Scott Weiland Discussed David Bowie and John Lennon in His Final Interview
While backstage at Toronto's Adelaide Hall on Dec. 2, Scott Weiland gave what was to become his final interview. In it, the former Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver singer, who died on Dec. 3 of cardiac arrest, talked about the importance of David Bowie on his music and referenced a specific John Lennon song as one that he'd like to cover.
Speaking to Toronto's Live in Limbo in the video above, Weiland said that Bowie is the one artist, living or dead, that he would have wanted to collaborate with. "He's my biggest influence musically, vocally and fashion-wise."
Lennon's name came up when talking about his 2011 Christmas album, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Weiland mentioned Lennon's "Happy Xmas / War Is Over" as another holiday song he would want to include if given the chance to make a sequel. However, he couldn't recall the title. "I can't think of the name of the song right now," he said. "And I almost recorded it last Christmas -- that John Lennon Christmas song [...] Is it 'It's Christmas Time?' I think that might be the name of it."
Weiland also discussed the Beatles in another interview that was conducted on Tuesday. Toronto's 102.1 the Edge posted an interview with him on their Facebook page in which Weiland revealed that his first concert was a performance of Beatlemania. "I was about 12 years old. It was in Blossom Hill in Cleveland, Ohio. It had a big effect on me. The Beatles have always had a big effect on me."
Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, one of Stone Temple Pilots' contemporaries in the '90s alternative revolution, issued a lengthy statement on Weiland's passing at the group's website. He admitted that he was not a fan of STP at first, but their third album, 1996's Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, "got me hooked, a wizardly mix of glam and post-punk, and I confessed to Scott, as well as the band many times, how wrong I'd been in assessing their native brilliance. And like Bowie can and does, it was Scott's phrasing that pushed his music into a unique, and hard to pin down, aesthetic sonicsphere."
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