Scott Weiland, who was fired yesterday from Stone Temple Pilots, said he found out about the firing the same way the rest of us did: He read the one-sentence statement the band sent to the media Wednesday.
“I learned of my supposed ‘termination’ from Stone Temple Pilots this morning by reading about it in the press,” Weiland said in a statement. “Not sure how I can be ‘terminated’ from a band that I founded, fronted and co-wrote many of its biggest hits, but that’s something for the lawyers to figure out.”
The statement sent by the band was a simple one: “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.” No reason for the split was offered.
Weiland’s solo tour, which will find him performing tracks from STP’s first two albums, kicks off Friday in Flint, Michigan.
Stone Temple Pilots’ latest album is their self-titled 2010 release.
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This morning, Stone Temple Pilots announced the firing of singer Scott Weiland in a brief, straight-to-the-point news release:
“Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.”
No reason was given for the decision.
In 2011, Weiland told Billboard.com that Stone Temple Pilots would begin working on a new album, the followup to their self-titled 2010 album, in the very near future.
“There is another album coming,” he said, adding some info about the band’s songwriting process: “They usually start before me, just getting some rough ideas together and then putting rough ideas down on ProTools with no lyrics and no melody. And then I start listening to it and see if it’s just a straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll record or if it’s more of a concept album like (2001′s) Shangri-La Dee Da was. Once we decide that, it should go full speed ahead.”
Last year, Weiland told Rolling Stone, “I think [futureusgalleryStone Temple Pilots] kind of overplayed ourselves by playing the same set over and over. I think the band needs to take some time off and be creative again. I always felt that our creativity and the growth we made within making records as artists was equally as important as we were as a live band. The transformation from Core to where we ended up before we took that time off, when I started with Velvet Revolver, was enormous. I think we need to get back to that. I don’t think that touring consistently with a greatest-hits package gets you anywhere. It diminishes things.”
Weiland, who released a Christmas album in 2011, is preparing to hit the road to perform tracks from Stone Temple Pilots’ first two albums, 1992′s Core and 1994′s Purple. The Purple At The Core Tour kicks off March 1 in Flint, Michigan.
Stay tuned for updates as we get them.
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It’s Tuesday–the day that albums come out–and this one includes new shit from Deftones and Death, among others. Check out the list of releases below and let us know which ones you have already or are planning to get.
Black Tusk – Set The Dial (Relapse)
Carnifex – Until I Feel Nothing (Victory)
Counterparts – The Current Will Carry Us (Victory)
Craft – Void (Southern Lord)
Death – Individual Thought Patterns (reissue) (Relapse)
Deftones – The Vinyl Collection, 1995-2011 (box set) (Reprise)
Dub Trio – Dub Trio IV (ROIR)
East Of The Wall – The Apologist (Translation Loss)
Elitist – Earth (Blkheart Group)
Fear and the Nervous System – Fear and the Nervous System (ES)
Giant Squid – Cenotes (Translation Loss)
God Seed – Live At Wacken (CD/DVD) (Indie/Prosthetic)
Hammers of Misfortune – 17th Street (Metal Blade)
Junius – Reports from the Threshold Of Death (Prosthetic)
Molotov Solution – Insurrection (Blackheart)
Noctem – Oblivion (Metal Blade)
Ponykiller – Wilderness (Housecore)
Russian Circles – Empros (Sargent House)
Scott Weiland – The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Rhino)
Skinny Puppy – HanDover (SPV/Synthetic Symphony)
Structures – Divided By (Sumerian)
Thrall – Vermin To The Earth (Moribund)
Wolvhammer – The Obsidian Plains (Profound Lore)
Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland is set to release a Christmas album, titled The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, on October 4. On the record, the former Velvet Revolver singer performs classic Christmas tunes in various styles, including big band swing, orchestrated ballads, reggae, and bossa nova. The full track listing is as follows:
1. “The Christmas Song”
2. “I’ll be Home for Christmas”
3. “White Christmas”
4. “Silent Night”
5. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”
6. “What Child is This?”
7. “Winter Wonderland”
8. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
9. “Happy Christmas and Many More”
10. “O Holy Night”
The record lives up to his legacy with big hooks and driving riffs, but his attack is wholly unique. Beginning with the driving, punk-influenced “Lords of Abbadon,” he sets a desperate, bloodthirsty tone for The Taking with a charging riff and his snarled opening line “We are criminals!” From there, he traverses punk and heavy music’s peaks and valleys from thwapping urgent hard rock (“Dead Skin”) to Foo Fighters–esque anthems (“We Win”) to the Iggy Pop–like closer “Follow Me to Hell.”
The album tells a loose story about a man breaking up with his girlfriend but the songs are written in a way that work outside of the narrative, too. For instance, “Executioner’s Song,” an Alice in Chains–like rocker, which has call-and-response vocals straight out of the Staley-Cantrell songbook, could be as much about politics (“Democracy is such a whore”) as a metaphor for a communication breakdown in a relationship. But if you don’t care about lyrics, it also has a ripping wah-wah guitar solo.
The album’s standout is “Cocaine”—a song that doesn’t tie into the breakup theme—which has a GN’R-quality honky-tonk riff and the infectious chorus “Tremors, shakes, can’t break this chill that’s in my veins” and the lyric “I hid a gun in a darkened place/a simple short arm’s length away/Somebody’s got to pay/I hate the world today,” which might be a day in the life of Duff during the height of his drug paranoia circa 1991. Maybe the GN’R riff is a metaphor itself alluding to how far McKagan has come. Then again, what good is a résumé if it doesn’t show how you’ve progressed? KORY GROW
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