Scott Weiland

Scott Richard Weiland (, ; né Kline; October 27, 1967 – December 3, 2015) was an American singer and songwriter.

Weiland was born Scott Richard Kline at Kaiser Hospital in San Jose, California, on October 27, 1967, the son of Sharon (née Williams) and Kent Kline.

His father had German ancestry.

He was raised Catholic.

At the age of five, he was legally adopted by his stepfather David Weiland and subsequently took his surname.

Around the same time, he moved to Bainbridge Township, Ohio, where he attended Kenston High School.

At the age of 12 while living in Ohio, he was allegedly raped by an older male who invited him to his house; he wrote in his autobiography Not Dead & Not For Sale that he repressed the memory until it returned to him in therapy decades later.

Weiland moved back to California as a teenager and attended Edison High School

in Huntington Beach and Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

Before fully devoting himself to a music career, he worked as a paste up artist for the Los Angeles Daily Journal legal newspaper.

In 1985, Weiland met bassist Robert DeLeo at a Black Flag concert in Long Beach, California.

The two of them were discussing their love interests when they realized they were both dating the same girl; they developed a bond over the incident and ended up moving into her vacated apartment together.

Weiland's childhood friends Corey Hicock and David Allin rounded out the group, both of whom would soon be replaced by Eric Kretz and DeLeo's brother Dean.

They took the name Stone Temple Pilots because of their fondness for the initials "STP".

In one of the band's first opening performances under the name Mighty Joe Young, they opened for Electric Love Hogs, whose guitarist Dave Kushner would one day co-found Weiland's later band Velvet Revolver.

He was best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Stone Temple Pilots from 1989 to 2003 and again from 2008 to 2013, recording six albums with them, and as the lead vocalist of the rock supergroup Velvet Revolver from 2003 to 2008.

Weiland encountered problems with drug addiction at this time as well, which inspired some of his songs in the late-1990s and resulted in prison time.

In 1992, they released their first album, Core, spawning four hits ("Sex Type Thing", "Wicked Garden", "Creep", and "Plush".)

In 1994, STP released their second record, Purple, which saw the development of a more distinctive identity for the band.

Like Core, Purple was a big success for the band, spawning three hit singles ("Big Empty", "Vasoline", and "Interstate Love Song") and selling more than six million copies.

The critical response to Purple was more favorable, with Spin calling it a "quantum leap" from the band's previous album.

In 1995, Weiland formed the alternative rock band the Magnificent Bastards with session drummer Victor Indrizzo in San Diego.

The band included Zander Schloss and Jeff Nolan on guitars and Bob Thompson on bass.

Only two songs were recorded by the Magnificent Bastards, "Mockingbird Girl", composed by Nolan, Schloss, and Weiland, appeared in the film Tank Girl and on its soundtrack, and a cover of John Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?" was recorded for the tribute album, Working Class Hero: A Tribute to John Lennon.

Weiland rejoined Stone Temple Pilots in the fall of 1995, but STP was forced to cancel most of their 1996–1997 tour in support of their third release, Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, which sold about two million albums.

In 1999, STP regrouped once again and released No. 4. The album contained the hit single "Sour Girl", promoted by a surreal music video with Sarah Michelle Gellar.

That same year, Weiland also recorded two songs with the short-lived supergroup the Wondergirls.

During this time period Weiland spent five months in jail for drug possession.

In November 2000, Weiland was invited to perform on the show VH1 Storytellers with the surviving members of the Doors.

Weiland performed vocals on two Doors songs, "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" and "Five to One".

That same month Stone Temple Pilots appeared on the Doors tribute CD, Stoned Immaculate with their own rendition of "Break on Through" as the lead track.

On June 19, 2001, STP released its fifth album, Shangri-La Dee Da. That same year the band headlined the Family Values Tour along with Linkin Park, Staind and Static-X.

In late 2002, significant backstage altercations between the DeLeo brothers and Weiland precipitated the band's break-up.

In 2008, Stone Temple Pilots announced a 73-date U.S. tour on April 7 and performed together for the first time since 2002.

He also released one album with rock supergroup Art of Anarchy in 2015, as well as four solo studio albums and several collaborations with other musicians throughout his career.

Weiland was noted for his flamboyant and chaotic onstage persona, his consistently changing appearance, and his versatile vocal style.

He also became known for his use of a megaphone for a unique vocal effect during concert.

He sold over 50 million albums with his various projects and collaborations.

Weiland's career was plagued by substance abuse issues, leading to various high-profile arrests and his eventual firings from Velvet Revolver and Stone Temple Pilots.

On December 3, 2015, at the age of 48, he was found dead of an accidental drug overdose on his tour bus in Bloomington, Minnesota.