Remembering Scott Weiland, A Year Later

Scott Weiland circa 1994 credit: MTV Unplugged

One can hardly believe its been a year since Scott Weiland's passing.I remember hearing the news around night time.The news about his death in which it took around 12 hours to determine what was the real cause.

Stone Temple Pilots have ruled the airwaves and sold millions of records locally and around the world.With eight songs peaking at number one,the band that started off as Mighty Joe Young in 1985 took about a decade to savor the pennacles of rock success.

And of course,the band's triumph owes a great deal with the band's lead vocalist.It's very unimaginable a kid in the 90s who doesn't own a Stone Temple Pilots CD.Personally,I  consider Scott as one of my heroes being the young boy I was in that decade.Though I gotta admit that I have never been to an STP gig[counting the fact that I was too young to go and the monetary factor of course],their albums somewhat became a soundtrack of my everyday life.

Scott's voice defined that unique grunge sound of the 90s alongside Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. When the genre died down after the former's death,STP reinvented themselves,gathering inspiration from 60s rock particularly the Beatles with whom they openly admitted the fab four being such a huge influence. The band changed their sound,adopting from psychedelia with Weiland changing the course of his singing voice as well from deep baritone to a high pitch Beatlesque similar to that of John Lennon's.Their music,just like their idols' became somewhat more adventurous.Paying tribute to what would be the 30th anniversary of the summer of love at the time, and making the last decade of the 20th Century a parallel twin of an era that was christened as the cultural revolution of rock music.Sadly, STP broke up bitterly in 2002.

I dont know,but even though Velvet Revolver sold a million albums and won numerous awards,I just couldn't help but think of it as a Guns N Roses/ STP mash up which is in fact the truth.The band sounded good and of course had the good hype but every now and then its still STP where most people would identify Scott with.

Booze and drugs were a common thing for rock stars, even Paul McCartney had the same problems with drug busts during his youth and we kept on hearing about Scott Weiland getting arrested over a few pounds of dope in one way or the other and somehow lived through it.I guess everyone won't think that it would end that way the night of December 3rd 2015.

 Music has changed a lot and unfortunately not for the better.But as Ringo Starr had said,bands will always come through-well,hopefully.I suppose there will always be kids who's gonna be pissed off with what's going on in today's music and would eventually form a band or two so that everything will be alright again.Dave Grohl once described the same thing in an interview what their thoughts of 1990 would've been.Nevertheless,grunge rockers like Scott Weiland has put his mark on it.A mark that will stand the test of time.


(c) 2016 Keith Vernon Adagio