A Popular Band Confronts Reality

The Stone Temple Pilots’ decision to call off their free show Friday at the Wiltern Theatre may be the one instance when rock fans can view a concert cancellation as good news.

At a time when the record industry has been heavily criticized for looking the other way when it comes to drug abuse among musicians, the best-selling band pulled the plug on the show--and all future live dates--until lead singer Scott Weiland overcomes his addiction problems.

Industry observers hope that the group’s action will trigger a move away from rock’s laissez faire attitude toward drug abuse, which remains a significant problem among today’s young bands. Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon died of a heroin overdose last Oct. 21 in New Orleans, and heroin use also was considered by many to be a contributing factor in the 1994 suicide of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.

“I’m very encouraged by the human aspect of this decision because Scott’s been in trouble for a long time,” said Michael Greene, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and an outspoken figure in the campaign to raise industry consciousness about drug addiction. “The band and its manager [Steve Stewart] showed a lot of courage in making this decision.”

In a separate interview, Stewart said the Los Angeles group--which also canceled free shows scheduled for Chicago and New York--had been planning a summer tour to promote its latest album, “Tiny Music . . . Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop.” The collection, which has been in the Top 10 since its release last month, has sold more than 500,000 copies. The band’s first two albums, 1992’s “Core” and 1994’s “Purple,” have each sold about 4 million copies.

“We’re definitely not going to tour if he’s not clean and sober--period,” Stewart said. “There’s no sense putting any band on the road when someone’s got a major drug problem like that. It’s ludicrous.”

Sources said Friday that Weiland, 28, has been in and out of drug rehab centers over the last year since his arrest last May in Pasadena when sheriff’s deputies allegedly found cocaine in his car and heroin in his wallet.

Last month, fellow STP member Dean DeLeo told the Boston Globe that Weiland’s drug problems were keeping the band off the road.

“Believe me, there’s nothing more that any of us wants to do than tour,” DeLeo said, “but we also don’t want a fatality on our hands. . . . Our plans are to sit tight for a while, but I hope just a little while.”

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In recent weeks, however, Weiland had been in treatment and progressing “very well” as the band promoted “Tiny Music,” a source told The Times. The group made a video and appeared in New York on Howard Stern’s radio show and CBS-TV’s “Late Show With David Letterman.”

All seemed to be going so well, in fact, that the band set up dates for the free concerts and signed on as the support act for the opening show of KISS’ reunion tour June 28 in Detroit.

But after missing an appointment at a 12-step meeting last Saturday night, Weiland called his drug counselor on Monday and said he needed help. On Tuesday, the singer checked himself into an undisclosed rehab center in Southern California.

“You never like to see anybody relapse, but sometimes for some people it’s part of the ongoing recovery process,” said Santa Monica-based addiction intervention specialist Bob Timmins, who has been working with Weiland. “The bigger concern is what to do when the relapse happens and, more importantly, what [the patient] does.

“For instance, a lot of people relapse, disappear and tell everybody to [expletive] off. That was not the case. My guess is that he probably relapsed for several days and was miserable. . . . Then he phoned and said he wanted to go back into treatment and kind of slow everything down.”

On Wednesday, the other members of the band--Eric Kretz and the DeLeo brothers, Dean and Robert--announced that the group was canceling the free shows because Weiland was “unable to rehearse or appear . . . due to his dependency on drugs.” (The status of the KISS date has not yet been determined.)

“The band wanted to tell the truth,” Stewart said. “They didn’t want to hide behind some excuse of a sore throat or an illness or whatever. . . .

“We have no reason to hide. The last thing we want to do is disappoint people; that’s why it’s so painful to do this. But when we discovered that everything wasn’t roses, we did what we had to do.”

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Atlantic Records applauded STP’s action this week.

“Everyone at Atlantic has been very impressed with the courage and honesty with which the members of Stone Temple Pilots have handled this extremely difficult situation,” the company said in a statement released Friday. “When it became apparent that Scott was not doing well . . . they chose to openly acknowledge his drug problem and speak directly to their fans about what was going on. We greatly admire and totally support the band in their decision.”

Weiland, who remains in the rehab center, is scheduled to appear in court Friday in Pasadena for a hearing to determine whether this week’s actions put him in violation of his diversion program. A judge ruled last August that the felony drug charges filed against Weiland last May would be dismissed if the singer completed a court-approved drug treatment program and had no further run-ins with the law.

L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Grosbard said this week that he will recommend to the judge that Weiland be put into a yearlong residential program.

“He’s clearly having trouble,” the prosecutor said. “You might call this [hearing] an attempted intervention before he ends up in bigger trouble.”

Weiland has spoken little about his drug problems, but he told Rolling Stone last year before his arrest: “I am in the process of getting sober. I want to be happy again, and I’m going to do something about it before it kills me or [screws] up everything in my life.”

Greene and Timmins are among those who believe that Weiland--and others--should be encouraged to seek help. Along with Aerosmith manager Tim Collins, they organized an emergency meeting last December of nearly 400 record company executives, artists, managers, agents and promoters to discuss rock’s drug woes.

The objective: to raise consciousness about addiction and prevent future deaths and self-destruction through a unified “tough love” policy that would involve pulling the plug on recording projects or concert tours--no matter the expense--when an artist is in need of help.

“We want to unite all factions of the industry to muster the courage to do things that are beneficial to the health and welfare of the individuals, as opposed to the bottom lines of the corporations,” Greene said. “If we can do that, we may be able to see some of these great artists live past 30.”