Appetite For Dysfunction

Booze, pills, rehab: The ties that bind Velvet Revolver

BRIAN HIATTPosted Aug 09, 2007 12:00 PM

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Take time, with a wounded hand, 'cause it likes to heal. . . ." Like a salaryman gone wild at a karaoke bar, Scott Weiland is wearing a tie and a white shirt completely unbuttoned, exposing his tan, yogatoned torso. We are backstage at The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, and Weiland is singing me a twangy version of the Stone Temple Pilots' "Creep," demonstrating the country inflections that snuck into his STP work.

"Creep" is from STP's 1992 debut, Core, which Weiland now says is the only album he's made drugfree — except for Libertad. "It made it a lot easier," says Weiland, who kicked his cocaine and heroin habit three and a half years ago."My output level was enormous. I had idea after idea after idea. With heroin, at first there's a lot of benefits — it allows you a certain amount of objectivity. After a while, you lose the connection to the heart, to the emotion. It's like you have this narcotic wet blanket wrapped around your soul." And coke? "It just makes you want more coke. That's why I always had to do heroin with coke. Do coke for a few hours until you're going out of your mind, the fucking demons are trying to smash through the mirror. Then you put that needle in your arm to slow the world back down and close that fuckin' hole to the next dimension. Because once you open it, you don't know what can come in."

After an abortive stint with Rick Rubin, Velvet Revolver finally got going with Libertad after hooking up with another heavyweight producer, Brendan O'Brien. But as Weiland was recording vocals, he got word that his brother — who had struggled with his own heroin problem — had died of an overdose. "It's the heaviest thing that's ever happened to me," Weiland says, his voice quavering. His brother's passing inspired some of Libertad's most impassioned songs, including the ballad "The Last Fight."

Weiland — who's been working on a second solo album and runs an indie label, Softdrive Records — says he still likes the "dysfunctional camaraderie" of being in a rock band. But he seems to keep his distance from his bandmates, staying in a separate dressing room and not indulging in much small talk. He and Sorum seem to have the most strained relationship: The two men happen to wear similar bracelets, and the burly drummer chortles at the idea it might be intentional. "We're not homosexuals," Sorum says. "We barely talk, let alone kiss. . . . I've always been the 'I'm going to beat the fuck out of the lead singer' guy."

So Velvet Revolver remain a fragile construct and it may not help that Weiland recently reconciled his differences with Robert and Dean DeLeo from STP. "It's a reality I've considered," says Kushner, who during the band's earliest days was still working a day job — as a gear runner for the studio where they rehearsed. "Scott could go join STP tomorrow, and those guys could go back to G n' R, and I'd have to figure out what to do next." Though Sorum jokes he might consider a Guns reunion for enough cash, he casts doubt on the STP scenario: "I don't think the world's fucking biding their time, waiting for Stone Temple Pilots to reunite," he says, laughing.

In any case, Weiland promises at least one more Velvet Revolver record — and the band may already have survived its worst times. "It was scary going in to make the record, because we weren't really getting along," says Sorum. "There was moments where I didn't think the band was going to last — which is my greatest fear. I don't think I have another band in me. But then we looked at each other. And we said, 'Let's not fuck this one up.'"

[From Issue 1032 — August 9, 2007]