Scott Weiland fired by Stone Temple Pilots

Stone Temple Pilots have released the following statement:

“Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland – no further information is available at this time.”

Just yesterday Weiland denied to Rolling Stone that he had been fired, “I haven’t quit. I haven’t been fired.” He added, “Slash doesn’t know anything about STP. We’re talking right now about when we want to tour next.” So this news definitely must have caught Weiland off guard. He even said he never expected anybody to be fired from STP, “There were some hurt egos,” he says. “But that’s the way it is. No one has ever fired anybody in STP. We’re like a family. It’s also a partnership. I started the band. We’ve always kept things going. We’ve taken time off before. They’ve done their own projects and I fully support that. No one has been fired and I haven’t quit. That’s all hearsay.”

As I write this, Scott Weiland and STP are trending on Twitter. Slash said in December that STP had fired Weiland and that’s why he was desperately seeking to reunite with Velvet Revolver. Weiland’s final show with Stone Temple Pilots was on September 23, 2012 in Sacramento, California. Weiland co-found STP with Robert DeLeo in 1986, with Eric Kretz and Dean DeLeo joining them in subsequent years. STP broke up in 2003, but reunited in 2008 for a massive reunion tour. The band released a self-titled comeback album in May 2010 with Weiland, which featured the radio hit “Between The Lines.”

Disappointing news that after all of these years the STP guys can’t be thankful that they’re all alive and just take a break instead of breaking up/firing Weiland. I guess we’ll see another reunion tour in a few years ago. The real question is, in the mean time, who will replace Weiland in STP?