Photo: Sage Flores - Sunburst Films
Noah Weiland began the year with a single about the toll substance abuse has taken on his life, and he's ending the year with one that shares a similar perspective.
"Yesterday" is an upbeat track with a melancholic story. “'Yesterday' is a tale as old as wine, a recollection of feelings, both good and horrible,” Noah, who's the son of late Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland, said in a statement. “It’s my final message to someone no longer in my life. Someone I lost as a result of my addiction.”
Noah has been releasing solo music since 2020, using his struggles with addiction and sobriety journey as a catalyst for his music. "Yesterday" sees that story come full circle.
Watch the "Yesterday" music video below.
Last year, Noah opened up about getting kicked out of supergroup Suspect208 (who ended up disbanding all together) and being compared to his late father during an interview with iHeartRadio. Though admitting to having a drug problem, Noah explained that he actually didn't become addicted to anything until after getting ousted from the band. “This is the thing that people don’t know: I wasn’t even addicted to anything when that whole thing happened,” he said. “I didn’t get addicted to stuff until months after. That’s what made me so mad.”
“It made me mad because yeah, I did end up getting addicted but before that I was not a drug addict and they made it seem like I was and for awhile, when I really wasn’t, that’s when it hurt me the most,” he added.
When news that Noah was no longer in the band broke, what hurt him most was online comments comparing him to his dad, who tragically died in 2015 of an accidental overdose of cocaine and other substances. “People want to see me be a statistic so bad, I feel like,” he said. “There were so many posts when the band ended and all the comments were, ‘Oh, just like his dad, just like his dad.’”
Noah has since sought treatment for addiction and is sober. “I have a sponsor, I go to meetings, I’m better with family,” he revealed.
“It’s a little drive that makes me want to do better and say even if you’re born into a family with addiction you don’t have to fall to the statistics," he said about not suffering the same fate as his dad. "You can be great. You can even be greater than your parents, it doesn’t matter.”