Kevin Winter, Getty Images Stone Temple Pilots  announced that they officially fired  singer  Scott Weiland  yesterday (Feb. 27), which met with a follow-up statement from the frontman in which he revealed that he was surprised by the announcement. “Surprised” is definitely the key word, as Weiland spoke with Rolling Stone earlier this week about the rumors and his future with Stone Temple Pilots and he did not let on that there was trouble on the horizon. In the interview, which took place only a few days ago, Weiland stated, “STP has not broken up. I haven’t quit. I haven’t been fired. We’re talking about when we want to tour next. My personal feeling is that we just need some new blood in the band. It’ll give it new energy, so that we’re not just playing the same greatest hits set we’ve been playing ever since we got back together after I left Velvet Revolver . I’d like to make a new record so it breathes new life into it.” As for hearing that Slash had been the one to make public talk of his firing from STP, the vocalist added, “Slash doesn’t know anything about STP. Those guys wanted to get together to talk about touring, but I don’t think touring right now is the best thing. STP has a legacy, and to protect that is very, very important to me. But to go and do the kind of offers that we were getting would be diminishing the brand, and I don’t want to do that. There are offers right now. There are offers that I passed up on. There’s offers that those guys didn’t want as well. There were some hurt egos, but that’s the way it is. Things are like a family. No one’s ever fired anybody in STP.” Weiland called Stone Temple Pilots “a partnership” and added that it was not uncommon for he or the other members to go off and do their other projects. He concluded, “I’ve always supported them. But no one’s been fired and I haven’t quit, so that’s all hearsay.” Shortly after the interview was conducted, the news of Weiland’s firing became public and he stated that he was unsure of how he could be terminated from the group he founded and fronted and co-wrote some of their biggest hits. He added, “That’s something for the lawyers to figure out.” At present, Weiland is set to head out on tour playing music from STP’s ‘Purple’ and ‘Core’ albums. He adds that he and his solo band cohorts are “halfway finished” with a new disc. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/scott-weiland-working-on-new-material-planning-tour/” title=”Next: Scott Weiland Working on Solo Album” align=”center”]