The 27 Club Needs a Comeback (VIDEO)

For all the mythology, almost nobody in rock takes that ‘better to burn out than fade away’ adage to heart. There are child support payments to be made. Puddle of Mudd frontman Wes Scantlin has been racking upstage meltdowns and drunk and disorderly arrests for several years now. He’s been booked at multiple airports, once for riding a luggage conveyor belt while intoxicated. It’s cute if you’re a co-ed on Spring Break. Less so when you’re in your 40’s and still trying to pull off Cobain junior. Performing at a show in Ohio where you’d really have to poll the audience as to why they had no better use of twenty dollars, Scantlin played a couple songs in a set before identifying a guy in the audience he said ‘stole his house’ then dropped the mic and left.

This motherfucker right here stole my motherfucking house and now he’s standing right fucking in front of me laughing at me. And he fucking figures I’m a fucking joke. This motherfucker right here… Get his ass on camera. This is the dog. Right here. This is the motherfucker right here. This guy stole my fucking house.

You could dig deeper into the nature and legitimacy of Scantlin’s claims of property theft, but that seems like an incredible waste of time. The same reason why when a drunk old lady in the store stoop is mumbling about aliens stealing her baby we don’t call NASA to investigate. If you knew for a fact that fading away involved sliding on a satin jacket and storming off stage would you maybe have considered burning out more seriously?