Reclaiming Glory, One Step at a Time

Second chances in rock?

That’s the stuff of nostalgia-laced reunion tours and pathos-filled codas to VH1’s “Behind the Music”--fallen idols clinging to long-past glory.

So Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland realizes that he’s defying some pretty strong odds by making the most of what must be his seventh or eighth chance, after pretty much throwing away his career to drug addiction.

“I know and fully respect that people were very leery of STP when we announced [in the spring] that we were going to tour,” says Weiland, 32. “Talking to promoters and people on our Web site, there was skepticism whether I was really clean or would be back in jail.”

You couldn’t blame them.

After leading the band to early ‘90s glory, with combined album sales of more than10 million for the 1992 debut “Core” and 1994’s “Purple,” Weiland spent the rest of the decade in and out of drug rehabilitation and jail. In the process he pulled the rug out from under Stone Temple Pilots, whose most recent album, “No. 4,” came out while he was incarcerated in October and had every appearance of being the Los Angeles band’s swan song.

But with Weiland now drug-free and out of jail, Stone Temple Pilots is on its way back up in what could develop into one of the most dramatic reversals of fortune ever in rock. The Pilots stole the show at a series of summer radio-sponsored concerts, including the KROQ-FM (106.7) Weenie Roast in June at Edison Field in Anaheim. And “No. 4” has picked up enough momentum behind those appearances and the atypically gentle single “Sour Girl” to pass the 1 million sales mark.

And now the group, which opens for the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on Friday and Saturday, has signed with Q Prime, the powerhouse management firm that is also home to Metallica and the Chili Peppers.

“It’s an amazing feeling, and I believe everything we’ve gone through has been for a purpose,” Weiland says. “That sounds cliche, but the reason the cliche exists is the concept of living through to get to the other side is real.”

And, he says, the skeptical fans are being won back.

Harder to regain, perhaps, was the trust of his own band. Guitarist Dean DeLeo, bassist Robert DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz had turned away from Weiland once already, working with another singer under the name Talk Show in 1997. Taking him back was not easy.

“We didn’t know where Scott was going to be and . . . we didn’t know what to expect when he got out,” says Dean DeLeo, 39, looking back at the release of “No. 4” last year.

DeLeo just wasn’t sure he could take more of what he felt was betrayal from Weiland.

“I didn’t like the whole covert thing that comes with someone using [drugs],” says DeLeo. “This is someone who you shared some of your most intimate moments of your life with, sharing your art together, and to have this person start growing horns and a tail with a point on it gets scary.”

It was actually more than two years ago, DeLeo says, that he became convinced that Weiland was serious about getting better. They met at a rehab facility where Weiland was staying and had a heart-to-heart talk. Still, it took some time before Weiland, with court-ordered mandates, really stuck with rehabilitation and regained his friend’s faith.

“Where he’s at now is something he wanted for a number of years, but couldn’t get there,” DeLeo says. “C’est la vie, and the universe turns. The best is yet to come.”

Pilots to Launch New Album in Spring

A key factor in the renewal is that there still seems to be a lot of goodwill for the band.

“What I get is that everybody’s rooting for [Weiland],” says Cliff Burnstein, partner in Q Prime. “All the radio people want him to come back and are excited that they’ve come back this far.”

One immediate result of the recent management change was scrapping plans for a greatest-hits collection in favor of a full new album, which the band will begin recording in November with hopes for a late spring release. There’s also consensus in the Stone Temple Pilots camp that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to release “No. 4” when Weiland was just going into jail.

“If they would have waited until after Scott came out, maybe they could have recorded a new song or two and then announced the tour,” says Burnstein, outlining a hypothetical release schedule without the handicap of Weiland’s unavailability. “I believe the album would have sold twice as much, and what a great story it would have been.”

Weiland actually not only has his sights on reviving the band’s fortunes but also on reinfusing rock with a sense of purpose.

“I’m not saying you have to morally be a saint, but if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything, and it seems that’s what a lot of the young rock fans are doing,” he says. “I’ve had to stop songs because [of seeing young women being groped in the audience], and it’s at that time I really miss Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. I think they helped raise the awareness of the whole idea of the celebration of music and art as something between the artists and the fans.”

It’s a void he now has dreams of filling.

“There haven’t been that many bands in recent years having real longevity around the world--maybe just U2,” he says. “That’s an amazing pinnacle to aspire to.”

But he immediately tempers his ambition, echoing a guideline of his recovery process.

“It’s all one step at a time. I’m happy doing what we’re doing now.”

*

* Stone Temple Pilots, with Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Bicycle Thief, Friday and Saturday at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine, 7:30 p.m. $25 and $35 (Friday sold out). (949) 855-2863.