Late Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland’s former solo band guitarist Doug Grean gave his first interview since Weiland’s December 2015 death on the AlternativeNation.net affiliated podcast Appetite for Distortion, hosted by Brando. AlternativeNation.net reporter and freelance writer Doug McCausland co-hosted the episode. Grean worked with Weiland for 15 years, including recording Happy in Galoshes and The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Their working relationship ended a few years before Weiland’s death.
Grean has a new web series called ‘Starman’, loosely based off his experiences working with Weiland, with the character being a drug addicted British rocker in his 60’s who believes aliens are after him.
Grean discussed his first days working in Scott Weiland’s studio.
“I remember the song, I’m blanking on the name right now, it was like the second day I was in the studio. But my first project at the Scott Weiland studio was to find all the syringes and get rid of them. They were like, ‘You have to go in and de-dopify the place.’ I was like, ‘Alright, I’m sober, I can do it.’ Anyways, so the first song was, I can’t remember, it was actually Scott, me, and Eric Kretz came over. He played drums on it, I played guitar and bass, and Scott sang. It was a ballad, and it was cool, it was a B-side, it definitely was not a hit. I was fucking jazzed, I went home to my other job, which was my other studio, and I was just walking on air. I was like hey, I just did a song with Scott Weiland, listen to this! It was pretty fun for me, probably not as fun for him.
I think he liked writing with me because we were friends, and because I’m a good writing partner. I’m very good at filling in blanks, I’m very good at writing with singers, especially if they don’t play a lot of instruments and they need help with the musical aspects. He would come in with a verse, with two chords and a melody, and he would say, ‘This is a verse.’ I would listen to what he was doing, and I would write a chorus, he would sing on it, and I would kind of glue everything together. I think he liked that too. He didn’t want to meet people to go out and write with, because he didn’t like new people.”
You can contact Doug McCausland at dmccausland1@gmail.com.
Listen to “Ep. 96 – Doug Grean talks Scott Weiland, Drugs, and SciFi” on Spreaker.
