Former STONE TEMPLE PILOTS frontman Scott Weiland continues to live in some sort of denial of the fact that he was fired by the group last week. In an interview conducted with Spin while en route to a stop of his "Purple At The Core" tour, the singer further clarified his view of the band's status.

"There are some issues that have to be worked out with STP," said Weiland, "but they're the same issues that have been going on since the end of the last tour. Nobody in the band can be fired. No one's ever fired anybody, and no one's ever quit the band."

Weiland also claimed that the he-said, they-said "is something that has taken on its own life. Behind the scenes, it's really not anything different than what was going on before."

He added: "[STP] really have been together a long time, and I'm proud of that. I really do like those guys, and it hurts my feelings when we aren't getting along, because I view them as family."

Asked by TMZ last week about his dismissal from the band, Weiland replied, "STP is not broken up. It's a whole thing to try to boost ticket sales." The vocalist added, "I haven't talked to them for a while, but they were trying to get shows put together but we (Weiland and his solo band THE WILDABOUTS) already had our tour . . . They've done a lot of stuff like that in the past before, it's just kind of the way they roll."

Weiland also insisted that he can't be fired because "there's a thing written in our contract, no one can be fired."

The singer also said that substance abuse issues were not the reason for his firing, saying, "I haven't been doing any of that bad stuff in a long time. I drink some, but I don't drink and drive. I'm fine, I'm all good."

Rumors of Weiland being fired first surfaced in December after Slash revealed the news in a radio station interview. Just last week Weiland gave an interview to Rolling Stone in which he called the stories "hearsay."

That was before last Wednesday (February 27), when STP issued a brief statement saying that Weiland had been "terminated."