My point is that we can debate shades of how messed up he might be, but when we compare him to himself when he was his most lucid, exciting, and interesting, he fails the litmus test.
I completely agree. Unfortunately, this has been the case with him in interviews for at least the last 3 years dating back to the HIG release. I'm not sure when exactly everything changed and he couldn't form a sentence with out pausing or saying "um" at least 18 times, but it's been that way as far as I can tell for 3+ years now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzmMSod6uyY
:04
He's never been a straight ahead talker.
I hope that was a joke. Look at lovemachine's youtube post, he was pretty straight forward in that one.
Yes, my example was a joke. The way I see it is Weiland's always seemed to struggle getting words out. Listen to the Rockline interview from '94. Same stuff. There was a short period where he seemed clear minded, and I have no explanation for that, but my point is his 'ums' or 'uhs' have been around for a long time.
Yes, that's true. Even when it was obvious that he was sober, it just seemed to be part of his speech pattern.
But there's a particular lucidity and clarity that he showed in the No. 4 era that just doesn't compare to any other time. He has been on drugs/alcohol/whatever for a majority of his career now. Perhaps it caught up with him. But there is a certain strangeness...a slight slur, weird movements, facial contortions, fluctuating ability to get streamlined thoughts out...that are obvious at least since the STP reunion, but probably all the way back to the Libertad era.
He's incredibly unhealthy in the STP rockumentary face to face interviews (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8Ex8JQ8TwA), but he can still get thoughts out pretty well.
Again, none of this comes close to the No. 4 era when we know he was sober. So something is going on (still).