Scott Weiland in 2000, onstage in Las Vegas, on tour with the Stone Temple Pilots, promoting the group’s album “No. 4.”Credit
Ethan Miller/Reuters Scott Weiland,
whose mercurial vocal style was a signature of the rock band he helped
start, the Stone Temple Pilots, and later of the band Velvet Revolver,
died on Thursday in Bloomington, Minn. He was 48.
His manager, Tom Vitorino, confirmed the death. A statement posted to Mr. Weiland’s Facebook and Instagram pages said he died in his sleep while on a tour stop with his current band, Scott Weiland & the Wildabouts.
The
cause of death had not been determined as of late Friday. The police
said they found “a small quantity” of cocaine during a search of the
band’s tour bus. The Wildabouts had been scheduled to perform on
Thursday night in Medina, Minn., at the Medina Entertainment Center.
Mr.
Weiland released one album with the Wildabouts, “Blaster,” this year,
and the band was near the end of a fall tour of clubs and small
theaters. But at the height of the Stone Temple Pilots’ fame in the
1990s, he was known for commanding large stages. One of his signature
moves was shouting lyrics through a megaphone held up to his microphone.
The
Stone Temple Pilots were formed in California in the late 1980s by Mr.
Weiland; the brothers Dean and Robert DeLeo, on guitar and bass; and the
drummer Eric Kretz.
The group was initially dismissed by critics as a knockoff of popular Seattle-based acts like Pearl Jam, but it found a large fan base
with broody melodies and memorable riffs. It was later credited with
introducing to grunge the stadium-rock ambitions of ’70s bands. Danny
Goldberg, former manager of another Seattle group, Nirvana, signed Mr.
Weiland’s band to Atlantic Records in 1992.
In September of that year the group released its first studio album, “Core,” which included the hits “Plush” and “Creep.” The second Stone Temple Pilots album, “Purple,” which included the songs “Vasoline” and “Interstate Love Song,” was released two years later. Together, the two records sold 14 million copies in the United States, and “Plush” earned a Grammy for best hard rock performance in 1994.
The band released three more albums before going on hiatus in 2001; it reunited and released an album titled simply “Stone Temple Pilots” in 2010.
Three years later, the group parted ways with Mr. Weiland, posting a brief message on its website that said he had been “officially terminated.”
Mr. Weiland, who struggled with drug addiction,
was often seen as defiant and bedraggled, but he was also a capable
singer with a gruff, powerful voice. He said in interviews that he had
been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Photo
Scott Weiland, then the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots, performing at a concert in Speedway, Ind., in 2008.Credit
Steve C. Mitchell/European Pressphoto Agency
In
1995, he was arrested on suspicion of possessing cocaine and heroin and
completed a rehabilitation program. He entered rehab again in 1996,
forcing the band to cancel a tour supporting the album “Tiny Music ...
Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop.”
“It
got to the point where I didn’t feel like I got a good enough rush
unless I had one hand on the needle and one hand dialing 911,” he told Rolling Stone in 1997.
Two years later, he was sentenced to a year in jail for violating probation that resulted from a 1998 arrest in connection with heroin possession.
Mr.
Weiland released his first solo album, “12 Bar Blues,” in 1998 and its
follow-up, “ ‘Happy’ in Galoshes,” a decade later. He also released a
holiday album, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” in 2011.
But Mr. Weiland’s greatest fame outside the Stone Temple Pilots was found with Velvet Revolver,
a band consisting of three former members of Guns N’ Roses — Slash,
Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum — and the guitarist Dave Kushner.
The group’s 2004 debut,
“Contraband,” reached No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and included
two gold-selling singles, “Slither” and “Fall to Pieces.” “Slither” also
received a Grammy for best hard rock performance in 2005.
But
Mr. Weiland’s time in Velvet Revolver also ended in chaos. In 2008, the
band dismissed him, releasing a statement that said his “increasingly
erratic onstage behavior and personal problems” were partly to blame.
Mr.
Weiland was born Scott Richard Kline on Oct. 27, 1967, in San Jose,
Calif. His parents divorced when he was 2 years old, and his mother,
Sharon, married David Weiland, who formally adopted him.
The
family moved to Ohio, and in his 2011 memoir, “Not Dead & Not for
Sale,” Mr. Weiland disclosed that he had been sexually abused when he
was 12 years old by a “muscular” high school senior.
The
family moved back to California when Mr. Weiland was a teenager. He
said that he had difficulty fitting in at his new high school, and that
he started experimenting with drugs and alcohol after playing varsity
football.
At
16, he started his first band. He met Robert DeLeo at a concert; Dean
DeLeo joined in 1989, and the group finalized its lineup with Mr. Kretz.
Mr.
Weiland married Janina Castaneda in the 1990s. After their divorce, he
was married to the model Mary Forsberg from 2000 to 2007; the couple had
two children, Noah and Lucy. He married the photographer Jamie Wachtel
in 2013.
Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.
Mr.
Weiland was remembered on social media by a number of his
contemporaries, including Krist Novoselic of Nirvana, the singer and
songwriter Ryan Adams and the guitarist Dave Navarro.
“It’s not my loss,” Mr. Navarro wrote, “it’s our loss.”
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