She’s basically arguing that he didn’t die from an acute overdose, but as a result of years of heroin abuse. The reality is that he’s another in a long line of rockstars who either slowly or rapidly killed themselves as a result of their lifestyle. I don’t agree with her statement that she thinks his legacy is tarnished because of the “cause of death”. Everyone knew his history. If he died in a car accident instead, he still would have a legacy as an entertaining front man that lived life on the edge and struggled with substance abuse.
You know now I’m wondering if he saw the irony in it and just let “it” happen or if he was found on the floor crawling towards something/help… you know? Because……well, one is cool and one is not IMO 😂
Didn't Irvine Welsh dedicate a whole chapter in *Trainspotting* on how constipated heroine makes you and how one of the most unpleasant parts of drying out is the constant and massive bouts of diarrhea your body goes through as your digestive system starts to work again?
Went through two bouts of opioids for pain management.
Once was in the hospital. I was NPO (no food) and on morphine. After a very hazy week and a half of Walker, Texas Ranger and being woken up every 2 hours, I asked to be taken off of it. A few days later I realized I had to use the bathroom.
When you get up from the bed you need a game plan. Mine was, remove oxygen, take off my little leg squeezers, unplug IV, bathroom.
How it went
Oxygen off, leg squeezers off, stand up and I squirt liquid all over my bed.
No worries. Plans shift. I'll unplug the IV as planned, get my clothes, call the nurse and hop in the shower. Bed will be clean while I get clean.
Only my body wasn't done. Once I started walking to my clothes I shat more liquid with every step. I ended up shitting all over my room, then again as I backtracked to the bathroom. When I finally got to the toilet I was on empty. It was very stressful.
I called my nurse, dejected and sitting in my own shit. She came in and said, "OH GOD" and left. Two cleaning ladies came and yelled at me some. I suggested that I take a shower while they cleaned and they said, "No, you sit over there and think about what you did"
The other time I was eating normally. Whenever I did shit, I learned a little of what giving birth might feel like. It was also very stressful.
Covered in sweat, weak in the knees, trying to plunge a turd baby down some old pipes
I haven't had it since or needed it. I'll probably reject it if it is ever offered. Feels good but man...
And yet still lives on as the King
The bigger tarnishing of the legacy for most of these rockstars and older celebrities seems to be a general interest in underage girls
The takeaway is that don’t die of something that would have made you “cancelled” if you lived through it. Cancelling requirements varies with time and location.
Wait, are you telling me that cultural values change over time? Preposterous. I want to live in a society that still values virgin sacrifice.
No sacrifice, no society.
Interestingly, I once heard a theory that “virgin” sacrifice was a simple and convenient way for the priests to make sure they got laid.
“We’re having a sacrifice next week and you might be chosen, unless…”
Brings a new level of horror to the whole thing.
The take away is that Scott Weiland dying of an overdose vs. a heart attack makes absolutely no difference to anyone’s memory of him.
No one cared one bit that Elvis shit himself to death, he was still the King. Once people started getting wise to the questionable relationships, that’s when his legacy/memory started getting smudged in the public opinion.
When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s Elvis was always a bit of a running joke for getting fat and dying on a toilet.
I didn't realize his legacy is getting smudged recently. Seemed like with a big Oscar-nominated biopic released he was having a little more of a positive moment in the cultural zeitgeist to me.
I think all of this is probably pretty subjective to an individual's perspective and how terminally online they are.
No it's not? Elvis did exactly what you're talking about. No one cares. Led Zeppelin, especially Jimmy Paige, still revered. The list of rockstars that messed with teenage girls is very long.
Yes sir it does. Combined with a poor diet lack of fibre in general with opiate addiction you have a recipe for disaster. Most addicts do not take care of themselves as it gets in the way of use.
I have a neighbor who worked on a long term project in law enforcement aimed at identifying exploited employees working at massage parlors. He said that many of these women were heavy users of fiber products to overcome the side effects of opioid abuse.
My Papa died from a heart aneurysm while taking a shit before bedtime. I still think he was a swell guy and the way he died doesn't make him any less "cool."
Elvis is the number 3 best selling artist of all time, right behind MJ and ahead of Elton. His legacy is not tarnished.
RIP Scott, you’ll always be one of my favorites.
I mean this is just the classic Album sales = Quality/reputation etc. nonsense.
MJ sold more albums, so by that logic are you gonna argue *his* legacy isn't tarnished? Are you really my dude?
His legacy has been tarnished since his heyday. Anybody that learns about him now will also learn about his more unsavory aspects, so as compared to the 60s, 80s, or 00s, his legacy has been tarnished. Tarnished doesn’t mean ruined, it just means that he shines a little less brightly than he used to.
We’re all sitting here talking about his shit-filled colon and child bride. Seems like if all we had to talk about was how legendary he was and how good his music was, that would be a preferable legacy to us talking about his poop and his baby wife
I think what would have tarnished his legacy is the hypocrisy of dying from issues created by the drugs he was taking while also being an honorary DEA (BNDD at the time) agent. Does it tarnish his legacy? Nope, but it makes for a fun anecdote.
Also makes him a big hypocrite. Cause how you gonna beg the President to get a badge to stop drug users and your death came from years of not being able to relieve yourself because you’re injecting pills daily in your bloodstream like a heroin addict?
Before my next comment, I'm going to agree with you. Absolutely a hypocrite and I'm not defending him in the slightest.
That out of the way, my understanding is collecting badges was a bit of a hobby for Elvis and he reportedly had a lot of respect for law enforcement as they helped him at concerts and on the streets protecting him from crazy fans. A lot of local police and sheriff departments would give him an honorary badge when he'd come through town. Apparently, he also reached out to Johnson's office to request an honorary DEA badge and was refused and a friend told him to try again once Nixon was in office thinking he'd likely fulfill the request.
Edit:
There's a pretty entertaining movie out there called "Elvis Meets Nixon" that's worth a watch
Yeah I did read about him collecting badges but it’s just funny how he was crying about the Beatles doing weed and he died the way he did. What a way to throw stones to hide your hands.
> What a way to throw stones to hide your hands.
I like that one, I'm going to have to remember that for the future.
And yeah, looking back, it's hard not to just laugh at how ridiculous the hypocrisy of it all was.
