Revolver Loaded

In April 2002, the former Gunners reunited for a benefit concert, with Buckcherry frontman Josh Todd on vocals. Discovering how much they enjoyed playing together, they recruited Kushner, fired Todd and started looking for a lead singer...and then they kept looking, and looked some more. They placed ads reading "Unnamed artist looking for singer-songwriter somewhere in the realm of early Alice Cooper/Steve Tyler, the harder-edged side of McCartney and Lennon." McKagan says they listened to every tape and CD they were sent, well over a thousand, ranging from Axl sound-alikes to William Hung sound-alikes.

"We'd start optimistic, and after six hours we all just wanted to slit our throats," claims Slash.

Sorum says, "I was the most frustrated. I didn't make the money Slash and Duff made with Guns — Axl's done everything in his power to fuck me out of royalties." So they practiced and auditioned singers such as Travis Meeks (Days of the New) — they knew they could mount a one-shot tour with just about anybody on vocals but wanted something more potent. And then Scott Weiland became available.

"Stone Temple Pilots never had an official breakup," Weiland says, "but the split was horrible." As Weiland tells the story, he and guitarist Dean DeLeo almost got into a fistfight in the dressing room at their last gig; on the previous tour, they had gotten high together, so when DeLeo cleaned up and accused Weiland of still using heroin, Weiland found it hypocritical.

Weiland's addiction was messy, public and, with some frequency, resulted in his being arrested. In 2000, he finished nearly a year in prison after violating his probation for prior drug charges. Perhaps even more problematical, he had come to hate rock. "But I can't dance without a loud live band with that kinetic energy," he says. "I need the air moving." Weiland's wife and McKagan's wife, both former models, are friends — they colluded to have Weiland join the band. In May 2003, five days after Weiland announced the contracts had been signed, he was arrested for narcotics possession.

The band publicly reaffirmed its support for Weiland, but Sorum admits, "It was emotionally hard. I had to let myself not get my hopes up, and having been there, you know that nothing you say will do any good. That person has to get honest with himself about what's going on in his life." Weiland was sentenced to three years' probation, and then last October he was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs after a traffic accident in Hollywood — charges he still disputes. That time, the court ordered him to a detox program and six months in a group-living center.

"Duff was a huge inspiration to me," Weiland says. "A lot of people who don't know him, they just think he's an alcohol- and drug-addled rock star married to a hot chick. In actuality, he means what he says, he says what he means. He's a great father, a loving husband, I like the way he handles his finances." McKagan introduced Weiland to the program that has gotten him clean: an intense martial-arts retreat in the mountains outside Seattle. McKagan's own analysis of his relationship with Weiland is more concise: "You can't bullshit a bullshitter."

I'm sick of talking about heroin and cocaine," Weiland says. "I'm sick of talking about what it's like to be in the back of a cop car." He's sufficiently tired of being the punch line for addiction jokes that he recently posted an open letter on Velvet Revolver's Web site, saying that after this Rolling Stone article, he plans to take a long hiatus from doing interviews. So I ask him what he wants to make clear.

"I kicked my heroin habit a year ago, in May," he says. "I only used three or four times in the last year, and I've been completely abstinent for over six months. It's been printed that I was arrested for drunk driving. The alleged DUI that I got, I passed that field sobriety test, but I told them I was on my prescription medicines for bipolar disorder, so they had to give me a urinalysis. And I am not on fucking work furlough." This last misconception particularly rankles Weiland: He wants it understood that he's not serving time, he's in court-ordered rehab. There's an 11:30 curfew; two nights a week, he can stay with his wife and two children. He has permission to tour, although he has to fly back to California about once a week to stay in the group home. "I'm being a good boy," he says, "but I'm tired of group living. If it were up to me, I wouldn't be living in a sober fraternity house."