Scott Weiland's bassist explains arrest after singer's death

A picture of Scott Weiland and Tommy Black — Scott Weiland and Tommy Black

Scott Weiland’s former Wildabouts bandmate Tommy Black has revealed the reason he was arrested in the wake of the singer’s death – saying it was because he was too drunk to be interviewed by police.

Bassist Black, 47, was arrested after Weiland’s body was found on his tour bus on December 3 of last year. It was reported at the time that a small amount of cocaine was found on the bus and it was later revealed that the former Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver frontman had died of an accidental drugs overdose.

Now Black reveals he was arrested simply because he was too drunk to take part in an interview with officers investigating Weiland’s death. It was later confirmed he would not be charged with any crime.

Black says he was at a mall in Minnesota when he got the call to say that Weiland was dead. He tells Yahoo: “I went straight to the bus. The police were there and they wouldn’t let anyone on the bus at that point. We went to hang out in the hotel lobby – and then I went to the bar next door by myself.

“And you know, I just got drunk when I heard the news. I went next door and had a few shots, unfortunately. And the detectives came to question us – they question everybody when somebody dies on a tour bus.

“They’re questioning me and they told me the next day, ‘We had to detain you, because you were too inebriated to really be able to answer questions, and we didn’t want you to leave the next morning.’

“And then the media runs with that, so it had a bad spin on it. And that sucked, because that’s not the way it was. It hurt me at the time, but I understand. Everybody wants an answer. Everybody wants to blame somebody.”

Weiland’s death came eight months after Wildabouts guitarist Jeremy Brown died, also of an overdose.

Black adds: “Two people like that in that timeframe – just processing it, there’s a post-traumatic stress disorder thing that comes with that.

“It takes a very long time to digest something like that, and you never truly do. I just try to be positive and live a positive life and do positive things. That’s all I can do.”

The Tragic Life And Unavoidable Death Of Scott Weiland

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Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.