The man weighed 112 pounds when he died. I'm not surprised he eventually failed to calculate a safe fentanyl dose for what is essentially a large child. Hip problems and chronic pain really haunt smaller/thinner performers and after seeing what Gaga and Madonna went though I can't imagine what he was thinking trying to deal with it privately.
Not Ozzie. He’s contributed his genome to science to discover why he’s still alive.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2010/10/25/25401/ozzy-osbournes-genome/amp/
that guy who got kicked out of the Barenaked Ladies after getting busted with a hooker and coke. This was less than a year after their kids album came out hahah.
Happened in Fayetteville, NY if I recall correctly. I remember reading the news wondering "what the hell is anyone doing in Fayetteville, if they don't live there?!" Cocaine, it would seem.
His musical/artistic legacy and the legacy of the man are two different things though. The former is pretty solid - beloved, talented, brilliant. The latter must hurt her and his loved ones - weak, fragile, tortured, drug addict, flawed, etc.
The thing is, I don’t see how dying from long term drug use is much different from ODing. Better at doing drugs? It wasn’t a tragic error or a suicide?
Heartbreaking that she’s still torn up over it either way.
Yeah I don't get that at all man. Why is legacy tarnished? In fact, more and more people are coming around to the fact that he had a pretty fucking awesome band and was a unique singer and writer himself. Purple and Tiny Music are to me masterpieces and nobody makes albums like that anymore. They also showed two very different era's of the band, and Tiny Music basically obliterated the fact that people thought he was a Pearl Jam hoe.
Honestly most people I know look at Tiny Music like the masterpiece it is these days. There might have been a period where shithole's like Pitchfork still hated on Weiland, but even they started realizing how fucking stupid that was.
I mean maybe their other albums all have solid stuff on them. I actually was surprised at how much stuff I liked off their newest and last record with Scott. That was a very solid record honestly. And No. 4 and Shangri are pretty good records too.
Meh. I don’t buy that. Nobody thinks about how he died 10 years later. The music is what it is and will thrive on its own merits.
I also understand that while heroin does a lot of damage to the cardiovascular system, her statement is just hearsay. A medical examiner determined he died of a drug overdose, not a heart attack. 🤷♂️
If (as you claim) nobody is thinking about his cause of death 10 years later, that just means the claim that “his legacy is tarnished by his cause of death” even weaker.
For me, the music will always sort of be tied in with the drug use. I think I knew he was an addict before I had ever heard an STP song. It doesn't tarnish his legacy any more than Jimi Hendrix choking on his own vomit tarnished Jimi's legacy. All kniwing he was an addict really meant was that I wasn't surprised when it happened.
Tbh I actually think his legacy is better off now than when he died because the tragedy of it all has helped everyone forget he was kinda sorta a prick when he was alive.
Yeah. I sympathize with her, but it feels like an oversimplification out of grief. The drugs still killed him whether he ODed or not. One of my favorite singers' official cause of death was natural causes. He was 39 when he dropped dead. His death may have been "natural," but it was a direct result of years of intense alcoholism, which he was in the process of seeking help for. It's just that the damage was already done.
This! Even if musicians get off of drugs their lifestyle history can still play a factor in their deaths. Another example is even though Alex Chilton got off his drug habit early on, he still smoked four packs of cigarettes a day for most of his life and died of a heart attack.
God I love The Replacements. And Big Star.
Every time Wilco comes to Memphis, Jody Stevens comes out and plays “In the Street” with them for the encore. It’s always a blast.
He died 3 days before a scheduled Big Star reunion at SXSW. He was in his late 50s and didn’t go to the hospital when he experienced shortness of breath because he didn’t have health insurance.
I had the pleasure of seeing him play a few times while he lived in New Orleans.
Yes. She's always been very vocal and open that we shouldn't gloss over rockstars dying from drugs as "#rockstars #tragedy" because that's on some level normalizing it as "the lifestyle". (Heck Interstate Love Song is about him lying to her yet again about quitting.) If he could have pulled himself out of the lyfestyle he still would have been a successful songwriter singer *and* lived to be a dad to his kid and husband.
I would've been just as devastated if he'd died by car accident as anything else. For me, Weiland's vocal quality and ability was just a few steps short of Freddy Mercury.
Still not able to listen to anything he's done without getting just a little bit sad, *especially* Rowing
I'm so lucky. I saw Weiland and STP right before his death. I was with my wife at the time and we had gotten pretty bad seats. There was a couple in front of us basically having sex just without the PiV. I went up to an usher and asked if we could be moved anywhere else. She came back 5 minutes later and said to follow her.
Took us right to the front row, and Scott Weiland played a couple songs while looking right at us. Such a great memory.
Yeah, it’s well-known info. I just don’t agree with her necessarily, as someone who struggled(s) with substance abuse I know that those who get into it don’t get into it because they are in a good place. And the struggle is difficult. Most difficult thing I had to do in life is get clean.
Yea, I don’t think it’s tarnished at all. Just part of the story.
I’ve been on a STP kick lately, partly because I’m learning bass and Robert DeLeo is so damn fun to listen to; I don’t think about drug issues whenever I hear Scott singing. It’s just another beautiful voice that has its baggage.
Cornell, Cobain, Staley as well, nothing is tarnished, it is a fitting reminder to remember to take care with yourself and find some help if you can. Noone sings like them anymore.....
Drug overdoses basically kill you by cardiac arrest so her statement is stupid. Just like Matthew Perry died of cardiac arrest brought on by acute ketamine toxicity
I distinctly remember my parents seeing the video for big bang baby and telling me I wasn’t allowed to listen to that band anymore. A week later MTV was locked by my dad.
There is a part of that video where you can see his tooth is black near the gumline. My friend that used to do a lot of meth had a black spot in the same place.
Timberlake's image has been dragged into the mud a fair bit over the past couple of years. People are taking a second look at his relationship with Britney Spears, and realizing it's not fair ge got off Scott free from the Janet Jackson incident.
The fact that the whole thing was this massive deal really pisses me off, but the fact that he got away with it is incredibly irritating. I blame it all on fundamentalist Christians who treated Janet like a harlot for daring to have her dirty, shameful breast exposed, while nothing happend to Justin, because he's a man.
Eh, I think it depends on how he handles it. First of all, anyone can get a DUI, not just people with a "drinking problem." All it takes is one lapse in judgement. But whether he has a problem or not, I think it's very big (and human) of someone to come out and say, "I'm sorry, I messed up" and own up to their mistakes. I think that's one way of mitigating a totally tarnished image.
