Firing squad

Weiland's new all-star band sticks to its guns with hard rock

We were crushed - crushed! - when singer Scott Weiland's old band, Stone Temple Pilots, broke up.

"Regeneration," a glammy tune on the group's 2001 swan-song album "Shangri-La Dee Da," boasted the priceless refrain: "They got your picture from the Sunday Plain Dealer."

It was a huge hit - huge! - here in the newsroom.

"Oh, was it?" Weiland says. "Well, you know, I spent quite a bit of my formative years there. It was a bit of an ode to my Midwest roots."

Born in Santa Cruz, Calif., Weiland was 4 when his family moved to Chagrin Falls after his father took a job with TRW. Eleven years later, they relocated to Los Angeles.

Weiland, 37, now fronts Velvet Revolver. The hard-rocking quintet also includes ex-Guns N' Roses members Slash (guitar), Duff McKagan (bass) and Matt Sorum (drums) as well as Dave Kushner (guitar), formerly of Suicidal Tendencies.

They aspire to be the kind of "real [expletive] rock 'n' roll band people haven't seen in a long time," Weiland says, reached by phone on the road in Connecticut.

"We kind of stamped out the whole nu-metal trend with one big boot," he says.

Velvet Revolver's chart-topping debut, "Contraband," has sold 1 million copies. The single "Slither" went to No. 1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and won a Grammy for best hard-rock performance.

"When you listen to the album, it's different from a Guns N' Roses experience or an STP experience," Weiland says. "We're sort of a hybrid of blues-based rock 'n' roll and punk rock."

He and some of his new bandmates had crossed paths in the past.

"Duff and I used to work out at the same gym, so we would see each other fairly regularly," Weiland says. "I'd met Slash before at a gig, too. I'm not sure if he remembers because I think he was pretty [expletive] up at the time."

He hastens to add: "Not that I wasn't."

We scoured "Contraband" for more Northeast Ohio references by Weiland, to no avail.

"With this band, the music comes from the seedier side of the energy in Hollywood," he says. "From the outside, Hollywood seems glamorous. In truth, it's full of lies and completely degenerative.

"That's why my wife and I just bought 20 acres in Washington state. . . . We're in the process of building a log home there."

McKagan owns property nearby.

"I went there when I got clean two years ago," Weiland says. "It's where my whole process of becoming a man started."

He has a history of drug busts. Shortly after Weiland joined Velvet Revolver in May 2003, he was arrested for possession of heroin and cocaine. Following another arrest a few months later for DUI, he was sent to court-ordered rehab.

A martial-arts sensei helped Weiland kick his drug habit.

Before Velvet Revolver beckoned, he turned down an offer to join the Doors. Weiland jammed with the classic-rock group's surviving members for a VH1 special in 2000, although he had no interest in permanently replacing the late Jim Morrison, a position later filled by the Cult's Ian Astbury. Morrison is "one of my three favorite icons in rock 'n' roll history," Weiland says. "Men wanted to be him, women wanted to [expletive] him, and cops wanted to arrest him.

"He's one of my biggest influences, especially when I'm singing in the baritone range.

"When I got asked to join the Doors, I couldn't do it [because] it would've been like cheapening a part of myself - and cheapening them. If they're going to cheapen their own legacy, it's their decision. I didn't want to be a part of it."

His other heroes? David Bowie and John Lennon.

"At some point, I'd like to transition gracefully out from underneath my own shadow and have a career as a solo artist," Weiland says. "I really don't want to be Mick Jagger in my mid-40s, trying to shake my [expletive] and to still appear sexy."

For now, he's focused on Velvet Revolver's follow-up album. Fans can look forward to something akin to 21st-century AC/DC.

"We want to make a 'Back in Black' for this era," Weiland says. "We want to make a raw, sexy, violent record full of songs you want to listen to from start to finish."