Weiland's wild ride continues with Velvet RevolverBy Tom Lanham, CONTRIBUTOR
Article Last Updated: 05/04/2007 08:53:18 AM PDT
IT'S BEEN NO CAKEWALK, says Scott Weiland, fronting two of the biggest, baddest rock juggernauts of the past 15 years ? Stone Temple Pilots and his latest all-star outfit Velvet Revolver.
But if you think that's tough, try on this challenge for size: Acting. The Hollywood native just lost a coveted role in director Joe Carnahan's upcoming flick after four confidence-crushing auditions. Here's how the process usually works, he explains.
"Just sitting there at a table with a digital camera pointed at you, someone sitting there with the script in hand, staring at you very deadpan, me with my script sitting across from them very deadpan. And you're just supposed to get that 'thing' across in your voice, with no animation. That is very difficult for me.
"Very, very difficult."
But it's not like this Santa-Cruz-born singer ? once as renowned for his high-profile drug busts as his foppish, flamboyant wardrobe ? doesn't have a lot of other things going for him these days. Velvet Revolver's'04 debut, "Contraband," debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, launched two hit singles ? "Fall To Pieces" and the Grammy-winning "Slither" ? and quickly went triple platinum. Weiland also recently: launched his own label, Softdrive Records; put the finishing touches on a Brendan O'Brien-produced VR followup, "Libertad" (out July 3 on RCA); and contributed a spooky processional "Beautiful Day" to the soundtrack of William Friedkin's new shocker
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"Bug," with an accompanying video directed by Friedkin himself. Also in the'07 works: his own rock star-inspired clothing line; a sophomore solo album; and a tell-all autobiography.
To top it all off, Weiland is leading his gang of Revolvers ? which consists of ex-Guns 'N Roses bandmates Slash (guitar), Matt Sorum (drums) and Duff McKagan (bass), plus guitarist Dave Kushner ? on a national tour. The group hits the Warfield for a "Libertad" preview gig on Saturday.
When first piecing the album together with Rick Rubin (later replaced by STP vet O'Brien), Weiland had one pressing concern: Now that he was clean and sober and no longer under police scrutiny (save a recent hotel spat with his wife, who reportedly torched $10,000 worth of his clothes), what could he possibly have to say, lyrically? But he made a curious discovery. Drug abuse, he relates, "is something that colors life its own shade ? my brother passed away during the making of this album due to drugs. But when you don't have that as your crutch to write about all the time, it's amazing that there are so many other interesting things to focus on instead, just to write about for album material."
The set kicks off with the gear-grinding single "She Builds Quick Machines," then follows a subtle motif of freedom (hence its rescheduled release date, one day before the Fourth Of July holiday). Bush and his systematic erosion of our civil rights, Weiland says, "is just one aspect of 'Libertad.' How does that freedom translate to the individual, to personal freedom and how you see yourself living as a human, day to day? I mean, we could all use a little more liberty.
"And that's where my concept came from, how it started out. So I started getting into this writing mode, this thing with Rick Rubin, which didn't pan out. But with Brendan, things happened immediately, literally within the first two days of him coming on board. The energy changed completely, and all the tracks started moving forward. And at that point, I kind of abandoned this idea for a concept album and decided, 'You know, I just want to make a record where every song is as important as the next song, an album that's just filled with amazing material.'"
Listening back to the finished sessions on headphones, Weiland was stunned.
"There really was a concept coming out of it, and the name 'Libertad' ? the first thing we thought of before we started writing songs ? resonated throughout all of the music. So in the act of not trying to have a concept album," he chortles, "the concept endured over the entire album. And honestly, I really believe that it's the best rock record that I've made since (the'96 STP classic) 'Tiny Music.'"
The vocalist, 39, pauses to play dad for a minute, breaking up a loud video-game squabble between his 6-year-old son Noah and his 4-year-old daughter Lucy (apparently, Junior's swank X-Box/GameCube/PlayStation setup in his bedroom just wasn't enough).
Yes, he confesses, he's come a long way from his paranoid pawnshop/druggie days, when he "felt at home hanging out in downtown Los Angeles with junkies, hoods and whores." Which is why he's penning his book. He says he's tired of being misquoted by a bloodthirsty press; he just wants to set the record straight on that checkered past, once and for all.
"And I'm still in the process of writing it, because it's been so crazy," he says. "I thought there were gonna be a lot of breaks after we finished the last Velvet Revolver tour, but there haven't been."
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