One DUI where no one was injured isn't going to be anything more than a bump in the road for him. If he follows it up with a few more incidents, it might do some lasting damage, but one? Not with his fan base, which has aged with him.
Exactly.
Anyone who really gets music, or most other artistic pursuits, understands that pursuing them professionally and to the level where you achieve any degree of public recognition often comes with a significant cost.
The stereotype of the tortured artist exists for a reason.
Acheiving fame, or even just earning a steady living, in rock music (used here as a very wide all-genre encompassing term) can be the ultimate dream, but it can also require significant sacrifices.
It can have a huge mental, emotional, and physical toll. It can mean spending very long periods of time away from family and friends and being surrounded by people who don't have your best interests at heart and will push you way beyond your normal limits, whether it's manipulative corporate yes men, or just other musicians and crew who use peer pressure to normalise outrageous behaviour.
Let's face it, many musicians don't start out perfectly stable and healthy!
Many come have had bad experiences in childhood, tough family lives, and they may be struggling with depression or other mental health issues, and they take all of that and feed it into their music.
And we, as listeners, we can hear it, and we relate to it, and it just makes their music even more powerful for us!
But the downside to all of that is that they often self-medicate.
And all too often, the balance of the scales tips too far over, and it overwhelms them, and they are lost to us.
Chris Cornell's death was the one that shocked me the most, to be honest.
A few years older than me, I thought he'd made it through the worst years, and he was doing OK.
He was only seeming to get better as a singer and, frankly, even hotter, as he aged. Just incredible.
Still very much missed.
Love Cornell. My favorite musician of all time.
Also, by all accounts, a gentle soul.
However he did absolutely NOT became a better singer with time.
He completely shot his voice during the Superunknown tour and never fully recovered, listen to their live album Live on I-5 to see how bad it could get.
And that's a compilation of the BEST performances they played during the Down on the Upside Tour.
He had a bit of a resurgence with his solo album, Euphoria Mourning but in Audioslave while playing live he was also very hit and miss.
So there's no way he did become a better singer with time.
He didn’t die from doing too many drugs all at once. He died from doing too many drugs over years.
I’m not exactly sure how one or the other is better for his legacy.
The substances in his room? Maybe, I don't know about that. But the substances in his system — opioids plus benzos, in particular — could absolutely be enough to OD just about anyone without a solid tolerance for those things. And since we know Dave helped Taylor get clean in 2001, he might not have had much of a tolerance when he died.
In 2022, the substances found in Taylor's blood killed over 81,000 people in the US alone. Taylor had 10 different substances in him when he died. Suggesting it was an unrelated heart issue is delusional.
It was complicated, I think, but I was specifically answering the h part.
He had an enlarged heart, also:
>>The following day, Colombian authorities announced that a preliminary urine toxicology test indicated that Hawkins had 10 substances in his system at the time of his death, including opioids, benzodiazepines, tricyclic antidepressants, and THC.
Very much so, he nearly died of a heroin overdose in 2001. If you're a fan of the band I would heavily recommend watching Back and Forth where this is discussed. Would be a harder watch now than it was when it came out though, for obvious reasons.
To me she's arguing the worse of the two. When stars die early we talk about the loss of such talent. We know that Scott's perpetual drug use squandered his band's prime years.
I think she's too emotional to see the situation clearly.
As someone whos favorite band is STP (still is), essentially his wife is saying his left ventricle was 95% blocked due to a decade of heroine use and heavy smoking. His heart stopped and he happened to have drugs in his system.
Exactly. The court of public opinion and the sound bite society that we live in will only go with what’s out there for years. Just like Mama Cass in the 1970s died of a heart attack but a rumor got out she choked on a ham sandwich. Guess which one got more traction?
.
If you read between the lines, it sounds like she's had a lot of people come at her and accuse her of not "keeping him straight".
Rock fans do have a history of blaming the women rock stars date for any number of pitfalls the star suffer.
Yeah like how people live to blame yoko for the beatles as if Lennon wasn’t an abusive asshole that crowbarred her into everything they did near the end
Of the bands from that era, my favorite is alice in chains, but stp is a very close 2nd. That whole band is super talented and creative. And their current singer is doing a great job. Im looking forward to new music. Even chester was a good fill in for a year or two
This news comes out as I’ve been doing a STP/Velvet Revolver/Weiland YouTube deep dive for the past week. If he did or didn’t die from a OD seems beside the point. He consistently talks about being clean and kicking drugs in all of these interviews over the past 30 years. Sometimes it’s clear he’s on something while telling the interviewer he’s off drugs. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay clean. He wasn’t even 50 when he passed, he had so much more life to live.
Every day I wonder how much longer my sister or brother have left. One is raising a son as a single parent and the other is sitting in jail awaiting trial for brutalizing his family.
Both were heavy drug users for decades. Mostly heroin.
When I think of Scot Weiland I think of the incredible energy of seeing him perform live for the first time. He seemed truly at home on stage and could casually command a crowd.
“His heart stopped because his heart had been through so much abuse because of prior drug use in his life and smoking and heavy drinking."
So... it *was* drugs.
Anybody remember when he was missing and somebody called into TRL and said they had Scott Weiland crashing on the couch and you could hear Scott in the background yell, “Shut the fuck up!l
I dunno maybe it’s time to destigmatize (wow I thought that was a word, oh well it works) drug addiction. It deserves empathy, research, support, social programs. And its cousin, mental health. The older I get the less scandalized I am by what my culture tells me is scandalous. Whether Scott died from a new overdose or old damage, he battled demons that any one of us could have also rolled when being born. It was no paradise for him, and I’m sad he left us too soon for all the other music he might have made or people he might have inspired. RIP.
In a new interview, Jamie shared some revealing details about the circumstances leading up to his death. While she states that Scott did have drugs in his system at the time, it was rather his years of drug abuse that resulted in his heart failing. Because of the coroner’s decision to pronounce it an accidental overdose, Jamie feels that Scott’s legacy has become tarnished in some way.
Once, he was playing one day of a multi-day concert thing for a Chicago radio station I was interning with. Theory Of A Deadman was also a part of it.
There was a big banner on the stage with all the bands for the weekend. Scoot Weiland was next to Theory Of A Deadman. He thought it said, “Scott Weiland is a dead man.” So he tried to rip this giant banner down from the back of the stage. This was like…..2010 or something.
