monitorTHIS! - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 59)

or Revolver, Weiland is an impressive musical force. Not that Grean wasn’t there every step of the way. “The first song we wrote was just by chance,” Grean remembers. “It was just one of those things where he came up with a riff, I had a chorus, we put them together and organically a song came out.” That song would end up being “Big Black Monster,” the oldest track on Happy in Galoshes, and just one aspect of the myriad sounds the musicians have created. While Weiland’s voice is unmistakable, it’s hard to believe the bombastic postgrunge of “Blind Confusion” is from the same minds that put together the bittersweet Louisiana clomp of “Pictures and Computers.” Grean is pretty confident that “there are songs fans of STP will like and the same with Velvet Revolver fans. And there’s other songs maybe a whole new kind of people will like.” Keep in mind this is excluding the 10 tracks that didn’t make it, though it seems there’s no intention to keep them locked in a safe. “We’re thinking about putting some other songs up on the internet for the fans and the street team,” Grean reveals. “The industry talks about downloading as some sort of demon to be –Doug gReAn scared of, but for years I’ve been saying it has a way to garner goodwill with your audience, especially when you have your own studio and produce your own stuff.” Grean expands on some ideas he and Weiland have been throwing around, including some very proactive work that is the antithesis of bands like Metallica. “Once a month we could produce a little ditty and put it up there for free,” Grean suggests. “It doesn’t have to be much. It could be a cover or a twominute little jam, but it’s a payback to the fans for being There are songs fans of STP will like and the same with Velvet Revolver fans. And there’s other songs maybe a whole new kind of people will like. loyal and to show people that you’re not only in it for the money. We want to do some of that in the future.” This is definitely not what a major label act usually says, but Grean explains that’s not the direction they want to head. “We’re trying to operate in a more indie mindset,” Grean admits. “Me, Scott and his manager formed this label called Softdrive, and the record’s actually coming out on that. We’re distributed by Red, who distributed [Radiohead’s] In Rainbows and the new Nine Inch Nails. It’s that new model to release your own records without giving money to the major labels. On a major you own maybe 20 percent of your record, but now you own 60 or 75 percent so you can be more generous.” While this is great news for Weiland’s musical career and his fans, his personal life is still less than perfect. He and his wife of 10 years are finally getting a divorce due to issues with drugs and some very public fighting. “I’m not telling you any secrets,” Grean says. “There was a time where they fought in Vegas and she had him thrown in jail and another time where she burnt all his clothes in the driveway, and all of that is reflected in the lyrics. I can’t tell you one song that isn’t about his relationship, but I think it goes past that into feelings of abandonment. He has real abandonment issues from his early childhood and I think that comes up again and again, especially with his spouse. The first single, ‘Crash,’ has the chorus ‘Hold on to something still.’ They got married a year after we started the record and they’re just getting divorced now. The decade we’ve been writing this record has been the decade he’s been with his wife.” Grean says U.S. and international tours are in the works, and fans will get to hear the best of Happy in Galoshes live, but with Weiland facing some of the toughest times of his life, it begs the question why the record has such a whimsical title. Grean, though, explains why it makes perfect sense. “It’s the idea that he’s only happy when it rains. When he feels most normal is when things aren’t going so great. It’s him saying he’s happy, but with a smirk.” happy in galoshes is available now from 12th Street Records [ dec 08 / jan 09 + monitorthis! + 59 ]

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