Scott Weiland, a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and guitarist, is most remembered for his powerful lead vocals in the mainstream rock bands “Stone Temple Pilots” and “Velvet Revolver” in addition to “Art of Anarchy.” He enjoyed significant success as a solo performer throughout a career that lasted more than three decades, releasing two cover albums, and three studio albums, and working well with other musicians. He started his own band, “Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts,” toward the end of his career, but the group received mixed reviews. Additionally, Weiland is noted for his erratic and flamboyant onstage behavior, which was mocked by reviewers in his early career. He would frequently alter his appearance in addition to engaging in stage antics like singing over a megaphone during a concert. Weiland portrayed an almost androgynous appeal that suggested menace and decadence, similar to Jim Morrison and David Bowie. His reputation as a gifted and diverse artist, however, was severely tarnished by persistent legal and personal issues including substance misuse, for which he had to serve five months in prison and which ultimately led to the end of his life and career.
Early Childhood & Life
On October 27, 1967, Scott Weiland was born to Kent and Sharon Kline in San Jose, California, where he also spent his first five years of life.
He was formally adopted by his stepfather David Weiland after his parent’s marriage broke down; Scott used his stepfather’s last name and went to Bainbridge Township in Ohio to live with him and his mother.
He went to the local high school, Kenston High School, in Bainbridge Township. He began singing in the school choir at a young age and was a natural option to sing the solo at the Christmas concert due to his keen interest in the art.
He was raped and forced into silence when he was 12 years old in Ohio by a high school student; he finally came forward with this information when he was in his mid-teens.
He later relocated back to Southern California as a kid and began attending Edison High School in Huntington Beach, where he formed his first band and spent more time playing gigs and partying than he did in class. After discovering narcotics in his room, his mother and stepfather sent him to treatment.
He enrolled at Orange Coast College in Orange County after graduating from high school. He became friends with bassist Robert DeLeo while still in college, and they eventually joined forces to form the band “Stone Temple Pilots,” where he found much of his professional success.
He temporarily worked as a paste-up artist for the “Los Angeles Daily Journal,” a legal newspaper, before devoting himself fully to a career in music.
Career of Scott Weiland
In 1986, Scott Weiland and Robert DeLeo first crossed paths at a Long Beach, California, performance of “Black Flag.” The group, called “Stone Temple Pilots,” was formed by the two, along with Weiland’s old pals Corey Hicock and David Allin. They chose the name because they liked the letters STP. Hicock and Allin were quickly replaced by Eric Kretz and Dean, DeLeo’s brother.
Four songs from their 1992 first album, “Core,” went on to become big hits: “Wicked Garden,” “Sex Type Thing,” “Plush,” and “Creep.”
Their 1994 second album, “Purple,” which featured the massive songs “Vasoline,” “Big Empty,” and “Interstate Love Song,” was equally well received by reviewers and the general audience. It sold over 6 million copies.
Despite early success, Weiland quit “Stone Temple Pilots” in 1995 to start the alternative rock group “The Magnificent Bastards.” The group only released two songs: “Mockingbird Girl,” which was featured in the movie “Mockingbird Girl,” and “How Do You Sleep?” which was covered and included in the tribute CD “Working Class Hero: A Tribute to John Lennon.”
Weiland rejoined “Stone Temple Pilots” in late 1995, although the band was forced to postpone the majority of its performances in 1996 and 1997 in order to concentrate on writing, recording, and publishing their third album, “Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop.”
Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, which was released on March 26, 1996, garnered mixed reviews and sold 2 million copies, but has since been acclaimed as one of the finest rock albums of the mid-1990s for the band’s drastic reshaping of its image. Up to three of the album’s songs peaked at number one on the “Mainstream Rock Tracks” list. While influencing some of Weiland’s compositions at the time, his drug addiction also caused him to serve time in jail.
His debut solo album, “12 Bar Blues,” was released in 1998 and explored musical genres other than the typical hard rock; sales, however, were ordinary.
Weiland had a busy year in 1999: “STP” released their fourth album, “No.4”; he joined the rock supergroup “The Wondergirls” and cut two songs with them; and he also served five months in jail for drug use.
STP’s fifth album, “Shangri-La Dee Da,” came out on June 19, 2001. That same year, the band, together with “Staind and Static-X” and “Linkin Park,” made waves on the “Family Values Tour.”
Weiland and the DeLeo brothers had irreconcilable conflicts, which led to the dissolution of “Stone Temple Pilots” in 2002. Weiland joined the hard rock band “Velvet Revolver,” which included several former “Guns N’ Roses” members.
Despite harsh criticism from critics, Velvet Revolver’s debut album, “Contraband,” which was released in 2004, was a huge commercial success, selling more than three million copies globally. Two of its songs also saw gold-certificate sales. For the song “Slither,” the group received the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal.
Libertad, the second album by Velvet Revolver, was released in 2007. Velvet Revolver embarked on a tour with the Seattle-based rock group “Alice in Chains” after the success of the song “She Builds Quick Machines.” Weiland, however, left the group in April 2008 because of disagreements with the other members on their schedule of performances at summer festivals.
After six years apart, “STP” came back together in 2008 and announced a U.S. tour with 73 dates. The tour’s first show was on May 17, 2008, at the “Rock on the Range” festival.
He went on tour in 2009 to support the release of his second solo album, Happy in Galoshes, which was published in November 2008.
In 2009, the trio began recording the album “Stone Temple Pilots,” which was released on May 25, 2010, as a result of the success of the reunion tour.
The band went on a tour of Southeast Asia in 2011, playing to sold-out crowds in Manila, Jakarta, and then Sydney and Melbourne. At Christmas of the same year, Weiland also made available his third solo CD, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
STP performed a tour in 2012 to mark the 20th anniversary of their debut album, “Core,” but they omitted from it the release of the new album, the archival material, or even the coffee table book that had been planned.
On February 27, 2013, STP made an official announcement on their website that they had fired Scott Weiland and had replaced him with Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington as their lead singer. Weiland, who claimed he was still a band member and that the group could not be called STP without him, naturally caused controversy.
Weiland started his own band, “Scott Weiland & The Wildabouts,” in 2013, played at various events, and in 2015, he released his fourth and last solo album, “Blaster.”
His debut album with Major Works, “Core,” which also featured the song “Plush,” earned him the 1994 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal.
Six million copies of his second album, “Purple,” which was a tremendous smash, were sold.
Personal Legacy & Life
Weiland had three marriages, two of which ended in divorce: his first marriage to Janina Castenada and his second to model Mary Forsberg, with whom he had two daughters. Weiland, who passed away at the age of 48, is survived by his children, Noah and Lucy, as well as by Jamie, his third wife, a photographer.
On December 3, 2015, in Bloomington, Minnesota, while on tour with “Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts,” he passed away from a heroin overdose.
Scott Weiland’s life and career were both triumphant and turbulent. He was gifted with a distinctive voice that brought him international praise as well as criticism for imitating grunge stars Pearl Jam and Nirvana, and he had a stage presence that was, to put it mildly, dramatic.
Scott Weiland’s Net Worth
Trivia
After learning that they were dating the same female, he grew close to Robert DeLeo.
Before, the band was known as Mighty Joe Young.
Weiland was the owner of his own record company, Soft Drive Records.
He received a bipolar disorder diagnosis in the late 1990s.