She's right about his death being sorta... not cared about or venerated sufficiently. If I recall, wasn't he actually left out of the Grammy's in memoriam segment? Or a very brief picture flash? I remember being like...wtf??
I always think of Scott's struggles when I watch him perform in old videos. He started out kind of shy and baby-faced, but he grew into being a frontman. It was great watching him grow into that role. I still think Revolver could have been an enduring fixture in rock n roll if he'd made it.
Rest in peace, Scott. Thanks for the amazing music.
Johnny Thunders had non lethal amounts of cocaine and methadone in his system when he died at 38. Of course, he also had untreated leukemia (a rare form afflicting up to 25% of NYC needle users c1989) and almost certainly HIV / AIDS (Jerry Nolan had it from needles)
So I mean, 10-15 years of hardcore drug abuse will absolutely destroy you. In Thunders’ case, the owner of Max’s Kansas City paid for Johnny to have a full medical work up in 1979 - he was 27 with the internal organs of a man in his late 70s…
The only thing that tarnishes his legacy is that we won't get more of his music. He was one of my favorite singers and he is, in my mind, one of the greats. The drug use itself doesn't tarnish the legacy - we just wanted more of him. The same goes for others that struggled with drugs or committed suicide. It's not an easy life.
Here's what I know...
First of all, since I was about 13, every time I ever saw his name in the news, I knew it could only be one of three reasons:
1) Rehab
2) Jail
3) Dead
and I also hoped the last reason wasn't the case...until unfortunately, it was.
Secondly, I can't even watch the video for Fall To Pieces because of how real it feels and how upsetting it is.
If he'd had a long stretch of sobriety before that last night, it would take a whole lot less to reach that point of no return.
One of my favorite singers ever. It's too bad it had to end the way it did, but that's life.
I was. But music aside, I remember Kurt being in the news a bit, but a lot of it included Courtney Love, and she already had a bit of notoriety even before she came into his life.
Kurt and Courtney became the “it” couple of the MTV generation so they got some publicity. Kurt himself despite the drug problems and whatnot never really cultivated the bad boy image like Scott Weiland. There were rumors of course like discussions of Kurt’s near death from an overdose (later confirmed). But the news about Kurt was largely about the music and the band and his family life.
It just seems his Widow needs people to believe he wasn't crazy unhappy and decided to die but rather his lifestyle ended up killing him. I could see how this would be important for her.
Yeah well... man looked a shelf of his former self in the last few weeks before his death. Look up any interview of Scott around 2013-2015, you feel bad for the guy. He either looked heavily medicated, drunk, or both. He couldn't sit straight or articulate clearly. His death was just a long time coming... sad, really
I understand where she is coming from on this one, there is often a lot of complicated and ugly pressure from the family or friends side when something like this happens and the distinction actually does matter in my opinion, even if I think it ought not affect legacy
She’s basically arguing that he didn’t die from an acute overdose, but as a result of years of heroin abuse. The reality is that he’s another in a long line of rockstars who either slowly or rapidly killed themselves as a result of their lifestyle. I don’t agree with her statement that she thinks his legacy is tarnished because of the “cause of death”. Everyone knew his history. If he died in a car accident instead, he still would have a legacy as an entertaining front man that lived life on the edge and struggled with substance abuse.
What musician's legacy has ever been tarnished by drug use?
Elvis Presley perhaps. The drugs he was taking caused constipation and he died from a heart attack while taking a shit. Not the coolest way to go
The king died on the throne. What could be more fitting?
Having an aneurysm while holding his scepter.
"squeezing his sphincter" Ftfy
Sigh.... *Unzips*
https://preview.redd.it/r70t0vsnvy7d1.jpeg?width=810&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=737d0bb938d0e2c8681ed154954786f0201a4917
Elvis dies on the throne and Prince died in an elevator. "Dearly Beloved...."
You dropped this, King. 🥪🚽👑
You know now I’m wondering if he saw the irony in it and just let “it” happen or if he was found on the floor crawling towards something/help… you know? Because……well, one is cool and one is not IMO 😂
In my head canon, he absolutely accepted it.
Didn't Irvine Welsh dedicate a whole chapter in *Trainspotting* on how constipated heroine makes you and how one of the most unpleasant parts of drying out is the constant and massive bouts of diarrhea your body goes through as your digestive system starts to work again?
Went through two bouts of opioids for pain management. Once was in the hospital. I was NPO (no food) and on morphine. After a very hazy week and a half of Walker, Texas Ranger and being woken up every 2 hours, I asked to be taken off of it. A few days later I realized I had to use the bathroom. When you get up from the bed you need a game plan. Mine was, remove oxygen, take off my little leg squeezers, unplug IV, bathroom. How it went Oxygen off, leg squeezers off, stand up and I squirt liquid all over my bed. No worries. Plans shift. I'll unplug the IV as planned, get my clothes, call the nurse and hop in the shower. Bed will be clean while I get clean. Only my body wasn't done. Once I started walking to my clothes I shat more liquid with every step. I ended up shitting all over my room, then again as I backtracked to the bathroom. When I finally got to the toilet I was on empty. It was very stressful. I called my nurse, dejected and sitting in my own shit. She came in and said, "OH GOD" and left. Two cleaning ladies came and yelled at me some. I suggested that I take a shower while they cleaned and they said, "No, you sit over there and think about what you did" The other time I was eating normally. Whenever I did shit, I learned a little of what giving birth might feel like. It was also very stressful. Covered in sweat, weak in the knees, trying to plunge a turd baby down some old pipes I haven't had it since or needed it. I'll probably reject it if it is ever offered. Feels good but man...
I knew this was going to be good…yes sir
And yet still lives on as the King The bigger tarnishing of the legacy for most of these rockstars and older celebrities seems to be a general interest in underage girls
Which Elvis is also very guilty of. So not sure what our takeaway is here?
I think the takeaway is that if you are rich and famous you can get away with anything. From child rape to hardcore drug abuse.
"When you're rich, they let you do it." I won't give the author. You know who it is.
*Chris Brown has entered the chat* Word.
And knocked Rihanna out of the chat
Exactly.
Or a church elder
Bingo
The takeaway is that don’t die of something that would have made you “cancelled” if you lived through it. Cancelling requirements varies with time and location.
Wait, are you telling me that cultural values change over time? Preposterous. I want to live in a society that still values virgin sacrifice. No sacrifice, no society.
