frontman | Through the Shattered Lens

Tonight the music world found out that Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver frontman Scott Weiland passed away at the age of 48 while on tour in Minnesota.

The years after graduating from high school was a chaotic time for me. not knowing what role I had for myself moving forward and afraid of the world beyond the regimented, secured, but understood confines of high school. While I enjoyed the freedom of being a young adult after graduating in the summer of 1991 the reality of it all was that I wasn’t that far removed from still being a teenager a couple years later.

I call these my adrift years.

From this time in my life I was drawn to the music that every young adult trying to leave his teen years behind. Whether it was hip-hop, metal and, the genre of the era, grunge, I was listening to it. While I wasn’t as huge a fan of grunge as the rest of my contemporaries of the time I did gravitate to a couple of the titans of the genre: Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots.

It was with Stone Temple Pilots that I was introduced to one of my favorite frontman of my Adrift Years: Scott Weiland.

Weiland encompassed not just the brooding, alienation that made grunge such a popular genre of music during the 1990’s but also had a touch of the wild and dangerous aspect of what made rock frontmen so-called Rock Gods. He was the Axel Rose of grunge. An enormously talented vocalist, but one who was also scandal-bound with his off-stage drug use and self-destructive behavior.

Scott Weiland helped make those years adrift during the early 1990’s with his singing. It’s a shame and a loss to the music world that like other rock legends before him his early years battling his inner demons would take him away too soon.

Nothing epitomizes who Scott Weiland was to me better than the song “Big Empty” which was the first single off of their second album Purple.

Big Empty

drivin’ faster in my car
falling farther from just what we are
smoke a cigarette and lie some more
these conversations kill
falling faster in my car

time to take her home
her dizzy head is conscience laden
time to take a ride
it leaves today no conversation
time to take her home
her dizzy head is conscience laden
time to wait too long
to wait too long
these conversations kill

to much walkin’, shoes worn thin
too much trippin’ and my soul’s worn thin
time to catch a ride
it leaves today, her name is what it means
to much walkin’, shoe’s worn thin

It is a sad day in the metal world today. Legend metal frontman Ronnie James Dio has passed away at the age of 67 after battling stomach cancer for the past couple years. His death was confirmed by his wife, Wendy Dio, through his website.

Ronnie James Dio would always remains one of the pioneers of metal and one of its gods. He fronted such hard rock and metal bands like Elf and Rainbow during the late 60’s and early 70’s before finally landing his most famous gig in his career: frontman of Black Sabbath. Ronnie James Dio was chosen to replace Ozzy Osbourne after he was fired by the band. It was during his stint with Black Sabbath where Dio popularized the use of the so-called “devil’s horns” hand symbol during concert shows. While this symbol has been used in the past it was Dio’s use of it as Black Sabbath frontman which soon epitomized the “devil’s horns” as metal’s own symbol.

Ronnie James Dio would continue to beyond Black Sabbath as he formed his own metal band named Dio and in the latter part of his life another band called Heaven and Hell. His death puts a pall of sadness on the world of metal. While he’s now gone to Valhalla with the rest of the rock and metal gods of past his music will live on forever.