Photo credit: Corey Hickok
Tommy Black confirmed reports Alternative Nation made nearly a year ago that there is unreleased Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts material. Alternative Nation was told by a source nearly a year ago that there were two unreleased songs, though the quality of the recordings was unknown.
There is also an unreleased track Weiland made in the late 90’s with side project Wondergirls called “Massive Heart Attack,” which Alternative Nation is in possession of but cannot release due to legal reasons. The track clocks in at 5:08 and sounds like a mix of 80’s new wave, David Bowie, and The Cure. In the track Weiland sings, ‘Conversations/spreading lies/miseducation/in your eyes/hollow feelings/fills the airs/hidden memories/wedding bells/feed the masses/breed the lies/massive heart attack/for all who try.’ He also sings, ‘For all who try/for all who die/for all who die to try.’ There is also unreleased material from Weiland’s first 1980’s band Soi-Disant that Alternative Nation is still trying to get from former members of the band.
Black discussed the unreleased Wildabouts material in a recent Yahoo interview.
Listening to the music he made with Weiland has helped Black process his grief over Weiland’s death. “Somebody sends me a link to something and I check it out, and it just takes me right back there,” he says wistfully. “Music can make you smell things and taste things or hear things in your head… Your mind fills in the spaces in the music.” Black reveals that there is unreleased Wildabouts music in his possession, but he hasn’t “decided what to do with it yet. It’s cool, too. There’s some more ethereal-sounding stuff… it runs the whole gamut, actually. It’s just in my thoughts. I haven’t talked to anyone about it, to be honest.”
He also discussed Weiland’s love of Christmas. Weiland “took the holidays so seriously — and that shows how sweet he was. It’s really hard for me, because at least the last four or five Thanksgivings, New Year’s Eves, and Christmases would be spent with Scott and Jamie. I spent so many Christmases over there, and he would cook and he’d sing Christmas songs, and then his Christmas record [The Most Wonderful Time of the Year] would play and he’d start singing with it. At Thanksgiving, he would cook the turkey. He was a real good cook, and he took the cooking of the turkey really seriously… He just loved family and holidays. He was a very nostalgic guy about that sort of stuff.”