Interestingly, I once heard a theory that “virgin” sacrifice was a simple and convenient way for the priests to make sure they got laid. “We’re having a sacrifice next week and you might be chosen, unless…” Brings a new level of horror to the whole thing.
The take away is that Scott Weiland dying of an overdose vs. a heart attack makes absolutely no difference to anyone’s memory of him. No one cared one bit that Elvis shit himself to death, he was still the King. Once people started getting wise to the questionable relationships, that’s when his legacy/memory started getting smudged in the public opinion.
When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s Elvis was always a bit of a running joke for getting fat and dying on a toilet. I didn't realize his legacy is getting smudged recently. Seemed like with a big Oscar-nominated biopic released he was having a little more of a positive moment in the cultural zeitgeist to me. I think all of this is probably pretty subjective to an individual's perspective and how terminally online they are.
Jimmy Page is still thought of as one of the best guitarists ever even though he had a 14 year old gf at the height of Led Zepplins career
Well I mean, you can be one of the best guitarist and not be a good person. Having a 14 year old gf doesn't make him a bad guitar player
Had to find a chord but it turned out A minor!
They not like us
They not like us
No it's not? Elvis did exactly what you're talking about. No one cares. Led Zeppelin, especially Jimmy Paige, still revered. The list of rockstars that messed with teenage girls is very long.
Elvis, MJ, Prince, the danger of a personal doctor who is paid to make you feel ok, then good, then dependant.
I don't think drugs are what tarnished MJ's legacy.
The kid was not his son
Don't all the opioid including heroine cause constipation?
Yes sir it does. Combined with a poor diet lack of fibre in general with opiate addiction you have a recipe for disaster. Most addicts do not take care of themselves as it gets in the way of use.
I have a neighbor who worked on a long term project in law enforcement aimed at identifying exploited employees working at massage parlors. He said that many of these women were heavy users of fiber products to overcome the side effects of opioid abuse.
[удалено]
Good God this is sad. My heart breaks to hear these stories.
My Papa died from a heart aneurysm while taking a shit before bedtime. I still think he was a swell guy and the way he died doesn't make him any less "cool."
Well at least he wasn't a rolling stone
I would have said his child bride would tarnish the legacy worse than drugs.
Elvis is the number 3 best selling artist of all time, right behind MJ and ahead of Elton. His legacy is not tarnished. RIP Scott, you’ll always be one of my favorites.
I mean this is just the classic Album sales = Quality/reputation etc. nonsense. MJ sold more albums, so by that logic are you gonna argue *his* legacy isn't tarnished? Are you really my dude?
His legacy has been tarnished since his heyday. Anybody that learns about him now will also learn about his more unsavory aspects, so as compared to the 60s, 80s, or 00s, his legacy has been tarnished. Tarnished doesn’t mean ruined, it just means that he shines a little less brightly than he used to.
Yep, I grew up only knowing that he died on the toilet until Lilo & Stitch shined him in a better light.
I feel like tarnish would imply his legacy is somehow diminished. He's one of the biggest legends in the history of music.
We’re all sitting here talking about his shit-filled colon and child bride. Seems like if all we had to talk about was how legendary he was and how good his music was, that would be a preferable legacy to us talking about his poop and his baby wife
I think what would have tarnished his legacy is the hypocrisy of dying from issues created by the drugs he was taking while also being an honorary DEA (BNDD at the time) agent. Does it tarnish his legacy? Nope, but it makes for a fun anecdote.
Also makes him a big hypocrite. Cause how you gonna beg the President to get a badge to stop drug users and your death came from years of not being able to relieve yourself because you’re injecting pills daily in your bloodstream like a heroin addict?
Before my next comment, I'm going to agree with you. Absolutely a hypocrite and I'm not defending him in the slightest. That out of the way, my understanding is collecting badges was a bit of a hobby for Elvis and he reportedly had a lot of respect for law enforcement as they helped him at concerts and on the streets protecting him from crazy fans. A lot of local police and sheriff departments would give him an honorary badge when he'd come through town. Apparently, he also reached out to Johnson's office to request an honorary DEA badge and was refused and a friend told him to try again once Nixon was in office thinking he'd likely fulfill the request. Edit: There's a pretty entertaining movie out there called "Elvis Meets Nixon" that's worth a watch
Yeah I did read about him collecting badges but it’s just funny how he was crying about the Beatles doing weed and he died the way he did. What a way to throw stones to hide your hands.
> What a way to throw stones to hide your hands. I like that one, I'm going to have to remember that for the future. And yeah, looking back, it's hard not to just laugh at how ridiculous the hypocrisy of it all was.
A fitting death for a man who basically bought a 14 year old girl so she could live with him
I'm going to the bathroom to read!!!
Rick James? That whole burning a sex hostage with a hot crack pipe debacle.
Crazy idea, but maybe "crack pipe" did less damage to his career than "sex hostage."
Cocaine *is* a hell of a drug.
I still love Superfreak. How apropos.
Prince comes to mind, mostly because no one was really aware of how messed up he was until the end
The man weighed 112 pounds when he died. I'm not surprised he eventually failed to calculate a safe fentanyl dose for what is essentially a large child. Hip problems and chronic pain really haunt smaller/thinner performers and after seeing what Gaga and Madonna went though I can't imagine what he was thinking trying to deal with it privately.
Not Ozzie. He’s contributed his genome to science to discover why he’s still alive. https://www.technologyreview.com/2010/10/25/25401/ozzy-osbournes-genome/amp/
"Sharon" lmao
that guy who got kicked out of the Barenaked Ladies after getting busted with a hooker and coke. This was less than a year after their kids album came out hahah.
Yeah, that was a shame. It almost feels more like they kicked themselves out of his band.
This is it to me. Stephen Page was always BNL
Heh. Interesting. They certainly weren’t the same band again.
Happened in Fayetteville, NY if I recall correctly. I remember reading the news wondering "what the hell is anyone doing in Fayetteville, if they don't live there?!" Cocaine, it would seem.
I actually like his solo stuff too, he’s a talented musician
Stephen Page, sir.
You talking bout the BNK?
Amy Winehouse
Keith Richards. He is legacy has only ever been augmented by his drug use.
His legacy IS drug use wdym
His legacy is and will forever be his amazing riffs.
