Scott Weiland, Former Stone Temple Pilots Singer, Dead at 48
Scott Weiland, the dynamic stage presence and instantly recognizable voice behind Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, has died. He was 48. Weiland’s manager confirmed the news to Rolling Stone. The details surrounding the singer’s death will be released Friday.
Weiland passed away in his sleep on a tour stop in Bloomington, Minnesota, according to an official Instagram post. “Scott Weiland, best known as the lead singer for Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, passed away in his sleep while on a tour stop in Bloomington, Minnesota, with his band The Wildabouts,” the post read. “At this time we ask that the privacy of Scott’s family be respected.”
TMZ is reporting that Weiland was found dead on his tour bus in Minnesota at around 9 p.m. Thursday night while touring with his current group the Wildabouts. The group was scheduled to perform at the Medina Entertainment Center in Medina, Minnesota Thursday night.
Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro announced the news in a since-deleted tweet shortly after midnight EST. “Just learned our friend Scott Weiland has died,” he wrote. “So gutted, I am thinking of his family tonight.”
Weiland’s Velvet Revolver bandmate, guitarist Dave Kushner, tweeted shortly after Navarro “RIP Scott Weiland.”
Weiland was born Scott Richard Kline on October 27th, 1967 in San Jose, California. His mother, Sharon Williams, and father, Kent Kline, divorced two years later. A stepfather, Dave Weiland, adopted him at age five and changed his last name. He moved with his family to Ohio for a number of years before returning to California as a teenager.
He rose to prominence in the early Nineties as the frontman of the San Diego–based Stone Temple Pilots, who scored hits with songs like “Creep,” “Big Empty,” “Vasoline” and “Interstate Love Song.” The band had come together in the mid-Eighties and recorded a demo under the name Mighty Joe Young around 1990. After taking the name Stone Temple Pilots, they put out five albums between 1994 and 2001 and won a Grammy in 1994 for the Core single “Plush” before disbanding in 2002. They regrouped in 2008, issuing the Stone Temple Pilots album in 2010, before firing Weiland in 2013 and replacing him with Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington.
In between stints with STP, Weiland fronted Velvet Revolver, a group which, in addition to Kushner, featured former Guns N’ Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum. The band released two albums and earned two gold-selling singles, “Slither” and “Fall to Pieces,” and a Grammy (for “Slither”) before Weiland quit in 2008 to rejoin his prior band. They briefly reunited in 2012 for a one-off concert.
In between his various bands, the singer also put out four solo albums. His most recent and only release with the Wildabouts, including Blaster, came out earlier this year. Prior to the release, he and the group had been performing Stone Temple Pilots songs live. “We got really tight as a unit,” he told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “It made me really want to go into the studio.”
Throughout much of his career, Weiland publicly battled addiction. He was convicted of buying crack cocaine in 1995 and of two DUIs in 2003 and 2007, respectively, according to CNN.
Weiland is survived by two children, Noah and Lucy, whom he had with his ex-wife Mary Forsberg, and his current wife, Jamie Wachtel, whom he wed in 2013. The couple met in 2011, when she photographed him at a music video shoot, according to Los Angeles Times. He was also married to Janina Castaneda throughout most of the Nineties.
“Ultimately, our goal was to create a legacy,” Weiland told Rolling Stone in 2008 of Stone Temple Pilots. “When we were in the car driving around together, promoting local gigs, it was, ‘One day we will be one of those bands that have a creative legacy.’”
