VELVET REVOLVER Singer Launches Softdrive Records
December 3, 2006, 17 years ago
Scott Weiland, frontman of VELVET REVOLVER and former lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots, has launched Softdrive Records, Billboard has learned.
Softdrive's first signing are Los Angeles rock band THE ACTUAL, whose debut album In Stitches is due early next year, and country singer/songwriter Tommy Joe Wilson, who Weiland discovered in a Nashville bar. In addition to co-producing the Actual's album, Weiland will release his second solo album on Softdrive in late 2007 or early 2008.
Weiland partnered on the venture with Doug Grean and Dana Dufine. Sony's RED Distribution will distribute the imprint's releases, with additional back-end support provided by New West Records, which Weiland called "an amazing model of a great independent record company."
"We had a lot of opportunities early on to sort of sell ourselves out and just be a production imprint, but that's not really what Doug and I wanted to do," Weiland said from a Los Angeles studio where he was recording with Velvet Revolver. "But we also didn't fool ourselves to think we could creatively run the label like he and I are and also run the business side of things."Velvet Revolver is working with producer Brendan O'Brien on its second RCA album, which Weiland says should be out in the spring.
(Thanks Reuters/Billboard)