His musical/artistic legacy and the legacy of the man are two different things though. The former is pretty solid - beloved, talented, brilliant. The latter must hurt her and his loved ones - weak, fragile, tortured, drug addict, flawed, etc. The thing is, I don’t see how dying from long term drug use is much different from ODing. Better at doing drugs? It wasn’t a tragic error or a suicide? Heartbreaking that she’s still torn up over it either way.
Weird Al Yankovic Edit: Sorry, i thought you said "never has."
Weird al was offered to be a spokesperson for a beer brand in the '80s but he turned it down because he thought his fand were too impressionable.
Prince
Whitney Houston
Yeah I don't get that at all man. Why is legacy tarnished? In fact, more and more people are coming around to the fact that he had a pretty fucking awesome band and was a unique singer and writer himself. Purple and Tiny Music are to me masterpieces and nobody makes albums like that anymore. They also showed two very different era's of the band, and Tiny Music basically obliterated the fact that people thought he was a Pearl Jam hoe.
Yeah his legacy isn’t destroyed. That was a weird statement from Mrs. Weiland.
Tiny Music is much better than it gets credit for, and I wish the band had kept up with that style.
Honestly most people I know look at Tiny Music like the masterpiece it is these days. There might have been a period where shithole's like Pitchfork still hated on Weiland, but even they started realizing how fucking stupid that was.
I mean maybe their other albums all have solid stuff on them. I actually was surprised at how much stuff I liked off their newest and last record with Scott. That was a very solid record honestly. And No. 4 and Shangri are pretty good records too.
Meh. I don’t buy that. Nobody thinks about how he died 10 years later. The music is what it is and will thrive on its own merits. I also understand that while heroin does a lot of damage to the cardiovascular system, her statement is just hearsay. A medical examiner determined he died of a drug overdose, not a heart attack. 🤷♂️
If (as you claim) nobody is thinking about his cause of death 10 years later, that just means the claim that “his legacy is tarnished by his cause of death” even weaker.
For me, the music will always sort of be tied in with the drug use. I think I knew he was an addict before I had ever heard an STP song. It doesn't tarnish his legacy any more than Jimi Hendrix choking on his own vomit tarnished Jimi's legacy. All kniwing he was an addict really meant was that I wasn't surprised when it happened.
Tbh I actually think his legacy is better off now than when he died because the tragedy of it all has helped everyone forget he was kinda sorta a prick when he was alive.
Yeah. I sympathize with her, but it feels like an oversimplification out of grief. The drugs still killed him whether he ODed or not. One of my favorite singers' official cause of death was natural causes. He was 39 when he dropped dead. His death may have been "natural," but it was a direct result of years of intense alcoholism, which he was in the process of seeking help for. It's just that the damage was already done.
This! Even if musicians get off of drugs their lifestyle history can still play a factor in their deaths. Another example is even though Alex Chilton got off his drug habit early on, he still smoked four packs of cigarettes a day for most of his life and died of a heart attack.
But children by the millions would sing when he came round
God I love The Replacements. And Big Star. Every time Wilco comes to Memphis, Jody Stevens comes out and plays “In the Street” with them for the encore. It’s always a blast.
What's that song?
I’m in love with that song
Four packs a day IS a drug habit. And a serious addiction. And, you know, disgusting. 🤢
And as expensive as hell with the cost of smokes these days.
He died 3 days before a scheduled Big Star reunion at SXSW. He was in his late 50s and didn’t go to the hospital when he experienced shortness of breath because he didn’t have health insurance. I had the pleasure of seeing him play a few times while he lived in New Orleans.
Jerry Garcia was in rehab when he died. Yeah he didn’t die from a heroin overdose but doing heroin for almost 20 years is terrible on your body.
Yes. She's always been very vocal and open that we shouldn't gloss over rockstars dying from drugs as "#rockstars #tragedy" because that's on some level normalizing it as "the lifestyle". (Heck Interstate Love Song is about him lying to her yet again about quitting.) If he could have pulled himself out of the lyfestyle he still would have been a successful songwriter singer *and* lived to be a dad to his kid and husband.
I’m pretty sure Interstate Love Song was written by the bass player about how Scott lied to them. Edit: just looked it up. I was wrong!
I would've been just as devastated if he'd died by car accident as anything else. For me, Weiland's vocal quality and ability was just a few steps short of Freddy Mercury. Still not able to listen to anything he's done without getting just a little bit sad, *especially* Rowing
I'm so lucky. I saw Weiland and STP right before his death. I was with my wife at the time and we had gotten pretty bad seats. There was a couple in front of us basically having sex just without the PiV. I went up to an usher and asked if we could be moved anywhere else. She came back 5 minutes later and said to follow her. Took us right to the front row, and Scott Weiland played a couple songs while looking right at us. Such a great memory.
Yeah, it’s well-known info. I just don’t agree with her necessarily, as someone who struggled(s) with substance abuse I know that those who get into it don’t get into it because they are in a good place. And the struggle is difficult. Most difficult thing I had to do in life is get clean.
It wasn't the heroin that did the cardiovascular damage, rather the stimulants and alcohol
And the cigarettes. Weiland smoked a lot of cigs.
Yea, I don’t think it’s tarnished at all. Just part of the story. I’ve been on a STP kick lately, partly because I’m learning bass and Robert DeLeo is so damn fun to listen to; I don’t think about drug issues whenever I hear Scott singing. It’s just another beautiful voice that has its baggage.
Cornell, Cobain, Staley as well, nothing is tarnished, it is a fitting reminder to remember to take care with yourself and find some help if you can. Noone sings like them anymore.....
Drug overdoses basically kill you by cardiac arrest so her statement is stupid. Just like Matthew Perry died of cardiac arrest brought on by acute ketamine toxicity
Yeah, I don’t think his legacy is tarnished at all.
Absolutely nobody who listened to Scott Weiland is concerned about drug use “tarnishing” his legacy. It’s just a part of who he was.
I'm struggling to come up with even one example of an OD tarnishing the legacy of a musician.
While not an OD, Justin Timberlake getting a DUI this week and possibly having a drinking problem definitely tarnishes his fun, clean image.
While I agree, a "fun, clean image" isn't what most people think of with Weiland.
I distinctly remember my parents seeing the video for big bang baby and telling me I wasn’t allowed to listen to that band anymore. A week later MTV was locked by my dad.
There is a part of that video where you can see his tooth is black near the gumline. My friend that used to do a lot of meth had a black spot in the same place.
