Greg Prato of Songfacts spoke with former Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver singer Scott Weiland. Excerpts from the interview appear below.
Songfacts: How would you say that you write your best songs?
Scott Weiland: Well, this album is different, the current one that I’m working on with the band. In the past, writing alone, I’ve written much more eclectic records. It’s more obscure music. The two big bands that I’ve played in up to this point, Velvet Revolver and STP, are known for big, D-tuned power riffs, power chords, and big sound. So it’s different.
When I was writing with STP and Velvet Revolver, it was kind of the same thing: One of the guys would have a song idea and we’d kind of suss it out with the band and then I’d write my melodies and then write my lyrics to the melodies. And as a solo artist, I kind of felt free to go off and explore all different styles of music that I’ve been interested in over my lifetime and find some sort of cosmic melting pot for it. That was fun, but it was more difficult to bring that to the stage, because it meant we had to have more players and a lot of effects.
We’d bring in loops and stuff – the loops that we created for the album, we’d bring them out live. Which was fun, but I think for a lot of the STP and Velvet Revolver fans, it was kind of a stretch for them to wrap their heads around because they were very left-of-center records, 12 Bar Blues [1998] and Happy in Galoshes [2008]. This is much more of an indie-sounding record, but it still is very much a rock and roll record. There’s big, fuzzy riffs and it’s cool. It’s a whole new experience.
Songfacts: What was the lyrical inspiration behind the STP song, Dead and Bloated?
Scott: It’s not really about anything. It’s just stream-of-consciousness words. I mean, at the age of 21, 22, I didn’t have a whole lot of life experiences. So it’s more about the vibe, the angst and that kind of a thing, as opposed to actual life experiences.
Songfacts:…what about the STP song Creep, what do you remember about the lyrical writing of that song?
Scott: That’s just the idea of being a young person somewhere, caught between still being a kid and becoming a young man. It’s that youth apathy, that second-guessing yourself, not feeling like you fit in.
Songfacts: And what about Slither from Velvet Revolver?
Scott: That song, what was that song about? Just got done performing it. The lyrics are about a relationship. “When you look you see right through me, cut the rope, fell to my knees, born and broken every single time.” It’s just feeling not right in a situation.
Read more at Songfacts.
source: songfacts.com
34 Responses
SOOOOOOOOOOO Much HAte!!! Easy on YouSelf!!!!!!!!!!!
If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
That wasn’t very nice, Jim. But you still said something…
Tell that to DR who blasts everyone and every comment on this site.
Funny how I posted a comment and was told how f’n rude I was. Who blasted who Pete?
Fat Ace Freheley gets sober and all you dorks support him, yet judge scitt on his past
Youre speling knot grate! L-O-ELL!
If you eat a lot of ice cream, which apparently he does, you will s–t ice cream.
There are a lot of Friendly’s on Jendell.
Maybe Scott can get his solo band to open For Guns N Roses when they reunite next year? Do I know something? No…But the planets seem to be aligning…Slash’s tour ends in March….Axl has music ready but it’s not finished ( could use the exposure)…DJ Ashba is going out with Sixx AM in April… A lot of rumblings going on and I think it’s happening right under our noses…(see how I just detoured this whole smack talk thing?)
I’m a big STP fan and I like alot of Velve Revolver music as well. Weiland has a great voice and a entertaining front man. But it seems he brings alot of baggage wherever he goes. STP is nowhere near the same without him fronting the band.