On April 24, 1996, Stone Temple Pilots had been in an exhausting predicament for several years when they canceled their 1996-97 tour. In a public announcement, bassist Robert DeLeo admitted that frontman Scott Weiland was “under doctors’ care in a medical facility.”
Weiland’s drug addiction had him in and out of rehab for years before his death in 2015. He struggled primarily with heroin use, then alcohol and cocaine near the end of his life. After his death, his former Stone Temple Pilots bandmates described him as “gifted beyond words.” Unfortunately, substance abuse, mental health issues, and loss were “part of [his] curse.”
But despite Stone Temple Pilots’ success, kicked off by the 1992 single “Plush”, Weiland found himself continually hitting rock bottom. Notably, in May 1995, he was arrested for drug possession. After his wife bailed him out, he holed up in L.A.’s Chateau Marmont. Courtney Love was staying in the room next door, and the next evening, Love called L.A. radio station KROQ and read an apology letter Weiland penned to his wife, bandmates, and their fans.
“It was a major low point,” Weiland told Rolling Stone in 1997. “I wanted to just say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not what you expect me to be.’” According to Weiland, he had Love read the letter because “I was embarrassed … It was hard enough to write it.”
Scott Weiland Felt Frustrated That Stone Temple Pilots Publicly Aired His Dirty Laundry, But He Also Had a Desire to Keep Living
Stone Temple Pilots canceled shows several times so Scott Weiland could go to rehab, but he was often back and forth in treatment during the band’s height. At what point does a group just call it quits?
But even as “the phone calls kept getting worse and worse” for the other members of the band, there still seemed to be some hope that the next time would stick. After Weiland’s arrest in 1995, he was recommended for “diversion,” an outpatient treatment and education program under California law. However, he didn’t go at first, and his lawyer eventually had to convince the judge to let him try again.
“There was a strong part of me that wanted to live,” said Weiland. “So I kept trying and trying, no matter how fruitless it was.” That seemed to be the overall atmosphere of those few years for Stone Temple Pilots. From 1995 to 1997, they were continually rocky. While making both Purple and Tiny Music, Robert DeLeo said the band floated the same question: “Do we pack this up?”
Around 1994, when Purple came out, Weiland’s addiction was still a secret. But by Tiny Music in March 1996, “people already knew what was going on,” said Weiland. “It became impossible to hide the pain that I was going through and that I was causing other people.”
In 1997, Scott Weiland Felt the ‘Hell’ of Substance Use ‘Made It Possible For Me To Enjoy Life’
The aftermath of the April 24 announcement had Weiland taking rehab seriously. Before that, the court gave him an ultimatum: If he didn’t complete inpatient treatment, he would face criminal charges for the May 1995 arrest.
Weiland completed his court-ordered program, and Stone Temple Pilots were itching to get back on the road. They toured for six weeks after Weiland got out of rehab in October, and he hit six months of sobriety before relapsing in December 1996. But, as the band explained to Rolling Stone a few months later, it could have been way worse.
“Scott called and said, ‘I’m f—ing up—I need help,’” said guitarist Dean DeLeo. “When I talked to him, I could hear his condition. He said, ‘I’m going into treatment.’ I said, ‘I’d love to believe that.’ And on Monday, he checked himself in.”
DeLeo explained that the relapse was disappointing because they had to cancel several more shows. Things were going so well the last six months, he said. “But the way it went down, it was much better than it could have been,” he added. “I’m not rationalizing it. But the worst thing is that he could have been dead. And he wasn’t.”
At the time, those several years of repeatedly hitting rock bottom apparently didn’t diminish Scott Weiland’s desire to keep trying to recover. “I don’t regret drugs at all,” he said. “Going through the hell I went through made it possible for me to enjoy life the way I enjoy it now. We’re only as big as our experiences.”
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