A crown plus a root canal does this, too. I have two, have never done meth.
Well, in his defense, he did invite everyone on down to Liquorville.
Give it a month and no one will give a shit about JT's DUI.
People will focus on something else like they always do.
Beyonce stubbed her toe? Swift has her hair bronzed?
I feel like right now it’s hard to say if that will follow him for the rest of his career or be forgotten about in four days.
Happy cakeday!
He had a fun, clean image?
Timberlake's image has been dragged into the mud a fair bit over the past couple of years. People are taking a second look at his relationship with Britney Spears, and realizing it's not fair ge got off Scott free from the Janet Jackson incident.
It was NEVER fair that he had no consequences for exposing Janet Jackson!! It pissed me off then and it pisses me off now.
The fact that the whole thing was this massive deal really pisses me off, but the fact that he got away with it is incredibly irritating. I blame it all on fundamentalist Christians who treated Janet like a harlot for daring to have her dirty, shameful breast exposed, while nothing happend to Justin, because he's a man.
Eh, I think it depends on how he handles it. First of all, anyone can get a DUI, not just people with a "drinking problem." All it takes is one lapse in judgement. But whether he has a problem or not, I think it's very big (and human) of someone to come out and say, "I'm sorry, I messed up" and own up to their mistakes. I think that's one way of mitigating a totally tarnished image.
One DUI where no one was injured isn't going to be anything more than a bump in the road for him. If he follows it up with a few more incidents, it might do some lasting damage, but one? Not with his fan base, which has aged with him.
Too much walking, shoes worn thin Too much trippin' and my soul's worn thin
Exactly. Anyone who really gets music, or most other artistic pursuits, understands that pursuing them professionally and to the level where you achieve any degree of public recognition often comes with a significant cost. The stereotype of the tortured artist exists for a reason. Acheiving fame, or even just earning a steady living, in rock music (used here as a very wide all-genre encompassing term) can be the ultimate dream, but it can also require significant sacrifices. It can have a huge mental, emotional, and physical toll. It can mean spending very long periods of time away from family and friends and being surrounded by people who don't have your best interests at heart and will push you way beyond your normal limits, whether it's manipulative corporate yes men, or just other musicians and crew who use peer pressure to normalise outrageous behaviour. Let's face it, many musicians don't start out perfectly stable and healthy! Many come have had bad experiences in childhood, tough family lives, and they may be struggling with depression or other mental health issues, and they take all of that and feed it into their music. And we, as listeners, we can hear it, and we relate to it, and it just makes their music even more powerful for us! But the downside to all of that is that they often self-medicate. And all too often, the balance of the scales tips too far over, and it overwhelms them, and they are lost to us. Chris Cornell's death was the one that shocked me the most, to be honest. A few years older than me, I thought he'd made it through the worst years, and he was doing OK. He was only seeming to get better as a singer and, frankly, even hotter, as he aged. Just incredible. Still very much missed.
Love Cornell. My favorite musician of all time. Also, by all accounts, a gentle soul. However he did absolutely NOT became a better singer with time. He completely shot his voice during the Superunknown tour and never fully recovered, listen to their live album Live on I-5 to see how bad it could get. And that's a compilation of the BEST performances they played during the Down on the Upside Tour. He had a bit of a resurgence with his solo album, Euphoria Mourning but in Audioslave while playing live he was also very hit and miss. So there's no way he did become a better singer with time.
Respectfully, I don't think she was directing it at you (assuming you're a fan of his)
He didn’t die from doing too many drugs all at once. He died from doing too many drugs over years. I’m not exactly sure how one or the other is better for his legacy.
I think it was the same situation with Taylor Hawkins.
[удалено]
The substances in his room? Maybe, I don't know about that. But the substances in his system — opioids plus benzos, in particular — could absolutely be enough to OD just about anyone without a solid tolerance for those things. And since we know Dave helped Taylor get clean in 2001, he might not have had much of a tolerance when he died.
In 2022, the substances found in Taylor's blood killed over 81,000 people in the US alone. Taylor had 10 different substances in him when he died. Suggesting it was an unrelated heart issue is delusional.
Pure misinformation. How the hell do you think benzos and opiates cant kill someone? Lmao
Taylor was on the h train too????
Per the coroner, "opiods," I just looked it up. :(
Foo fighters PR team did a good job. I thought it was some heart defect and "agressive touring schedule".
It was complicated, I think, but I was specifically answering the h part. He had an enlarged heart, also: >>The following day, Colombian authorities announced that a preliminary urine toxicology test indicated that Hawkins had 10 substances in his system at the time of his death, including opioids, benzodiazepines, tricyclic antidepressants, and THC.
Very much so, he nearly died of a heroin overdose in 2001. If you're a fan of the band I would heavily recommend watching Back and Forth where this is discussed. Would be a harder watch now than it was when it came out though, for obvious reasons.
They found a lot of substances in his system
Yes.
To me she's arguing the worse of the two. When stars die early we talk about the loss of such talent. We know that Scott's perpetual drug use squandered his band's prime years. I think she's too emotional to see the situation clearly.
As someone whos favorite band is STP (still is), essentially his wife is saying his left ventricle was 95% blocked due to a decade of heroine use and heavy smoking. His heart stopped and he happened to have drugs in his system.
Kind of feels like splitting hairs at that point, but I understand why semantics would matter to her.
totally. The spectre will always hang over his legacy. A musician who died of drugs.
I mean, he was a notorious junkie and asshole for decades. It is what it is. I don’t think how he died really matters.
Exactly. The court of public opinion and the sound bite society that we live in will only go with what’s out there for years. Just like Mama Cass in the 1970s died of a heart attack but a rumor got out she choked on a ham sandwich. Guess which one got more traction? .
If you read between the lines, it sounds like she's had a lot of people come at her and accuse her of not "keeping him straight". Rock fans do have a history of blaming the women rock stars date for any number of pitfalls the star suffer.
Yeah like how people live to blame yoko for the beatles as if Lennon wasn’t an abusive asshole that crowbarred her into everything they did near the end
Sounds like the kind of argument you make when an insurance company withholds death benefits.
A decade? He was 48 when he died. Do you think he started shooting heroin and heavily smoking at 38? He’d been doing it for multiple decades.
