Watch Scott Weiland Strip Down STP, Wildabouts Songs
Last February, Stone Temple Pilots officially fired Scott Weiland, but the singer wasn’t ready to stop performing the group’s songs, so he convened a new group featuring three L.A. musicians – guitarist Jeremy Brown, bassist Tommy Black, drummer Danny Thompson – named the Wildabouts after a line from Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow.” The band quickly gelled, touring STP songs and beginning work on new material. Today, that new material was released on Blaster, their first LP, but tragedy has halted all celebration.
“We were all concerned this afternoon when Jeremy didn’t show up for a long-scheduled rehearsal for tonight’s album release show at School Night,” Weiland wrote on Facebook. “An hour later, Jeremy’s family called us to say that he had passed away. I am in shock right now; everyone that knows him is devastated. It is a terrible loss that goes beyond words. He is one of my best friends, a truest friend and one of the most gifted guitar players that I’ve ever known.”
Earlier this month, Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts visited Rolling Stone‘s studio for an intimate performance – one of their last. Lacking Thompson, they stripped the percussion and added a careful touch to a couple of new and old songs. Above, watch them play Stone Temple Pilots’ “The Big Empty.” Brown opens on slide guitar, and the band pares down the chorus, not launching into it the way they do at their proper shows.
They then offered one of their new tracks, “Way She Moves,” slowing down the Blaster studio version and drawing out every word. The song was inspired by Weiland’s wife, Jamie. “Pretty simple, really,” he told Rolling Stone earlier in the year, “I love the way she moves.”