Not Dead & Not For Sale (11 page)

T
HAT WAS THE QUESTION DEAN ASKED ME
over the phone.

“Not sure,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”

“A raw rock record. Nothing fancy. Just balls-out rock and roll. Back to basics.”

I liked the idea. I did not, however, like the absence of an apology from either Dean, Robert, or Eric for trashing me in public. I still harbored big-time resentments. But I was practical—as were they. If my solo project had gone through the roof, or if their Talk Show record had sold millions instead of thousands, we probably wouldn’t be talking. But Dean did call with this idea that seemed pretty sound.

“Besides,” he said, “we’re building a legacy. It’s important we stay together and not let shit tear us apart.”

So we got together and started jamming. My plan to continue working alone was trumped by a chance to put out a strong STP record and make good money.

The truth about working alone is this: Even during those periods when I was estranged from my bands, I often fell in with another collaborator. In that regard, no one has been closer to me than Doug Grean, soul brother to the bone. When I met him, I was in the process of putting together my recording studio and Doug had some equipment I could use. He presented himself as an engineer, and in that capacity we started working together.

Didn’t take long before I saw that, more than an engineer, he was a superb guitarist, trained in the rich soil of New Orleans funk, capable of playing in any genre. Beyond playing, though, Doug proved to be an ace composer. In short order, we hit it off and became a team. Doug took on different instruments—various keyboards and the tricky lap-steel guitar—enlarging our musical palette. I also started toying with keyboards, although my contributions were mostly sounds and sprinkles in a Brian Eno–esque mode.

Doug was an important contributor to the new STP album, which we would title
No. 4
.

All the songs were written together live. Brendan O’Brien, our brilliant longtime producer, urged us simply to put our hearts and souls on the line. What came out was, at least in my mind, a good record of generic rock. What kick-started things, though, was one single—“Sour Girl”—that turned into the biggest hit of STP’s career. The fact that we created a far-out video to accompany the song didn’t hurt. Since its release, everyone is convinced that it’s about my romance with Mary. But everyone is wrong.

“Sour Girl” was written after the collapse of my relationship with Jannina. It’s about her. “She was a sour girl the day she met me,” I wrote. “She was a happy girl the day she left me … I was a superman, but looks are deceiving. The roller-coaster ride’s a lonely one. I pay a ransom note to stop it from steaming.”

The ransom note, of course, was the fortune our divorce was costing me. And the happy state, which I presumed to be Jannina’s mood, was due to the fact that she had finally rid her life of a man who had never been faithful.

“I Got You” is another song that has me musing on Jannina and how, time and again, she tried to save me from myself. I wrote, “I got you, but it’s the craving for the good life that sees me through troubled times, when the mind begins to wander to the spoon. And I got you because you’re there to bend and nurture me through these troubled times.”

“And I don’t believe it,” says a song called “Church on Tuesday,” “is she really gone again?” It’s Jannina who is gone, Jannina whom I have pushed away, Jannina’s family who I visualize in church, praying for a man to honor their daughter in a way I never did.

When
No. 4
was finished, the logical move was to tour behind it and let our fans know STP was back and stronger than ever. The only problem, though, was that I was weaker than ever. I was still fucking with dope. I was in the midst of a firestorm romance with Mary. And, finally, I wasn’t available to support the album because, when it came time to kick off the tour, I found myself heading for jail.

Better times

M
Y PLAN WAS ALWAYS TO AVOID JAIL.
Rehab was my only hope. The court said so, and I knew so.

When I got to rehab, though, the emotional chemistry changed when a nurse slipped me a note that said, “Mary Forsberg is looking for you.”

My heart started hammering, my pulse racing. Apparently Mary had been having drug problems of her own and wanted to join me at this recovery home. Part of me wanted her to check in. But a smarter part of me knew it was a terrible idea.

I told the people running the rehab not to admit her. Mary found another place to recover but left after a few days. A week later, on my birthday, she sent me a card. All it said was “Happy Birthday, Baby!” That’s all it needed to say. It sent chills down my spine.

I wanted to see her, and after moving to a sober living house I sought her out. At the time she was living at Charlize Theron’s place, which was under reconstruction. A few days later, I did what I had longed to do—move in with Mary. We were hopelessly in love.

Hopelessly.

A LITTLE WHILE LATER,
we were living together in an apartment off the mid-city Miracle Mile in L.A. We were also doing coke together. This was before we were married and had kids. I was slipping on and off heroin when Mary and I went to a party where an old friend offered me a fix. I said yes. Mary was distressed; she begged me not to, but I couldn’t be dissuaded.

