Scott Weiland’s son, Noah Weiland, has released a new song, “Time Will Tell,” featuring previously-unreleased vocals from his late father. It’s an unexpected and newsworthy drop in and of itself, made even crazier by the alleged extortion attempt behind it.
Noah shared the song Monday, April 22, alongside a note on Instagram detailing the scheme: Someone had texted him an older version of the song, demanding $2,000 or else they’d leak it. While Noah said he was hoping to hold onto “Time Will Tell” and release it “way further into my career,” the threat forced his hand.
“This coward rly thinks I’m about to send them $2k to not leak it,” he wrote. “sooo, i beat em to the punch.. funny enough, i saw ‘TIME WILL TELL’ written on a bathroom wall the day i got that txt, maybe my dad thought it was time?”
Noah tells Rolling Stone that “Time Will Tell” was originally a Scott Weiland solo track, and he’d been holding onto the “super unfinished” demo since he was a teenager (Weiland died in 2015, when Noah was 14). While the elder Weiland’s vocals are unmistakable on the song, “Time Will Tell” is a distinctly contemporary track, more in line with the kind of alt-pop Noah has been releasing as he’s embarked on his own music career.
“Due to the fact that nobody who ‘represents’ my dad actually cares to give the fans new unheard music, let alone keep his name alive in the first place, my friend Spencer Carr Reed and I decided to turn it into a more modern sounding song as if he was still alive and just decided to hop on one of my songs,” Noah says. “That was the concept behind it.”
Noah shared screen grabs of the threatening text messages with Rolling Stone (and on social media), and says he’s “almost positive” he knows who the alleged blackmailer is: “And if I’m correct then it’s one of my old best friends who’s super jealous of me, so I’d rather just let them sit back and watch.”
While Noah had to release “Time Will Tell” earlier than he’d hoped, its creation and arrival still offer a kind of catharsis. “I’ve always sort of been conditioned by my family and certain people around me to hate my father growing up,” he says. “But after all this time I realized it wasn’t his fault and he would’ve never let me go through all the chaos I’ve had to go through these past years of my life.”
Despite following in his father’s footsteps, Noah’s path to music has been far from assured: His parents split when he was seven, and Weiland was largely absent up through his death from an accidental overdose in 2015. Weiland’s estate was practically broke when he died, and Noah spent his adolescence working blue collar jobs and battling an opioid addiction.
“I’m not a trust fund baby or anything like that,” he told RS last year. “I always get annoyed when people say that type of stuff. My dad was millions in debt when he died. My mom has always worked a normal job. And truthfully, even if my dad’s estate ever does get out of debt, I don’t even want that money. I want to make a career out of myself as much as possible.”
