English literature

Favorite bands
From the massive success of post-grunge rockers Stone Temple Pilots to commercial guttersnipe supergroup Velvet Revolver, singer Scott Weiland's expansive talent cast a long shadow. The multiple Grammy winner, 48, was found dead yesterday in Bloomington, Indiana, while on tour with his band, the Wildabouts. When we spoke with him in March, Weiland said he did much of his listening in the kitchen of his L.A.-area home while making dinner with his wife. And thanks to his kids, new music seeped into Weiland's life. But as he noted of his 12-year-old daughter's pop predilections: "I see [pop] as a devil. It just isn't my bag. When I was around nine years old, I was a fan of Shaun Cassidy's first album. That's kind of the equivalent." Still, the songster's taste was wide-ranging, and Weiland was glad to spend an hour musing with us about the artists he enjoys the most, at least at that moment.

David Bowie 

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W a"Bowie is probably my favorite all-around songwriter and performer and personality. His ability to change over the years is such an inspiration. I love 'Young Americans' and 'Fame.' I did a cover of 'Fame' with Paul Oakenfold a few years back. 'Jean Genie' I've been doing live for a long time. I did it with Stone Temple Pilots. I used to do it with Camp Freddy. The lyrics are all over the place, they're just a journey down the rabbit hole. I really didn't get obsessed with Bowie until my freshman year in high school. I remember listening to 'Starman' and thinking it sounded like it was a song for kids, like a lullaby. The Thin White Duke is my favorite look that he created. I didn't really connect with [Stone Temple Pilots' grunge look] much. By our second album, Purple, I was already moving into a little bit of glam with the haircut that I got and the clothes I started wearing. By our third album, Tiny Music, I was pretty full-on into the glam thing. I got to a point where I decided no man over 40 should wear leather pants. I started wearing suits whenever I'd perform. Just to kind of set things off a little bit because it was rockin' and it had a lot of energy, but then I was wearing a more conservative suit."
"They're this lo-fi art punk pop kind of band that has a lot of experimentation with sounds and loops and funky guitar, and really great tongue-in-cheek lyrics, really well-written. My favorite album by Grandaddy is Sumday. I never did get a chance to see them live, but every song is basically amazing, starting with 'Now It's On,' which is just a rollicking fuzzy pop song that's still kind of bizarre. 'The Go in the Go-for-It' and 'The Group Who Couldn't Say' are probably my favorites. The band's from Modesto [California] and I used to go to Modesto sometimes for Christmas because my dad's side of the family had family there. And I couldn't wait to leave. They had a song in 28 Days Later... I can't think of the title. [Asks wife] 'What's it, babe?' 'A.M. 180' is the song. It's when [the actors] found that grocery store full of food and they were going down the aisles all happy as can be, grabbing bottles of scotch and Twinkies. And they played that. It's a really zany song."
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"I have a long relationship with the Flaming Lips, because during [STP's 1992] Core, we put a tour together that was us and the Butthole Surfers co-headlining, and the Flaming Lips on before. Then fIREHOSE was before the Flaming Lips. It won Pollstar's tour of the year. We played in all these really abstract places like in farms and on top of a building in Detroit. That's when [the Lips'] 'She Don't Use Jelly' came out and I remember they really didn't like the song. They didn't like to play it. One night they'd play their rock set and the next night they'd play their trippy just outer-space set. They were amazing and really cool guys. I kept up with them and what they were doing, then in 1999 they released The Soft Bulletin, and it blew me away. I thought it was like the perfect art-pop record. Easily as good as Radiohead's OK Computer. The song 'Waitin' for a Superman' is one of my favorites. I recorded that on a covers album a few years back [2011]. 'Race for the Prize' is another of my favorites on that record. And 'What is the Light?' which my wife says reminds her of me, musically and lyrically. No one else can really look so cool and rock 'n' roll with silver hair and a silver beard as [Wayne Coyne] does." 
"I was just a kid in 1987 when I heard of the Pixies, the year after I graduated high school. But I had my band together, and my best friend at the time, Corey Hickock, who was the guitar player in the band that would become STP, Mighty Joe Young, turned me onto the Pixies. I remember in 1989 when Doolittle came out, every song was just amazing. And produced by Steve Albini, who's one of my favorite producers as well. He co-produced my last solo album, 'Happy' in Galoshes. I did have an old manager that told me—and I don't know if she was bullshitting me or not—but one of the Deal sisters had a crush on me. I don't remember which one. I thought it was cool when they got back together. They're just as honest and true to the music now as they were at the time. Of course there's always that fit of angst that you have when you're younger, and that's also speaking for myself, that when you're writing a new song as you're getting up there—I'm in my forties—it's different in channeling that type of energy, it isn't quite as easy or doesn't come as naturally as it does when you're in your early twenties. There are songs that Nirvana has that melodically, and the guitar solos, it's not your typical solo; it's just squalls of noise and feedback. You can definitely see where [Kurt Cobain] was influenced by the Pixies and that's why they had Steve Albini produce In Utero."