On December 3, 2015 one of the greatest frontmen rock ever knew lost his longtime battle with drugs and substances. It’s truly a tragic story. As the voice of Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Weiland became one of the most well known and respected frontmen in rock during the ’90s. Unfortunately, it was his infamous personal battles, one of which that put him in jail, that made him a household name. After a successful STP tour in support of their 4th album No. 4, he lent his vocal talents to the super group Velvet Revolver, featuring then former Guns N’ Roses members Slash, Duff, and Matt Sorum. After a short reunion with his STP band-mates and a solo album, it was a cold December night in Minnesota that Scott’s body finally gave up. He Was 48 years old.
A few years later Revolver magazine did an interview with Dean DeLeo where he opened up about the late STP singer.
“Scott and I lived together when we were pursuing a recording contract and playing everywhere we could. He was so electric and so full of life, so full of art, so expressive. I really looked up to him in a lot of different ways, man. I have just the greatest memories of us going out in the very early days of STP and how wonderful that was — and how wonderful he was before things really started stepping into his life. He was very pure.
Other things took over and Scott was no longer in control for many years. No matter how you slice it, the ending like that is just tragic. And these are just the publicized ones, man. Thousands of people do this on a daily basis. When you think about all the moms and dads and aunts and uncles — anyone who suffers a loss of that magnitude, man — it’s so heartbreaking and it just leaves you puzzled. You’re inundated with unanswered questions. I just hate it, man.”
