Puddle of Mudd interview: Wes Scantlin

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Wes pointing the mic to the crowd Wikipedia Commons

A look into the lead singer’s life

Hey everyone – well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? This week I’m returning to the band interview scene with an in depth interview with Puddle of Mudd frontman Wes Scantlin.

Puddle of Mudd is an alternative rock band that gained huge popularity through the early to mid-2000’s with albums like Come Clean, which boasted singles such as “Control,” “Blurry,” and “She Hates Me.” Their album Famous provided hits like “Famous” and “Psycho.” As of late, Puddle of Mudd have been promoting their 2019 album, Welcome to Galvania and have a 20th anniversary of their 2001 album Come Clean on the way.

Moving along, you can find the interview with Wes just below:

*Note: some of the elements of Wes’s life are of an unnerving nature, so please take care when reading.*
So, with everything going on right now, you’re writing new music at the moment. When things start to alleviate a bit and concerts start to get rolling again, are you going to be focusing on releasing new material or more on touring?


A little of both, might mix it up a little bit. Keep the pedal to the metal. All I’ve been doing is writing new music. I have time now [laughter].

With regards to Welcome to Galvania, that’s been huge for not only you, but the band as well. What’s it feel like to get that out into the world?

You know, man, that’s really cool. Because, you know, some of our songs are barely kind of in my life. You know, they were written a long time ago. So I had to, I had to change my, you know, my playground, my playmates, you know, get sober and be cool. And, you know, get back to being [the] normal me. But, yeah, there are some people you know, some business companies that were, you know. As usual, it’s kind of like a freaking cliché in this crazy world, you know, that happens to artists, people tend to take advantage of you and then next thing you know they’re stealing all your money. And, you know, unfortunately, it was like my ex-wife, she was stealing my money. The booking agent was stealing my money, the life insurance policy guy was, freaking, stealing my money. You know, like, freaking everybody was stealing my money. So, you know, had to get away from those people, man. Now, they’re just, they’re losers. All they can do is hang on to, you know, the winners ass, you know what I’m saying.

How does it feel knowing that you’re getting back to form as far as writing music and Puddle of Mudd goes?

I am pretty much 100 per cent back to the old Wesley Scantlin, I’m singing to my family, I keep God first place, and I let him do a lot of the driving in my life, Mr. God upstairs. You know, prayer, meditation, and just being healthy. Just focusing on, you know, on positivity.

So Puddle of Mudd has that 20th anniversary of Come Clean coming out, which was huge. What are your feelings looking back on that 20 years down the line now that it’s coming out?

You know, I’m super proud of myself and everybody that was involved and, you know, it’s just, it’s like a, it’s like a magical dream that happened, you know. And it doesn’t happen to everybody. I really think my mother, you know, she could see that I wasn’t like [a] Eddie Van Halen type. I couldn’t really do things like Eddie Van Halen in the beginning of starting to play guitar. So she is like, my mom just said “Hey Wes, you’re not really playing like the Eddie stuff. You’re not like that kind of guy.” She was like, “You should write your own songs.” So she told me that, and I started writing my own songs. You know, I give her a lot of credit to my mom for that.

With Welcome to Galvania doing as well as it has, with regards to the singles and sales and everything, do you see that as a sort of resurgence from where you were with Come Clean? Or do you not see it that way?

No, I see it that way. You know, I was being bullied a lot by people that have, you know, I don’t know if it’s jealousy, or I don’t know what it is, man. I don’t know. People wanted me to be dead man, like, my wife took a life insurance policy out on me, like, the day after we were married. And I was like, “what’s the deal?” So then all of a sudden I started throwing up every day, so it was kind of like an ID (Investigation Discovery) channel type situation. Very scary. And I almost like basically passed away and died, like at least three or four times. But I just had to get away from her. I’m just happy to seriously be alive, man. Being positive, staying creative. Being really creative, actually. I’ve really been massively creative for the last year. Like humongously.

So, last question for you, with the release of the 20th anniversary of Come Clean and everything, has there ever been a point where you’re sort of looking back on everything, and you’ve kind of you kind of thought “Well, maybe I’ve done everything I can do with Puddle of Mudd?” Or do you feel like there’s much more that you can accomplish with the band?

It’s never going to be gone, you know. And, I’m proud man, really proud to pat myself on the back. Yeah. There’s other things in my life that I’m going to do, you know, just as an entertainer. Just all kinds of crazy stuff you can do. So, I’ll get into whatever I want to get into when I want to get into it.

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