Japan’s probably feeling a little psychic right about now. The week after Velvet Revolver announced the Japanese leg of its tour was off because the Asian nation had “tak[en] exception with the backgrounds of various band members,” lead singer Scott Weiland was busted for DUI.
The Nov. 21 arrest, the latest for the oft-arrested, oft-rehabbed rocker, was uncovered Monday by TMZ.com.
Weiland, 40, is due in a Los Angeles court Dec. 13 to answer to the misdemeanor charge.
It was on Nov. 16 that Weiland’s band announced it had been denied visas for four scheduled Japan dates, Nov. 26-30.
“The increasingly tough Japanese immigration officials are taking exception with the backgrounds of various band members, which have included arrests,” the band said on its Website.
Five days later, on the night before Thanksgiving, Weiland’s 2006 Mercedes CLS tagged a 2005 Chrysler Sebring on an offramp of the northbound 170 Freeway at 6:18 p.m. on Nov. 21, according to the California Highway Patrol. There were no injuries; the cause of the crash is still under investigation, CHP Officer Leon Hines said.
As authorities combed the scene, according to the CHP, Weiland “exhibited signs of impairment.”
“The investigating officer administered a series of field sobriety tests to the driver [Weiland], which he was unable to satisfactorily perform,” the CHP arrest report said.
Weiland was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of an unspecified drug about an hour and a half after the accident. He was booked later that night at an L.A. County jail, where the CHP said he declined an invite to provide a blood or urine sample.
With bail set at $40,000, Weiland was sprung at noon on Thanksgiving Day, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department online records show.
There was no immediate comment Monday from Velvet Revolver’s camp.
Earlier, the band said it was appealing Japan’s no-visas-for-you ruling.
Velvet Revolver hit the road in support of its hit album, Libertad, in August in Baltimore. The overseas dates proved the hardest to keep. After Japan ruled out a visit, Australia got shelved. The band announced last week that its five Down Under dates, scheduled to get rolling Tuesday, were being postponed until early next year. No reason was given.
Weiland has an arrest record dating back to his days as frontman for the Stone Temple Pilots. In 2003, he pleaded no contest to a DUI charge stemming from an arrest on his 36th birthday. In March, wife Mary Weiland got into the act when she was arrested for allegedly setting fire to her husband’s clothes outside their L.A. home.
Weiland presumably will have a lot to tell when he sits down to write his tell-all. Like Slash, his Velvet Revolver bandmate, before him, the singer has inked a deal to write his autobiography.
If he can’t make it to Japan in person, maybe he can make it there in book form.
