Puddle of Mudd’s Wes Scantlin Says He’s Eleven Months Sober

To give you a sense of the extent of Puddle of Mudd frontman Wes Scantlin’s addiction issues, let’s review the posts that I alone–not Axl or Vince, just me, Rhombus–have written about him: there was the time he claimed a fan stole his house and ended his show early, the time his entire band bailed on him onstage, the time he was arrested in a police standoff, the time he was arrested during one of his own concerts, the time he had a warrant issued for his arrest after missing a court date, and the time the bomb squad was called to his house. Axl has written a bunch since, but that should be enough.

Anyway, the reason I’m recounting all of Scantlin’s exploits is because according to a recent interview with Rock Titan, Scantlin is finally sober, and has been that way for eleven months.

Here’s what Scantlin had to say:

“The last year has been… Getting out of incarceration and then going to CRI-Help in Burbank, California, in North Hollywood, that was awesome — it was really great. I’m 11 months sober now almost to the day, and I feel great. And we’re just playing shows [and] rocking.

So that’s good. Good for Scantlin. Getting help is necessary, and we hope he’s healthy.

That said, Wes goes on to seemingly blame some of his problems on just being such a rock star that he can’t help it:

“There was really nowhere else to go…The tickets you get in this life…The way this life is for me, I’m always on tour, and you can’t always make “court dates” and “appointments”…I don’t want to use it as an excuse, but it’s really hard to make a court date when you’re in Iraq playing for the soldiers on Christmas…So they pile up and pile up, and then you get caught, and when you’re kind of famous, you get extra attention…”

So, THAT’S not the best attitude to have, even if there’s some truth to that. Even if you ARE playing for the troops on Christmas, you can hire a lawyer to navigate your legal issues. It sounds like Scantlin’s response is, I got sober because I’m a rock star, and you can’t keep fucking up in the public eye, but dude, YOU try not fucking up a lot when the world loves you so much. Obviously, the best answer would be, I was letting my band and fans down and decided to get serious about things, but hey, beggars and choosers.

Well, look, if Scantlin is sober, good for him, and hopefully we’ll never write another post about him again. That said, we’ve officially hung up a whiteboard at the Mansion that says, ‘NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST WES SCANTLIN POST’. Today is ’01’. Let’s see how high that number gets.

Via The PRP.