle and also due to Weiland’s vocal performance on Plush.

They were more of a heavy pop band, and a damn good one at that.  With some great riffs and killer choruses they had numerous highlights across their many albums.  While Core was probably their heaviest and most popular (the year of its release probably helped), they really hit their stride on subsequent albums.  And Weiland’s strong vocals were at the centre of this.  Their second album, Purple saw them settle into their groove.  Heavy, riffy pop songs like Interstate Love Song are as good a driving rock song as there is.  However success belied a darker edge which crept in on tracks such as Still Remains  (“if you should die before me ask if you can bring a friend”).

They really hit their stride on 1996’s all over the shop Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop – Big Bang Baby  has an impossibly cheeky Stones reference , while Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart sounded a defiant note (“I’m not dead and I’m not for sale”).  However Weiland’s ongoing battle with hard drugs led to cancellation of 1996 tour,  The rest of the band struggled without him (releasing an album as Talk Show, but Weiland had serious notions about himself as a sort of Bowie-type figure, and these came to fruition on his first solo album 12 Bar Blues with odd jazz-like experiments and The Man Who Fell To Earth-inspired Barbarella.

The band returned with a vengeance on their patchy fourth album (No 4) which had some of the stronger, slower songs in their catalogue.  The likes of Atlanta showed Weiland at his crooning best, but this period was again dogged by his drug problems.

A ropey fifth album put the band on hiatus and Weiland joined pseudo-metal supergroup Velvet Revolver teaming up with Slash and other ex-Guns ‘n’ Roses members.  Though some of material hasn’t aged well, highlights included 2004’s Slither-

After that things became… spottier.  A ropey second solo album “Happy” In Galoshes  was of mixed quality and 2010’s Stone Temple Pilots reunion album produced little of note.  The oddest album of Weiland’s career might be 2011’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, where he played it straight on an album of Christmas standards, such as Winter Wonderland.  The man’s demons never quite left him and the rest of the Stone Temple Pilots booted him out in 2013, replacing him with Chester Bennington from Linkin Park.  However Weiland re-emerged this year with another solo album Blaster and a new band the Wildabouts and it seemed like he might have turned a corner.  However, years of substance abuse finally caught up with him, passing away in his sleep on a tour bus aged a mere 48.

I was lucky enough to see him perform live on two occasions – 2008 in the Ambassador with Velvet Revolver and 2010 in the Olympia STP reunion tour.  Both occasions showed the frontman on top form expending huge energy scaling the balcony of the Olympia to belt out Dead and Bloated

Scott Weiland never quite fixed on what exactly he was – hard rocker?  Bowie-esque chameleon?  Not sure.  But he could certainly sing the hell out of a song, and his fans will badly miss him.