Ritz David - Not dead & not for sale: the Earthling papers

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ALSO by DAVID RITZ

BIOGRAPHIES:

Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye

Faith in Time: The Life of Jimmy Scott

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES:

Ray Charles: Brother Ray

Smokey Robinson: Inside My Life

B.B. King: Blues All Around Me

Etta James: Rage to Survive

The Neville Brothers: The Brothers

Jerry Wexler: Rhythm & the Blues

Aretha Franklin: From These Roots

Walter Yetnikoff: Howling at the Moon

Robert Guillaume: Guillaume: A Life

Laila Ali: Reach

Gary Sheffield: Inside Power

Felicia Snoop Pearson: Grace After Midnight

Lang Lang: Journey of a Thousand Miles

Don Rickles: Rickles Book

Don Rickles: Rickles Letters

Leiber and Stoller: Hound Dog

Paul Shaffer: Well Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives

Grandmaster Flash: The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats

Tavis Smiley: What I Know for Sure

Cornel West: Brother West

Archbishop Carl Bean: I Was Born This Way

Natalie Cole: Love Brought Me Back

Janet Jackson: True You

NOVELS:

Search for Happiness

The Man Who Brought the Dodgers
Back to Brooklyn

Blue Notes Under a Green Felt Hat

Barbells and Saxophones

Family Blood

Take It Off! Take It All Off!

Passion Flowers

Sanctified Blues
(cowritten with Mable John)

Stay Out of the Kitchen!
(cowritten with Mable John)

Love Tornado
(cowritten with Mable John)

INSPIRATIONAL:

Messengers: Portraits of African American Ministers, Evangelists, Gospel Singers, and Other Messengers of the Word

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Copyright 2011 by Scott Weiland

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First Scribner trade paperback edition July 2012

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Designed by Brian Chojnowski

Front cover photograph Alexei Hay Back cover photographs courtesy of the author

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Weiland, Scott.

Not dead & not for sale / Scott Weiland with David Ritz. 1st Scribner hardcover ed.

p. cm.

1. Weiland, Scott, 1967 2. Rock musiciansUnited StatesBiography. 3. Stone Temple Pilots (Musical group). I. Ritz, David. II. Title. III. Title: Not dead and not for sale.

ML420.W357A3 2010

782.42166092dc22 2010025147

[B]

ISBN 978-0-7432-9716-5

ISBN 978-0-7432-9717-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4391-9997-8 (ebook)

All photographs are courtesy of the author unless noted otherwise.

Fall To Pieces 2004; For A Brother; The Last Fight; Mary Mary 2007 Chrysalis Music/Ready Set Go Publishing/Dracsorum Music/Pimp Music/DTK Music. By Scott Weiland/Matt Sorum/Duff McKagan/David Kushner/Saul Hudson. All Rights Administered by Chrysalis Music (ASCAP). All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission. International Copyright Secured. All other lyrics by Scott Weiland used by permission, courtesy of the author; Foxy Dead Girl Music; Triple Kauf Noplate; and Bug Music, Inc.

As a baby, I was a dead-ringer for my son, Noah. Here I am, already interested in music and, as you can see, a believer that one should own ones own albums.

This memoir took me unknowingly to new highs and new and uncharted lows. Its been a pleasure to work with David Ritz, an artist and tireless worker. Ive relived pains as well as the highest of heights. Ive felt deflated and elated to dig through the maze that is the mind and soul. Mining through the cobwebs to explore the whys and why nots. The human heart filled with sorrows and gold inspired me to dig further through this marathon or labyrinth in order to get the answers, find truth, and forgive injustices endured in order to move forward happy mostly, sad lovingly, and purged of the nightmares of the past. Its been a grand endeavor. But worth it.

Peace to All,

Scott R. Weiland

I T S 2010 AND IMPROBABLY hell, impossiblyStone Temple Pilots is back together and blazing hot, especially after our second single debuted at number one.

Our new single debuted at number one.

Our new album is selling like crazy.

Old fans are back. New fans are lining up. Even the critics, who once delighted in deflating us, are praising us to the sky.

We were written off as the band of disastrous dysfunction with too many personal problems to survive. Or rather, I was written off as the guy whose hopeless addictions hadand would alwaysruin everything for everyone.

Well, here we are, like Led Zep, playing sold-out arenas all over the world.

I couldnt be happier.

And I couldnt be more pissed because one rock-and-roll rag, our nemesis from back in the day, has, like the monster from the black lagoon, reemerged. They did a profile of me that was so off I didnt even recognize myself. Quotes were taken out of context and old clichs about me were rewritten to look new.

Well, maybe the timing of this wrong-headed article isnt so bad after all. Maybe it serves to remind me how glad I am to be offering up my own story in my own words. As youll see, Im not afraid of documenting details about the life Ive led. I have nothing to hide. Ive done what Ive done. Ive done loads of things right and loads of things wrong that could be considered uncouth. Its all here, all documented in my dreams, my musical schemes, my drama-poem-lyrics.

Youll see that much of this has to do with love. Im in love with loveor is it the idea of being in love with love? I believe that love only happens truly twice, but why, I wonder, does love always equal a broken heart?

With all this in mind, Ive decided to tell my story. Ive sold nearly 40 million records and at the time I didnt appreciate it much. I felt it would be different later with Magnificent Bastards , both solo records ( Twelve Bar Blues and Happy in Galoshes ), Velvet Revolver, and finally the rebirth of STP. This book is an attempt to appreciate the complexity of so much success in the midst of so much chaos.