WASHINGTON — In 1998, Scott Weiland came to D.C. to play a secret show at the 9:30 Club and a bigger one at the HFStival a day later.
Before the 9:30 Club gig, he ventured through the city to score drugs. He was stopped by police, but wasn’t arrested.
According to Bob Waugh, a veteran local DJ and program director, Weiland’s subsequent performances weren’t good.
Two years later, Weiland returned to the D.C. area for the HFStival at FedEx Field in Landover. This time, Waugh said, Weiland “was in an entirely different frame of mind.”
“One of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Waugh, now the program director at WRNR. “I will never forget how you could actually see steam rising off the hot bodies in the mosh pit. It was raining lightly when they played, and the moisture hitting the STP fans created a cloud of steam.”
“It was incredible,” Waugh recalled. “And when STP were on their game, there was no better live band.”
Weiland died this week after a 30-year career as frontman of Stone Temple Pilots and a member of supergroup Velvet Revolver. The singer apparently died in his sleep during a tour stop in Minneapolis.
Police said investigators found small amounts of cocaine on Weiland’s tour bus, though a cause of death hasn’t been released. The singer had been dogged by substance abuse problems throughout his career.
“This is such a tragic story, because it’s the story of a man who struggled with addiction through the majority of his life and ultimately succumbed,” Waugh told WTOP.
Though when Waugh first heard STP, he and others misjudged the band as one trying to cash in on the success of Pearl Jam and Nirvana. STP’s first two albums went on to sell 14 million copies.
“This was a band that had to be reckoned with on their own,” Waugh said. “And that’s what is so tragic, I think, about this story.”
Stone Temple Pilots broke up, reunited, and eventually kicked Weiland out the group. His drug use complicated things for the band. Weiland enjoyed more commercial success with Velvet Revolver.
In the end, Waugh hopes something good can come from losing such a talented artist.
“The heroin epidemic that is gripping our society today is at an all-time high,” Waugh said. “And I guess you can only hope that this example resonates with some people about the choices they make while they’re young and what the consequences are.”
