http://www.menshealth.com/best-life/scott-weiland-interview Scott Weiland Explains Why You Should Never Say Never And no, he's not (necessarily) talking about drugs and groupies If you have any fears about the current state of music, and how it might—how can we say this nicely?—suck, you'll want to pick up the latest release by rock shapeshifter Scott Weiland and his new band The Wildabouts.
Blaster, out March 31st, proves that music still exists that sounds best when cranked to 11.
For well over two decades, Weiland has seized his place in the rock firmament as a serpentine frontman—for bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver—and showcasing his volcanic personality. Through bust-ups and rehab stints, brushes with the law and experimental art records, arena shows and Christmas covers, Weiland has kept his fans always slightly akimbo, the one constant being his extraordinary gifts as a tunesmith, recording artist, and live performer.
At 47, Weiland is in the process of reinventing again, serving up an indelible collision of bedlam and beauty with gigantic riffs, soaring choruses, and plenty of swagger. He and his band are on tour through May 30th.
Men's Health: With Blaster, you sound very much like a man with his hands on the wheel. What do you think?Scott Weiland: Yeah, definitely, thank you. It does feel like my hands are on the wheel, and that’s a good feeling, but it’s also really important to me that The Wildabouts isn’t a solo thing; it’s a band. And we operate things very much like a band. We write like a band and record like a band and perform like a band. We are a four-piece, and we like to make noise.
MH: Whether intentionally or not, through the years, you’ve left a lot of fans utterly confounded as to what you’re going to do next. Your life and career seem to be a series of reinventions.Scott Weiland: Well, that’s something I’ve always been very mindful of. In my creative life, David Bowie is definitely an enormous influence on me, being one of rock’s greatest shapeshifters. What Bowie does is he goes out there and reinvents himself all the time, over and over again. If you’re going to have any chance at being artistically fulfilled, I think you kind of have to do that.
(Here's another guy who's reinventing himself: Justin Bieber. No, seriously. And he's on the cover of our April "Reinvention Issue." Wait, wait,
give us a chance to explain.)
MH: How does The Wildabouts answer that impulse to reinvent?Scott Weiland: A lot of my solo stuff has been, like, art projects almost, and I didn’t want to do that right now. I wanted to make a band album with great players who shared a vision. This is a different kind of album than I’ve made before. It’s a little swankier and it’s a little more “garage” at the same time. It’s tight. It’s precise. But it’s rough around the edges too.
MH: Are your reasons for making music today different than they were 20 years ago?Scott Weiland: No, it's still the same. Twenty years ago, when I made my first couple of records, there was still that potential that you could sell millions of albums and have massive success in the music business. A lot of that has changed. You can still have massive success, but it's in different ways now. There are just, plain and simple, a lot of thing that have changed in rock music. For the most part, rock fans don't go and buy CDs any more, very rarely. It’s pretty much about downloads and streaming. So you have to stay very aware of who you are and what it is you want to create, and figure out how you’re going to get that to the people who care. You have to spend a lot more time on the road these days, if you want to make a living with music.
MH: Has the definition of success changed for you then through the years?Scott Weiland: I love performing, doing shows, but it’s a lot more difficult in more 40s than it was in my 20s. I’ve got a home I want to come back to, so success these days is playing the best shows I can on the road and then being able to come back home and enjoy my family.
MH: From the outside looking in, it appears your world is happier today than it’s been before.Scott Weiland: Oh, very much so, yeah. It’s a different world.
MH: So leaving for tour, how do you keep your head on straight these days?Scott Weiland: You have to keep your mind set on the prize, and that's to just put on a great show, the best show you can possibly put on, and really give something special to your fans. Hopefully, that energy comes back from them to you, and then it multiplies. You feed each other.
MH: What’s a piece of good advice you’ve picked up through the years?Scott Weiland: Never say never.
MH: That could be very dangerous advice.Scott Weiland: I mean, as far as what you’re going to create in the world. People always ask me, “Do you think you’ll ever play with Velvet Revolver or Stone Temple Pilots again?” I’ve just learned: never say never.
MH: Anything is possible, right?Scott Weiland: Yeah, anything is possible.
MH: The new album is called Blaster. Tell me about that.Scott Weiland: The name came from an image that I saw of a big, old boom-box from the ‘80s. I liked the graphic image so much and I thought, “That should be an album cover.” Then I started thinking about words associated with boom-boxes, and “blaster” came just right out to the forefront—you know, “ghetto blaster.” The word just seemed to fit the vibe of the album.
MH: Is your creative process usually intuitive or instinctive like that, or is it also more calculated or strategic?Scott Weiland: Mostly, it's just the feel and the vibe for me. But there are things, even in art, that you need to “get” intellectually too, so that comes into play sometimes.
MH: What’s a band Men's Health readers should be listening to?Scott Weiland: There’s this band that I've been into for a while, Grandaddy. They’ve been around, but they never really got to a point of big success. They’re really amazing, though. My favorite album of theirs is Sumday. From start to finish, every song's amazing. It's just written so well. It's very lo-fi, very experimental, but the melodies are very pop. I mean pop in a good way, like in a Beatles sort of sense.