“Well,” Mary said, “if I can’t stop you, I want to do it too. I want to know what it feels like. I want to know what
you
feel like when you do it.”

“You once snorted it.”

“But that didn’t do anything. I want to shoot it.”

“One time only,” I said. “One time and that’s it.”

She agreed.

I prepared it. She tied off. After shooting her up, I watched her fall into an easy ecstasy.

Later she said, “I felt more peace than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

She immediately knew why I did what I did.

My song “Bi-Polar Bear,” released in 2002, centers on something I discovered about Mary and myself years earlier: bipolarity. Friends and colleagues had been saying that maybe my drug condition and her erratic behavior and uncontrollable moods were more than simple mood volatility. So we went to a psychiatrist who specialized in such evaluations. We both passed the test with flying colors. We were both bipolar bears. The lyrics say,

So I’m halfway letting go again

I’m halfway full on

Left my meds on the sink today

My head will be racing by lunchtime

The romance with Mary always felt like a footrace—her catching up with me, me catching up with her. We’d break up to make up and start all over again. She’d swear me off. I’d swear her off. But my need for her was as great as my need for beautifully destructive drugs. For months, we were happy together, protecting each other from the cruelty of a world that couldn’t understand us. Only we understood each other. Then for months we would stay apart, realizing the futility of trying to forge two spirits moving in different directions.

A SONG I NEED TO WRITE:

It concerns a stripper I dated after I had broken up with Jannina and was on the outs with Mary. The moment I came home, this accommodating lady fell on her knees to pleasure me. A half hour later she was throwing plates at my head. I have the title—“Flame Thrower”—but the melody remains locked up somewhere in my imagination.

WHEN MARY AND I DID GET PAST THE FIGHTS
and pledged to stay together, drugs were always in the mix. After her initial fix, it wasn’t long before we were getting loaded all the time. Our atypical form of domestic bliss was interrupted when I was court-ordered to live in a sober living house. During the day, though, I’d leave the house to hang out with Mary so we could get high together.

HERE IS AN EXCERPT FROM MY JOURNAL
that I wrote in that period:

As heated as the passion is between us—passion that borders on mutual obsession—we do everything together, and everything is an adventure. It’s Bonnie and Clyde, rock and roll. Hell on Wheels. We know we’re gonna crash, but we keep on going. Get a place in Hollywood. Spanish Moroccan chic. Perfect for who we think we are. We’re off on a run of speedballs—heroin and coke—of legendary proportions. Mary’s new at it, but I’ve never seen anyone escalate to such a high level in such a short period of time. Mary is my match, my equal, my heart, my soul, my love, my drug. The run takes us from coast to coast, jet-setting with her fashion friends in New York, hanging with movie stars in L.A. But what goes up has to come down—and it does. Hard. After a while, we’re the only ones who think we’re looking good and doing well. We can’t keep appointments. We go through hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our friends start questioning our every move. Some friends walk away. We start questioning ourselves. It’s alright for me to despise myself, but I can’t stand seeing Mary do that to herself.

SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED,
I decided to kick once and for all. The sober living house wasn’t working, so I went to a doctor for pills. He gave me the wrong medicine. The stuff he prescribed sent me into an immediate and violent seizure. Chills, heat, sweat, shakes. I was puking and shitting my brains out. I called Mary and said, “Take me to a hospital.”

The hospital doctors tried overriding the bad pills with morphine and liquid valium. My skin was crawling, my stomach rumbling; I couldn’t stop puking, shaking, and shitting. While the doctors frantically looked for ways to keep me in one piece, Mary slipped out of my hospital room to the car, where she shot speedballs. It was one of the craziest nights of our crazy life.

Next morning, when the nurse came into my room, she saw Mary lying on top of me, both of us passed out from dope exhaustion. They put us in wheelchairs and rolled us out. A counselor, who had treated Mary and me, was standing there with her hands on her hips. She sighed and said, “Mary and Scott, what in the world am I going to do with you two?”

The hospital called the head of the sober living house, who called the judge to report my deviant behavior. I was given a court date, and I was sentenced.

Mary and I, two junkies passed out on top of each other on a hospital bed.

Romantic, isn’t it?

We may have been side by side in wheelchairs, but I was the one going to jail to get clean. Mary, at least for the time being, kept getting high. She found a friend and got fucked up.