Scott Weiland blames egos and money for Velvet Revolver split

Weiland and his former Velvet Revolver bandmates in happier times...
Weiland and his former Velvet Revolver bandmates in happier times...

In a move that will at least allow the remaining members of Velvet Revolver some respite from fielding questions about Chinese Democracy, Scott Weiland has re-opened the can of worms that was his departure from the band.

In separate interviews with MTV and Playboy magazine, Weiland pinpointed egos and money as the chief architects of his exit from the band.

Weiland told MTV: "Velvet Revolver fell apart because there were too many big egos in the band - and I'm including myself. It wasn't necessarily about bad egos, just big egos, and unfortunately, it just mistakenly kind of eroded."

He also told Playboy: "When I told Slash I was gonna do some festivals with Stone Temple Pilots, he said, Thank you for being straight up with me. It wasn't until later that another member of the band had some issues with it.

"It's a shame certain people have a hard time letting go of past resentments and try to throw them onto other people.

"When you start bickering about little piddly financial things, it takes the fun out of it for me. We're all doing pretty good, so if you're going to fuck the relationship up over this, I don't want to be involved."

Of course, none of this is particularly bitchy when compared to some of rock's more bitter and bizarre band break-ups. Oh well, at least we don't think that Weiland spat on the wall mid-interview on either occasion.

Chris Vinnicombe worked with us here on the MusicRadar team from the site's initial launch way back in 2007, and also contributed to Guitarist magazine as Features Editor until 2014, as well as Total Guitar magazine, amongst others. These days he can be found at Gibson Guitars, where he is editor-in-chief.