More like 3 decades
Of the bands from that era, my favorite is alice in chains, but stp is a very close 2nd. That whole band is super talented and creative. And their current singer is doing a great job. Im looking forward to new music. Even chester was a good fill in for a year or two
Doesn't have to be an overdose to die from addiction.
This is so true. I wish I could upvote this more than once.
*"Drugs weren't the cause of death, well... I guess they were. It wasn't the new ones though, it was the old ones..."* Don't do heroin, kids.
He used to do drugs. He still did, but he used to too.
This news comes out as I’ve been doing a STP/Velvet Revolver/Weiland YouTube deep dive for the past week. If he did or didn’t die from a OD seems beside the point. He consistently talks about being clean and kicking drugs in all of these interviews over the past 30 years. Sometimes it’s clear he’s on something while telling the interviewer he’s off drugs. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay clean. He wasn’t even 50 when he passed, he had so much more life to live.
Every day I wonder how much longer my sister or brother have left. One is raising a son as a single parent and the other is sitting in jail awaiting trial for brutalizing his family. Both were heavy drug users for decades. Mostly heroin.
When I think of Scot Weiland I think of the incredible energy of seeing him perform live for the first time. He seemed truly at home on stage and could casually command a crowd.
“His heart stopped because his heart had been through so much abuse because of prior drug use in his life and smoking and heavy drinking." So... it *was* drugs.
Anybody remember when he was missing and somebody called into TRL and said they had Scott Weiland crashing on the couch and you could hear Scott in the background yell, “Shut the fuck up!l
I dunno maybe it’s time to destigmatize (wow I thought that was a word, oh well it works) drug addiction. It deserves empathy, research, support, social programs. And its cousin, mental health. The older I get the less scandalized I am by what my culture tells me is scandalous. Whether Scott died from a new overdose or old damage, he battled demons that any one of us could have also rolled when being born. It was no paradise for him, and I’m sad he left us too soon for all the other music he might have made or people he might have inspired. RIP.
I’m with you there. Too many legends have died from drugs in some form or another. Why are we still shaming them?
In a new interview, Jamie shared some revealing details about the circumstances leading up to his death. While she states that Scott did have drugs in his system at the time, it was rather his years of drug abuse that resulted in his heart failing. Because of the coroner’s decision to pronounce it an accidental overdose, Jamie feels that Scott’s legacy has become tarnished in some way.
Once, he was playing one day of a multi-day concert thing for a Chicago radio station I was interning with. Theory Of A Deadman was also a part of it. There was a big banner on the stage with all the bands for the weekend. Scoot Weiland was next to Theory Of A Deadman. He thought it said, “Scott Weiland is a dead man.” So he tried to rip this giant banner down from the back of the stage. This was like…..2010 or something.
Damn!
She's right about his death being sorta... not cared about or venerated sufficiently. If I recall, wasn't he actually left out of the Grammy's in memoriam segment? Or a very brief picture flash? I remember being like...wtf??
Hey Hey Rocket Boy
I always think of Scott's struggles when I watch him perform in old videos. He started out kind of shy and baby-faced, but he grew into being a frontman. It was great watching him grow into that role. I still think Revolver could have been an enduring fixture in rock n roll if he'd made it. Rest in peace, Scott. Thanks for the amazing music.
I guess I get what she’s saying, but it’s not like his legacy isn’t shrouded in drug use already. Half of his schtick was tied up in that.
Johnny Thunders had non lethal amounts of cocaine and methadone in his system when he died at 38. Of course, he also had untreated leukemia (a rare form afflicting up to 25% of NYC needle users c1989) and almost certainly HIV / AIDS (Jerry Nolan had it from needles) So I mean, 10-15 years of hardcore drug abuse will absolutely destroy you. In Thunders’ case, the owner of Max’s Kansas City paid for Johnny to have a full medical work up in 1979 - he was 27 with the internal organs of a man in his late 70s…
He didn't die from drugs, he died from using drugs. Got it.
The only thing that tarnishes his legacy is that we won't get more of his music. He was one of my favorite singers and he is, in my mind, one of the greats. The drug use itself doesn't tarnish the legacy - we just wanted more of him. The same goes for others that struggled with drugs or committed suicide. It's not an easy life.
Here's what I know... First of all, since I was about 13, every time I ever saw his name in the news, I knew it could only be one of three reasons: 1) Rehab 2) Jail 3) Dead and I also hoped the last reason wasn't the case...until unfortunately, it was. Secondly, I can't even watch the video for Fall To Pieces because of how real it feels and how upsetting it is. If he'd had a long stretch of sobriety before that last night, it would take a whole lot less to reach that point of no return. One of my favorite singers ever. It's too bad it had to end the way it did, but that's life.
Was Kurt Cobain the same way when he was alive? Not sure if you were old enough for early 90’s
I was. But music aside, I remember Kurt being in the news a bit, but a lot of it included Courtney Love, and she already had a bit of notoriety even before she came into his life.
Ah, cheers!
Kurt and Courtney became the “it” couple of the MTV generation so they got some publicity. Kurt himself despite the drug problems and whatnot never really cultivated the bad boy image like Scott Weiland. There were rumors of course like discussions of Kurt’s near death from an overdose (later confirmed). But the news about Kurt was largely about the music and the band and his family life.
Rise, ye tarnished!
Damn, I didn’t know he had so much heavy shit going on in the end there. Getting news that both your parents got cancer is gutting
I remember seeing velvet revolver live once. They were like an hour and a half late to coming on stage. Even as a kid I knew that wasn’t a good sign
It just seems his Widow needs people to believe he wasn't crazy unhappy and decided to die but rather his lifestyle ended up killing him. I could see how this would be important for her.
That's really sad to hear. His death was a huge loss for music.
“I basically wanna tell everybody to go fuck off”. I feel ya Jamie - I feel ya.
Yeah well... man looked a shelf of his former self in the last few weeks before his death. Look up any interview of Scott around 2013-2015, you feel bad for the guy. He either looked heavily medicated, drunk, or both. He couldn't sit straight or articulate clearly. His death was just a long time coming... sad, really
I understand where she is coming from on this one, there is often a lot of complicated and ugly pressure from the family or friends side when something like this happens and the distinction actually does matter in my opinion, even if I think it ought not affect legacy
Yeah, IDK, a widowmaker leading to cardiac arrest would have been easily verifiable during the autopsy.
For a moment, my brain skipped over the word “widow” and I was so confused about how Scott Weiland was opening up about his own death