SAN DIEGO  Scott Weiland can't help himself.

Sitting in his living room, the Stone Temple Pilots frontman vows to play only snippets of songs from his band's upcoming album, but he can't bring himself to press stop.

He'll reach out toward the stereo halfway through a song, but then something happens and his hand drops abruptly.

"I think this record is the one, artistically anyway, that shines a new light onto everything we've done in the past," Weiland says of Shangri-La Dee Da, due June 19.

"We had a lot to prove."

Dressed in a denim shirt and jeans, the 33-year-old singer appears in good spirits, albeit a little restless. His hair is cut short and his face clean-shaven  gone is the latter-day Jim Morrison look (the bob-length, snarled hairdo and scruffy beard) that he sported during the making of the album.

Weiland retreated to his simple yellow house near San Diego Bay with his wife and 5-month-old son after the band finished mixing the LP in Atlanta late last month. He explains that he needed some time to "decompress" from months of record-making madness that began when he, his bandmates and their significant others holed up together in a Malibu mansion in January. As much as that lifestyle fostered the creative process, it also was taxing at times, he says.

"It was an interesting experiment to get people who aren't in their 20s anymore to live communally and work on music, the most personal thing in your life other than your family, and to combine both under one roof. Then you bring in a bunch of roadies, techs, assistant engineers, first engineers, producers and a film crew. It got a little rough; it got a little squirrelly. But I'm pretty amazed, with everything we went through there, that there weren't any fist fights."

Though Weiland's problems with drugs twice derailed STP, he says he has regained his bandmates' trust. "Why not? I played a couple hundred shows since I got out of jail, had a family, recorded 18 songs  I've got a lot to show for it." (The singer served a five-month jail sentence in 1999 for violating probation on a heroin conviction.)

But there remains "baggage and issues to work out," he admits, and the bandmembers are planning to try "a kind of group therapy session" on the advice of their management.

It was Weiland's goal for Shangri-La to be a double album, and he says he's "still a little sore" that it isn't. Longtime STP producer Brendan O'Brien was against the idea from the get-go, and as a result, "certain songs got less attention than others," the singer says.

As he listens to his band's music, Weiland looks focused, even as he stares off at nothing in particular. He bobs his head or rocks back and forth, and occasionally he smirks. He breaks only to talk about songs, to smoke a cigarette out on the porch and to play with his son, Noah.

Shangri-La Dee Da will include:

"Days of the Week"  A sing-along pop-rocker and the album's first single. The opening lyric declares, "Monday, back from the dead/ I'm letting go, back for another one/ Tuesday, shoot me in the head/ I'm takin' it back." Weiland: "It's an assessment of my feelings coming straight out of jail and being hit with sensory overload and a lot of new insecurities. ... It has kind of a rock 'n' roll feel of Zeppelin during the Presence period, but melodically and lyrically where I was coming from was an Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson [influence]."

"Dumb Love"  The bastard child of Core's "Crackerman," with crunching guitars and distorted vocals. Weiland: "It's vintage STP."

"Hello It's Late"  Spacey pop with high vocals, featuring the lyric "I'm just sitting on this merry-go-round, and the music is too loud." Weiland: "It's kind of like Carole King meets Pink Floyd."

"Coma"  Sounds like a rap-metal version of Purple's "Vasoline." The frontman brought the song partially recorded to the band, and bassist Robert DeLeo finished it off. Weiland: "Left to my own devices, I'd make art records. It becomes a different animal once the band works on it."

"Regeneration"  Glam-rock exposé in which Weiland gets on his best Ziggy Stardust. Weiland: "This is our prog-punk opera."

"Too Cool Queenie"  Here's the story: "There was this boy/ He played in a rock and roll band/ And he wasn't half bad/ Saving the world/ She said he could not do right/ So he took his life/ His story is true ... /And now this girl/ She got real famous." Weiland: "I'm making no comments on that one."

"Long Way Home"  Massive rocker with exasperated lyrics: "I hear the music, the songs we know/ The sound is tired, and the beat's too slow." Weiland: "This is from the part of us that will always love Led Zeppelin."

"Wonderful"  A beautiful, fatalistic love song with keyboards, co-written by Weiland and Robert DeLeo while STP were on tour. He sings, "As I'm fadin' out/ I don't feel anything at all/ Think I'm movin' on/ Know you'll be safe but not alone." Weiland: "Of all the ballads that we've ever put out, this is probably my favorite, more so than 'Creep,' more so than 'Big Empty,' more so than 'Lady Picture Show.' It's probably the most well-written song that we've ever done. It's also a love song for my wife. Sometimes when I'm lying in bed with Mary in the morning, and she's still sleeping, I wonder, 'What would she do if I died? What would I do if she died?' It's a what-if song."

"Lonely Again"  Midtempo pop with don't-give-in lyrics: "Hold your breath underwater/ And know you'll rise to the surface slowly."

"Bi-Polar Bear"  Echoing the story it tells, this one starts out slow with only voice and guitar and then explodes in the chorus. Weiland sings, "Can't sleep behind the wheel as you're driving home ... /I'm manic as hell, but I'm going strong." Weiland: "That's a day-in-the-life song. I suffer from manic-depressive disorder, and I've chosen not to take medication for it, and because of that, every once in awhile I go through manic episodes and really depressed episodes. It's kind of like a snapshot of one those."

"Hollywood Bitch"  A "Big Bang Baby"-ish number contending to be Shangri-La's second single. Features the lyric "Everybody's searchin,' every single night." Weiland: "It's about the Hollywood club scene and how sad it is."

"Transmissions From a Lonely Room"  Full-throttle rocker with Weiland singing, "Take a bath with consecrated water from the shrine/ And wash away the mud of all the miles you left behind."

"A Song for Sleeping"  A lullaby for Weiland's son, co-written with Robert DeLeo. He sings, "I don't deserve this/ I never thought it could be."