When Stone Temple Pilots filed a lawsuit against their ex-frontman Scott Weiland last week, it was always unlikely that it would be the last we’d hear of the case. Now the outspoken Weiland has struck back against his former bandmates, filing a counter lawsuit of his own against the group, who “terminated” the troubled singer from the band two months ago.
As Rolling Stone reports, Scott Weiland filed the countersuit last Friday and is seeking at least $5 million in compensatory damages, saying his former bandmates – guitar playing brothers Robert and Dean DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz – conspired against him.
“How do you expel a man from a band that he started, named, sang lead on every song, wrote the lyrics and was the face of for 20 years, and then try to grab the name and goodwill for yourselves?” reads Weiland’s countersuit. “You don’t, but three of the instrumentalists from the band ‘Stone Temple Pilots’ tried.”
The claim highlights a partnership agreement signed by Stone Temple Pilots in 1996, later amended in 2010, that Weiland argues allows each band member to perform on his own but that forces any remaining members to play undre a different name if separate and apart from him.
It’s the same agreement that Kretz and the DeLeos’ refer to in their own lawsuit, filed last week in LA, saying the 1996/2010 agreement stipulates that no former members can use the Stone Temple Pilots name. The claim accuses their ex-frontman of “misappropriating” the band’s name to further his solo career and requesting a judge block him from misusing the Stone Temple Pilots name and song catalogue, while blaming Weiland for “violating his duties” to touring due to his struggles with addiction that were hurting the band’s “earning potential.” “How do you expel a man from a band that he started, named, sang lead on every song, wrote the lyrics and was the face of for 20 years…?” – Scott Weiland
“Enough is enough,” the lawsuit reads. “Without relief from the court, Weiland will continue violating STP’s rights, misappropriating STP assets and interfering with the band’s livelihood.”
The band also issued a statement on the Stone Temple Pilots website to their fans regarding the lawsuit, that reads: “Our purpose in taking this action is not to hurt Scott. We want to move forward productively, and Scott’s choices and actions have prevented us from doing that.”
“Without getting into legal details, the band has a binding agreement that clearly states what each of us can and cannot do outside of STP,” write Robert DeLeo, Dean DeLeo and Eric Kretz. “Unfortunately many of the decisions Scott made violate this agreement, have been harmful to the band, and prevented us from moving forward.”
In Weiland’s countersuit however, he maintains he reached out to his bandmates several times to make amends, but that all communication was ignored at their end. The singer is seeking compensatory finances “in excess” of $5 million, as well as up to $2 million in statutory damages for each “willful use” of the Stone Temple Pilots name “per mark, per type of goods or services sold, offered for sale or distributed,” reads the countersuit.
One such “willful use” no doubt includes the remaning Stone Temple Pilots members teaming up with Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington, debuting their new replacement at a set for LA radio station KROQ’s annual Weenie Roast, playing Stone Temple Pilots favourites and airing their new single, ‘Out Of Time’.
It’s the same single that the Bennington-fronted Stone Temple Pilots claims that Scott Weiland attempted to block from playing over radio, his lawyer threatening legal action. The lawsuit also confirms that the Linkin Park singer’s appearance marks the start of a new, Weiland-less era, noting the band “plans to record a seventh studio album, its first with Bennington.”
Bennington himself told Rolling Stone that “the reality is we’re gonna make music, we’re gonna make a lot of it, and we’re gonna be in a position to release a single at a time, go out an really give people music the way they want to get it.” Adding that even without a label, they would continue to “hammer out a record,” while “making the legacy as great as it needs to be, as great as people expect it to be, and coming out with new music that lives up to that standard.” “Unfortunately many of the decisions Scott made violate [our legal] agreement, have been harmful to the band, and prevented us from moving forward.” – Stone Temple Pilots
Something Weiland was none too happy about when he wrote an open letter addressed to his fans in late May. “To tell you the truth, it took me by surprise. And it hurt,” writes Weiland of the Bennington-fronted Stone Temple Pilots debut performance, stating that “the band that played last weekend was not Stone Temple Pilots and it was wrong of them to present themselves as that.”
“When I tour on my own, it’s never as Stone Temple Pilots. It’s as Scott Weiland. The fans deserve to know what they’re getting,” he added. “I don’t give a fuck what they call themselves, but it’s not Stone Temple Pilots.”
The singer also claims the band have no legal right to use the name “because I’m still a member of the band,” says Weiland, but “more importantly” that it was ethically wrong to use the name “because it’s misleading and dishonest to the millions of fans that have followed us for so many years.”
As if to add insult to injury, NME reports the Chester Bennington-fronted Stone Temple Pilots performed live at the MusiCares benefit gig in Los Angeles at the end of last month in a proverbial anti-Scott Weiland supergroup, playing a cover of the David Bowie-penned ‘All The Young Dudes’ by Mott The Hoople (which you can view below). Joining the Bennington version STP was Guns N Roses members Slash and bassist Duff McKagan, another group of musicians who have had issues with Scott Weiland in the past as part of Velvet Revolver.
Speaking to Tone Deaf last year in reference to the Weiland’s claims that Velvet Revolver were reforming despite their messy implosion, the legendary guitarist scoffed “anything having to do with Scott is laughable to me… there’s absolutely nothing happening with Scott and Velvet Revolver and I don’t think anybody in the band is going to exercise that.”
