Scott Weiland’s Son Determined to ‘Do Better’ After Drugs Battle
Noah Weiland, son of late Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver frontman Scott Weiland, discussed his battle with drug addiction and said it had helped him understand his dad better.
Scott died of an overdose in 2015, while Noah, 21, descended into addiction last year after being fired from Suspect208, the band he’d formed with Slash’s son London Hudson.
In a recent interview with iHeartRadio, Noah revealed he’d managed to maintain a rehab program after struggling at first. “I have a sponsor, I go to meetings, I’m better with family,” he said. “For a long time… I just didn’t want to show my face because I felt so ashamed and I felt like I just wanted to disappear. I finally feel like I have my confidence back and it’s good.”
The younger Weiland also admitted that comments regarding his dismissal gnawed at him. “People want to see me be a statistic so bad, I feel like,” he reflected. “There were so many posts when the band ended and all the comments were, ‘Oh, just like his dad, just like his dad.’” But Noah said he found “a little drive that makes me want to do better and say, ‘Even if you’re born into a family with addiction you don’t have to fall to the statistics.’ You can be great.”
Despite comments Scott made to the media towards the end of his life, Noah said his father hadn’t been close to him or his sister. “I remember my mom would get upset a lot, because she’d see him in interviews saying that we’d always be spending time with him… The last year my dad was alive I think we saw him once and it was for maybe like an hour… The energy I could remember, because I was 14, was he just felt so off and so drained. All I can remember is him seeming in so much pain. Looking back, it felt like it was the last time I was going to see him.”
Noah has returned to music and he’s cautiously pursuing a solo career, having recently released new track “One Day,” available below. “I got a little taste of what success is like – a very tiny, tiny little taste – and I’m glad that it didn’t take off because I wasn’t around the right people,” he reported. “I [later] realized I couldn’t be going crazy and living the life I was living while there were people trying to invest money in me and while the spotlight was coming more and more on me.”
The fledgling rocker regretted not being able to ask Scott for advice about managing fame, but added: “Because I’ve had to go through the same thing, the addiction, I feel closer with him.”
Watch Noah Weiland’s ‘One Day’ Video