Scott Weiland Talks New Beginnings with The Wildabouts

It's well documented that rock 'n' roll brings out the best and the worst in Scott Weiland. He's seen the highest of highs fronting bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, both which were massively successful. Weiland's demons have also followed him for the past 20 years and were the catalyst for both of those bands moving on without him. His antics are as legendary as his music career, which he is trying to rebuild with his solo project Scott Weiland and Wildabouts. The band will kick off their tour on Sunday at Pub Rock in Scottsdale, and Up On the Sun caught up with Weiland to talk about his third shot at music.

See also: 10 Years Ago, My Bandmate Knocked Danzig Out

Since the new record Blaster doesn't come out till March 31, are you going to be playing older material or will you mix it up?

We'll do at least three STP songs but the bulk of it will be the new album. I did a bunch of touring in 2014 on the Purple to the Core tour where we played a lot STP stuff and VR stuff, and it kinda got to the point where people had seen us play that stuff so much our fans were looking forward us playing new material. We finally have a new album and it's actually exciting to play the new album but we will make sure to play a couple covers and three STP songs as well.

After checking out some of the songs on the new record I thought it had a kind of fuzzy '70s retro garage vibe to it, was that the sound you were going for?

Yeah, definitely that is what we were going for. We actually came up with a sound for the album, a certain vibe before we even started writing the songs.

This was the first time you've done a proper record with the guys in the Wildabouts backing you, so what was the writing process like?

It was great, I was excited the whole time. It felt very much like making Core, that kind of excitement that freshness, that invigoration of creating with guys you that get along with. We had a great relationship with Rick Parker our producer and it just went seamlessly.

I've been covering your career since the beginning and I feel like I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly of Scott Weiland.

Thank you, you get to see the best version now.

I see that you have a Pledge Music campaign going on where fans have different oppurtunities to spend some money and get some cool prizes from you.

The Pledge Music thing is cool because it gives an opportunity for the fans to get things they normally wouldn't get like signed lyric sheets, signed albums, they can even play paintball with me if they choose to purchase that.

Did you come up with these ideas or was it your management?

It was a collaboration with myself, my management, and Pledge Music Store.

Would you pay $300 to meet any musician?

For myself personally, (pauses) David Bowie.

Some of the lyrical content on the record is fictitious, what's your mindset when writing something that's not about you or something that's not a completely a true story?

It's just telling the stories, man. It's like [Bob] Dylan. Dylan was the greatest storyteller ever in rock 'n' roll history. They weren't songs about his experiences necessarily, most of the time they weren't, they were just folk stories. I kind of started looking at that a few years ago and decided to go more that direction because for a long time all I wrote about was my own rancid apathy and that got a little bit tiring and a little old.

Does it feel like a new beginning for you with this band?

Yeah it does. It's a brand new beginning; it's my third shot at this.

Would you be more likely to be spotted onstage again with STP again or Velvet Revolver?

That's a really hard one to say because you can never say never in rock 'n' roll. I get along with the guys in Velvet Revolver, and I hope to again sometime with the guys in STP. I look back at my years with STP and [VR] with very fond memories. We shared huge successes both artistically and commercially and I don't have any negative feelings towards any of my former partners. The lawsuit is behind us now and it's time to focus on my new band the Wildabouts.

Scott Weiland is scheduled to play Pub Rock on Sunday, February 22.

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