Solo and suited up, Scott Weiland prepares for take off
By James Hunter
"Today, I am not suffering," Scott Weiland says. "I am not dope sick." The frontman for Stone Temple Pilots claims his fuckup days are behind him. Before he completed his court-ordered rehab, it was one drug hassle after another; sober stretches giving way to relapses, aborted cleanups, tour reschedulings, and terse press releases that never quite explained if STP were among the living or the dead. But for the past year he's been recording his solo debut 12 Bar Blues, which is due out sometime this spring. "The music," he deadpans, "has nothing to do with twelve-bar blues."
During the high-Seattle years at the start of the decade, Weiland did time as the critics favorite faux-grunge punching bag. Now, alone, as the other Stone Temple Pilots have been touring with the country as Talk Show, he seems focused, unstung, and more than willing to accept the burdens with which flashy rock stars must trouble themselves; art, fashion, and sobriety. "My reconr has the energy of L.A.," he says. "In L.A. you have skid row, heroin, and crack, and then ten minutes away you have Malibu."
Weiland has made an album that, as he hears, it, covers different shades of glam- from samba to rock to dance. On "Lady, Your Roof Brings Me Down," which will appear on the soundtrack of Great Expecations (starring Ethan Hawke), he comes off like the headliner of a tough little cabaret in Silverlake. In "Barbarella," Weiland begs Jane Fonda's interplanetary superbabe to save him from his misery.
He's just about done with the thing, but he still has mixing to do, including a few tracks with Daniel Lanois, the atmospheric heavyweight behind Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy and U2's Achtung Baby.
As vexed as Weiland's STP relations became, he never dreamed of storming out to cut a solo record. When the rest of STP became Talk Show, he briefly considered forming another side band like his previous arrangement with the Magnificent Bastards. "Then I started wondering, Do I really want to put a whole other band together? One dysfunctional family is enough."
Weiland says he's always admired David Bowie's fierce independence; he thinks Bowie has done at least as well as any band. "Bowie's whole persona- this beautiful marriage of art, rock 'n' rock, and fashion- mesmerized me. I thought, If I could ever have any kind of solo career, it would something along the lines of that- you know, making interesting, artistice music, but with the main point being to write great songs."
But the burden of great songs is that they practically beg for an equally strong presence. And on that point, Weiland lives ip to the prevailing ethic of post-Seattle rock stardom. "I don't fell uncomfortable being a rock star anymore," he says. "After everything I've benn through I don't fell uncomfprtable driving my BMW down the street or shopping at Fred Segal."
He rhapsodizes about a one-of-a-kind coat he just bought there- brown leather, lined and trimmed in Burmese mountian goat, "a Brian Jones type of coat." But his most recent look at the clothes racks have left him flat; He's not so into this year's loose tailoring; thinks designers are making clothes "for fat guys."
And on Planet Weiland, that doesn't cut it. "Rock stars," he pronounces, "look good skinny, and they don't look good fat." And you can forget spandex. "To me, rock 'n' roll is not leopard prints," he says. "It could be a whitle linen suit, a black shirt with a white tie- the way the Beattles dressed in Let It Be. You know- get out of your Rolls-Royce wearing a big fur coat, a suit, a tie, nice loafers..."
And Mariannce Faithful in tow?
"Exactly. It's a big change from the holey Levi's and punk-band shirts. That looked cool on Seattle bands, but it was never my scene. I'm a fashion whore."
Which may explain some of his troubles. Balancing the glamorous and the mundane, he knows, is the trick. "I guess it's a paradox," he says, "wanting to live this, like, fabulous life and also wanting to have a normal life. Can you have both?" he asks hopefully, if a little unsure. "It's possible," he finally says. "But wheter you're an auto mechanic or a rock star, the world's still going to be a frustrating place."
