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This morning, we received a one-sentence e-mail stating the current status of one of the members of a seminal ’90s alt-rock band.

The message, in its entirety: “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.”

Naturally, that immediately conjured images of the T-100 taking out Weiland in a blaze of liquid-metal glory. (Or as one EW music staffer commented on the brevity of the statement, “This reads like a Hunger Games cannon going off.” Yes, we work at a general entertainment magazine.)

In the meantime, Weiland has become the David Lee Roth of grunge, minus the split kicks. Despite the fact that he’s currently on a solo tour playing STP’s first two albums in their entirety, he has insisted for months that the band was not breaking up. Rumors did circulate about the end of Weiland’s latest tenure, but the singer told Rolling Stone that it was all hearsay.

“STP has not broken up,” Weiland told the magazine in December. “I haven’t quit. I haven’t been fired. We’re talking right now about when we want to tour next. No one has ever fired anybody in STP.”

Weiland has always been the band’s most important and central member, though his presence, notably, has been problematic throughout the course of the group’s history. READ FULL STORY »