Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland has been sentenced for his DUI incident on November 21st 2007, to 192 hours in prison, which is about 8 days.

Weiland, 40, entered a plea of no contest, the functional equivalent of a guilty plea in California, to a single misdemeanour count of driving under the influence of alcohol - his second DUI conviction in nearly four years.

The plea, stemming from his November 21 arrest following a traffic collision on a ramp to a Los Angeles freeway, was entered by Weiland’s lawyer on his behalf.

Weiland was also placed on four years’ unsupervised probation, ordered to enrol in an 18-month alcohol program and fined roughly $US1600, City Attorney’s Office spokesman Frank Mateljan said.

Weiland last month pleaded innocent to a charge of driving under the influence of drugs. Prosecutors did not make clear why the nature of the offence was changed in the final plea.

stuff.co.nz

Scott actually seems to have larger problems than simple drug and alcohol abuse issues. He has been in rehab in 1999, under a program where you can avoid a jail term in California by spending the sentence in rehab. He didn’t succeed, overdosing on heroin and being sent to jail by a judge trying to “show that this will not be tolerated…[and] to help him make up his mind to stop killing himself.” Scott’s brother Michael died of a drug overdose, and he needs to take care that something similar doesn’t happen to him.

Scott is bi-polar and says he doesn’t take his medication, resulting in manic and depressive episodes.

Scott will probably serve his sentence before the 28th of May, as his newly reformed band Stone Temple Pilots begin touring on May 17th. In is in his best interests to carry on with the tour – Velvet Revolver kicked him out of the band (check out his blog for the rant he goes into about that incident here)because of his erratic behavior, and those $40,000 bail fees aren’t going to pay for themselves.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Scot Weiland is shown looking rough at the All-Star Gala benefiting the AROD Family Foundation on 1/19/08, thanks to Splash News.

He’s been called the Jim Morrison of a new generation, but Scott Weiland’s bandmates in Velvet Revolver consider him a giant pain in the ass. The supergroup, made up of members of Guns N’ Roses and Stone Temple Pilots, has been more than patient with the temperamental front man, even during his well publicized fall off the wagon and rehab stint last year. But when Scott started slamming band members in the media after their recent European tour, and expressing interest in getting back together with newly formed version of Stone Temple Pilots, the rest of Velvet Revolver decided that enough was enough.

The announcement came in a terse statement from the group’s management company as Weiland, 40, and his recently reunited original band, Stone Temple Pilots, were set next week to announce plans for a highly anticipated summer tour.

The Pilots, also known by their acronym, STP, already have confirmed a handful of upcoming dates, beginning with the Rock on the Range festival in Columbus, Ohio, on May 17-18.

For Weiland, whose career has long been overshadowed by heroin addiction, Rock on the Range will mark his first show with STP since the band played 13 concerts to promote its last album of new material, 2001’s Shangri-La Dee Da.

Following the breakup of STP, Weiland was welcomed as lead singer for Velvet Revolver, the newly formed grunge rock band founded by three former members of Guns N’ Roses - guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum - along with second guitarist Dave Kushner.

Velvet Revolver was confronted from the start with Weiland’s drug and legal problems as it juggled performance schedules, recording sessions and promotional work to accommodate his court dates and rehab.

Last month, Weiland pleaded innocent to a charge of driving under the influence of drugs stemming from his arrest on a Los Angeles freeway ramp in November.

He is free on $US40,000 bail and is due back in court for a pretrial hearing on Friday.

A public feud between Weiland and Velvet Revolver’s drummer already had cast doubt on the band’s future when the statement on behalf of Sorum, Slash, McKagan and Kushner was issued under the headline “Velvet Revolver to Part Ways with Singer”.

“This band is all about its fans and its music, and Scott Weiland isn’t 100 per cent committed to either,” Slash was quoted as saying.

“Among other things, his increasingly erratic on-stage behaviour and personal problems have forced us to move on.”

[From Stuff.nz]

Well, I say good riddance. I’ve always thought Weiland was overrated, and definitely the weakest link in every band he’s been in. The question now is, will Velvet Revolver continue without him- and who will replace him? There’s been speculation that Axl Rose will rejoin the fold, thus reuniting the original lineup of Guns N’ Roses (without Traci Guns), but given the animosity between Axl and guitarist Slash, there is no way that’s gonna happen. My vote for the new frontman is former Soundgarden and Audioslave singer Chris Cornell. THAT would be a supergroup.

Scott Weiland is a very naughty boy. And I can only imagine very unpopular with his fellow bandmates, who were meant to be rockin’ out Down Under tonight, not trying to avoid media scrutiny because their singer is in trouble for drug use again.

Velvet Revolver singer Scott Weiland, who has struggled with drug addiction for much of his music career, was arrested for driving under the influence on November 21 in Los Angeles. He is due in court on December 13.

According to a copy of the arrest report posted by TMZ.com on Monday (December 3) and confirmed by a California law-enforcement source, Weiland was driving on a Los Angeles highway around 6:18 p.m. of the 21st when he was involved in a non-injury collision in which it was determined he was at fault. “While the police were investigating the traffic collision, Weiland exhibited signs of impairment,” the report read. “The investigation officer administered a series of field sobriety tests to the driver, which he was unable to satisfactorily perform.”

The singer was arrested for driving under the influence of a drug and then taken to the LAPD jail in Van Nuys, California, where he allegedly refused to take a blood or urine test. He was later released on $40,000 bail, an amount that is much higher than the typical misdemeanor bail in such a case, likely due to the singer’s prior arrests.

MTV

This isn’t the first time he has been involved in a car accident and been charged with drug and alcohol use. On October 27th 2003 Scott was charged with DUI, but the charges were dropped after a visit to rehab. Scott’s unlikely to be that lucky a second time.

Scott is planning on writing a memoir, which would probably be good reading. He claims to have spent a month in a hotel room using drugs with Courtney Love, and has been in jail and rehab a few times. When he can make time he’s also had a fairly successful music career with Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver.

Of course, writing a memoir can be pretty difficult if you can’t remember large chunks of your life. Do you usually interview people to find out what happened to yourself? Do you wake up in strange cities with no memory of getting yourself back to the tour bus? Are you frequently denied visas to foreign countries because of your dubious personal history? Has your wife ever set fire to your clothes?

You could be suffering from the rock and roll lifestyle.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Scott Weiland is shown in the header image at the Hedwig And The Angry Inch VIP viewing on 4/3/06, thanks to PR Photos. The mug shot that is shown below is from Weiland’s November 2001 arrest for battering his wife, thanks to The Smoking Gun.