Happy Birthday, Wes Scantlin: The Most Asinine Rocker of the Early 2000s
The problematic Puddle Of Mudd frontman turns 49 today
In April of 2016, the LAPD got a call about a burglary near the house of Puddle of Mudd frontman Wes Scantlin.
A car that was parked in Scantlin's driveway had allegedly been broken into. When police arrived, a panicked Scantlin ran into his house and refused to come outside.
What transpired was a tense two-hour standoff with police. An additional 30 officers were called to the scene, and they arrived in bulletproof vests, with rifles drawn, strapped for combat. Scantlin was eventually put in handcuffs and was led away with a wide-eyed grin plastered on his face.
The early-aughts grunge rocker, who turns 49 today, had already stacked up a unique rap sheet prior to the 2016 standoff. In 2007, at the apex of Puddle of Mudd's career, Scantlin was on a tour of Eric Presley's Kingsland house and jumped into his pool. "We were just being dumb little rock stars," Scantlin later said of the incident. He was banned from Kingsland for life.
A few years later, he was pursued by the IRS for an owed $60,000, and a couple of months later he was arrested again for cocaine possession and driving without a license. Not soon after, he was arrested again in 2012 for public intoxication on a flight to Los Angeles. Scantlin began screaming at the flight attendant for denying him booze and became so disorderly that the airplane was forced to make an emergency landing in Austin, Texas.
His bizarre antics didn't stop there, and his legal woes continued into 2013. In May of that year, he was arrested twice: once for outstanding warrants and again a few days later for shaking his ex-wife and dragging her by the arm. Then in July, Scantlin started up a chainsaw and began destroying his neighbor's lawn and was arrested for felony vandalism. Upon leaving the station the next day, he said that his neighbor vandalized his house and that he "had to take action."
A year later, after a massive onstage meltdown, Scantlin made national headlines for taking a joyride on a baggage carousel at Denver National Airport, which landed him behind bars once again. As his arrests continued to pile up, his career started to take a turn for the worst. Scantlin's continued drug abuse fueled his quick temper, and he soon had another massive meltdown during a Puddle of Mudd show in Arizona in 2015, smashing his guitar and drums to bits.
His calamities were often triggered by fans' criticism or booing, as Scantlin regularly came under scrutiny for lip-syncing live performances. In 2015, the band was booed offstage during a show in Versailles, Ohio. Concert-goers said Scantlin was very drunk, "sat down often," and mimed his way through his set. The band deleted their Facebook page, and a few days later, Scantlin engaged in "a drunken 100 mph police chase" in Minnesota and was charged with DUI and fleeing police.
As his career as a rocker took a turn for the worst, his arrests for DUIs and drug possession continued to pile up, and onstage meltdowns became more frequent. He passed out during a show in Italy, took his shirt off, and pulled up a chair to rant during a concert in England. He accused a fan of "stealing his house" during a show in Ohio and fell on his drummer at a show in Wales. His bandmates soon quit.
It all seemed to come to a boiling point in 2016 when Scantlin rigged a fake explosive outside his West Hollywood home to "deter car thieves" that caused his entire neighborhood to be evacuated and for the bomb squad to be called. After the story broke, he dropped off the map and finally got sober, reemerging reunited with Puddle of Mudd in 2019 to release Welcome to Galvania, their first album in almost a decade. He announced he was five months sober. With that said, Scantlin recently came under scrutiny again– not for legal reasons or meltdowns, but for butchering a cover of Nirvana's "About a Girl," which, when all is said and done, might be a step in the right direction?
"Do you have any regrets?" interviewer Cathy Rankin asked Scantlin in April. "No. Nah-uh," he quickly replied. "A couple of bridges have been burned, but I think it's repairable." When asked how he will face the future, Scantlin laughed and said: "Keep cool, and don't go to the airport with a B.B. gun in your backpack."
Happy Birthday, Wes Scantlin!