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Authors: Scott Weiland
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Stone cover. Thirteen rehab stints in three years. This is the 1996–1997 run behind Tiny Music .
The guys—Robert, Dean, Eric—knew I was hurting. “We’re your brothers,” they said. “Just tell us what’s happening. We don’t want to hear about it in the papers. We want you to come to us first.”
Brotherhood. Solidarity. Money on the line. We had a million dollars lined up for a gig in Anchorage and two in Hawaii. After we played Jay Leno’s Tonight Show , I gathered up my courage and talked to Dean, Robert, and Eric, man to man.
“Okay, guys,” I said. “I’ll level with you. I’ve been chipping. But I have enough meds to get me through these gigs. And I’ll bring a sober guy along with me, at my expense, to make sure I stay straight.”
Next thing I know, my own Stoned Brother Pilots call a press conference and cancel the gigs, telling the world, in essence, that because of their junkie lead singer, the tour can’t go on.
It was a vicious move, even more so when “our” lawyers demanded that I pay them —out of my own pocket—the million dollars caused by the cancellation.
I was through. I was out.
I was back in rehab.
I was out of rehab.
I was back on dope.
I was married to Jannina and, in one of these half-recovered states, went home to find her with another man. She cried, she apologized, she felt terrible, but I felt worse. I said, “Look, the way I’ve treated you, this is hardly your fault.”
The marriage was over. The divorce took forever and cost me a fortune.
From 12 Bar Blues
F AR AS BANDS GO, I’VE ALWAYS BEEN HALF OUT AND HALF IN . My nature is that of an individual artist. I can get excited about joining the team and going for the gold; I can even be a gung ho team player, but not for long. No doubt, STP was born out of my soul—and the souls of Robert, Dean, and Eric. As I write, STP is completing a new record, and the reunion feels good, even organic, because the band’s initial impulse had genuine artistic merit. I expect that STP, as both a recording and touring band, will endure. Our relationship to our fans is based on a shared passion and a history that is nearly twenty years old. Creatively, we continue to inspire one another and my hope is that we all grow old together, but just not in tight leather pants. I prefer a more graceful approach—Bryan Ferry, David Bowie.
At the same time, my loner sensibility remains a part of who I am. The pattern is pretty clear: When I had the falling-out with STP after Tiny Music , I went off and did my first solo project, 12 Bar Blues . When I later fell out with Velvet Revolver, the band I joined after STP, I went off and did my second solo project, Happy in Galoshes . Both projects brought me deep satisfaction. It was also a way to tell my bandmates, “Ciao, so long, buenas noches .” But beyond my temporary anger, I needed some artistic time away from STP.
On 12 Bar , I was reflecting on being alone, reflecting on how I had hurt Jannina. In a song called “The Date”—which I wrote, played all the instruments, recorded, and mixed in about an hour—I sang about how “she waits for a date and yet she knows that he’s not coming.” I was in a Lennon-circa-his-primal-scream-period phase. It wasn’t about making beautiful music; it was just raw emotion. I was pleased, though, when Daniel Lanois called it the most beautiful of my songs.
Raw emotion drove a song like “Mockingbird Girl,” which I had written when, for a short period, I was with a group called the Magnificent Bastards, a side project that allowed me to take new sorts of musical risks. The band was an excuse for one great song and a lot of broken needles. “Mockingbird Girl” concerns a friend who fell for a girl whom he couldn’t quite grab hold of. It was used in a film called Tank Girl and, to my ears, has a George Martin Beatles sound.
While in the studio working on 12 Bar , I happened to glance at the TV. The film Barbarella was on, and I
The guys—Robert, Dean, Eric—knew I was hurting. “We’re your brothers,” they said. “Just tell us what’s happening. We don’t want to hear about it in the papers. We want you to come to us first.”
Brotherhood. Solidarity. Money on the line. We had a million dollars lined up for a gig in Anchorage and two in Hawaii. After we played Jay Leno’s Tonight Show , I gathered up my courage and talked to Dean, Robert, and Eric, man to man.
“Okay, guys,” I said. “I’ll level with you. I’ve been chipping. But I have enough meds to get me through these gigs. And I’ll bring a sober guy along with me, at my expense, to make sure I stay straight.”
Next thing I know, my own Stoned Brother Pilots call a press conference and cancel the gigs, telling the world, in essence, that because of their junkie lead singer, the tour can’t go on.
It was a vicious move, even more so when “our” lawyers demanded that I pay them —out of my own pocket—the million dollars caused by the cancellation.
I was through. I was out.
I was back in rehab.
I was out of rehab.
I was back on dope.
I was married to Jannina and, in one of these half-recovered states, went home to find her with another man. She cried, she apologized, she felt terrible, but I felt worse. I said, “Look, the way I’ve treated you, this is hardly your fault.”
The marriage was over. The divorce took forever and cost me a fortune.
From 12 Bar Blues
F AR AS BANDS GO, I’VE ALWAYS BEEN HALF OUT AND HALF IN . My nature is that of an individual artist. I can get excited about joining the team and going for the gold; I can even be a gung ho team player, but not for long. No doubt, STP was born out of my soul—and the souls of Robert, Dean, and Eric. As I write, STP is completing a new record, and the reunion feels good, even organic, because the band’s initial impulse had genuine artistic merit. I expect that STP, as both a recording and touring band, will endure. Our relationship to our fans is based on a shared passion and a history that is nearly twenty years old. Creatively, we continue to inspire one another and my hope is that we all grow old together, but just not in tight leather pants. I prefer a more graceful approach—Bryan Ferry, David Bowie.
At the same time, my loner sensibility remains a part of who I am. The pattern is pretty clear: When I had the falling-out with STP after Tiny Music , I went off and did my first solo project, 12 Bar Blues . When I later fell out with Velvet Revolver, the band I joined after STP, I went off and did my second solo project, Happy in Galoshes . Both projects brought me deep satisfaction. It was also a way to tell my bandmates, “Ciao, so long, buenas noches .” But beyond my temporary anger, I needed some artistic time away from STP.
On 12 Bar , I was reflecting on being alone, reflecting on how I had hurt Jannina. In a song called “The Date”—which I wrote, played all the instruments, recorded, and mixed in about an hour—I sang about how “she waits for a date and yet she knows that he’s not coming.” I was in a Lennon-circa-his-primal-scream-period phase. It wasn’t about making beautiful music; it was just raw emotion. I was pleased, though, when Daniel Lanois called it the most beautiful of my songs.
Raw emotion drove a song like “Mockingbird Girl,” which I had written when, for a short period, I was with a group called the Magnificent Bastards, a side project that allowed me to take new sorts of musical risks. The band was an excuse for one great song and a lot of broken needles. “Mockingbird Girl” concerns a friend who fell for a girl whom he couldn’t quite grab hold of. It was used in a film called Tank Girl and, to my ears, has a George Martin Beatles sound.
While in the studio working on 12 Bar , I happened to glance at the TV. The film Barbarella was on, and I
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