Weiland Trades Velvets for STP

Midway through a March Velvet Revolver gig in Glasgow, frontman Scott Weiland made an impromptu announcement from the stage. "You're watching something special," he said. "The last tour by Velvet Revolver." It came as a surprise to the other members of the band, who shared confused looks before launching into the next song on the set list: "Fall to Pieces."

As it turns out, Weiland was wrong: Velvet Revolver will tour again — but without him. After the show, the singer and his bandmates traded harsh recriminations in the press, and on April 1st, Velvet Revolver announced they were seeking a new singer, citing Weiland's "erratic onstage behavior and personal problems." Slash says the singer, who did a rehab stint after his arrest for DUI last year, was constantly showing up late for shows. "This is something that's been coming down the pike for a while," Slash says. "We're just really relieved."

But for Weiland, just as one door closed, another opened: Only a week after the singer left Velvet Revolver, Stone Temple Pilots announced a massive 65-date reunion tour (earlier in the year, they revealed plans for a few festival dates). "I walked into a situation where there was a lot of baggage," Weiland says of his time in Velvet Revolver, which included three former members of Guns n' Roses. "But with STP, these were the best friends of my life. I grew up with these guys while we were teenagers. It's a whole other thing."

On April 7th, Weiland was onstage again, this time with Stone Temple Pilots at the Houdini Mansion in L.A. It was the band's first gig in six years, and it played a high-energy set of STP classics like "Interstate Love Song" and "Plush." "It felt like home," says Dean DeLeo, who formed the group with his brother, bassist Robert, as well as drummer Eric Kretz and Weiland, in 1991.