June 17th, 1998
"MTV... can tell you one thing, but when there are 40,000 people in front of you, who cares about all that?"
As the lead singer of the hard-rock band Skid Row, Sebastian Bach helped sell more than over 20 million records in the late '80s and early '90s. But as the '90s progressed, Bach and his band were swept away by the rise of grunge and a lack of support from MTV, the press, and commercial radio. Now that Skid Row is gone—and The Last Hard Men, Bach's side project with The Breeders' Kelley Deal, The Frogs' Jimmy Flemion, and ousted Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, has run its course—Bach is finding receptive crowds as a solo act, and has even signed a solo deal with Sony that gives him his own boutique label. Bach recently spoke to The Onion about his solo tour, his record deal, metal's drawing power, and his status as the number-one scoundrel of rock.
The Onion: You're touring through a lot of places you didn't get to go before, reaching a lot of people who haven't seen you.
Sebastian Bach: Well, in Skid Row, we pretty much toured everywhere in the world, but what's really funny and ironic is that on the Subhuman Race tour [in 1995], we couldn't even tour whole states like Florida. I remember pleading with [the label], like, "Come on! What the fuck? I've done some of the best shows of my life in Florida!" And I just did eight shows in Florida, and they were all sold out. [Laughs.] So, I'm goin', "Whatever." It's hilarious, because the people are right there. It's really ironic that on the last major-label release I had, I couldn't even go to the state, and then I come down solo and do six cities sold-out. That's unbelievable.
O: Well, no one ever said labels...
SB: They don't know what the fuck is up. [Laughs.] Jesus. They think you should take four years between records. Whatever. Get another guy to do that; that's not me. Every band goes through the same bullshit. What the hell is so hard about going into a studio and rockin' and rollin' and pressin' record?
O: Speaking of which, are you working on your next record?
SB: Yes, I'm doing my first solo record. I've got a solo deal with Sony; they're giving me my own independent label called Get Off My Bach Records, and I started recording right before this tour started. I've got my solo band with Jimmy Flemion of The Frogs and Richie Scarlet from the Ace Frehley Band.
O: It's interesting that metal really seems to be coming back, though a lot of people would say it never really lost its audience altogether.
SB: Well, the mainstream media wrote it off, but the funniest point of that was when we were opening for Van Halen in 1995 on the Subhuman Race tour. We were coming behind Lollapalooza, which would be doing 12,000 or 8,000 kids, and we would come in and do 35 or 40,000. It's all semantics. I mean, MTV or the mainstream media can tell you one thing, but when there are 40,000 people in front of you, who cares about all that? [Blows raspberry.]
O: And what's funny is that so many popular bands today are basically doing metal.
SB: Yeah, plus Kiss and Ozzy... OzzFest is the biggest tour right now. We just opened for Pantera in arenas for six concerts, and we were doing 20,000 a night some nights. You know, I had enough time sitting around on my ass with a remote control, staring at my platinum records, going, [adopts dumb-guy voice] "Oh, those were the days." Fuck this. Go out and sing, bitch. [Laughs.]
O: I've been looking through a bunch of music reference books...
SB: Yeah, dude, I love going to the bookstores and reading about me. It's funny as hell; all those encyclopedias of rock stars... They've got my wife's name, her mom's maiden name. I'm standing in the bookstore reading about my mother-in-law, going, "What the hell?"
O: Well, I was just flipping through one, and you guys aren't even in it. A lot of bands that sold millions and millions of records seven or eight years ago aren't even in it. It's like hard rock is being stricken from the record.
SB: Well, we're in all the other ones. The funniest one I ever read... Check this out: I'm all bummed out because Skid Row is treating me like bullshit, so I go to the bookstore, my favorite place. I go to the fuckin' music section lookin' for books, and there's one called The Scoundrels Of Rock. I go, "Cool." Guess what chapter one is entitled? "Sebastian Bach: The Bottle Incident," and it's a full fuckin' chapter written by that louse Andy Secher from Shit Parader magazine. He writes a whole book called The Scoundrels Of Rock. I'm just standing there reading this crap, and it's unbelievable: I'm chapter one, item one, example one in The Scoundrels Of Rock.
O: That's got to be kind of an honor.
SB: Oh, it's funny, yeah. It definitely puts a little stride in my step. [Laughs.]
O: So, what was the deal with Skid Row?
SB: I was kicked out of Skid Row. I would never leave Skid Row on my own; I could never leave a band that sold 22 million records by the time I was fuckin' 26. Like, what, I'm gonna leave? No way! That's why I do all these songs every night; they're the guys who don't wanna do it. Rachel [Bolan, bass] has got his [adopts nerdy voice] punk band [Prunella Scales], and his little fuckin'... Whatever. The reason our first two albums connected with people was because we were best friends and we had the same goals; there was no compromising our music. Like, when I put on "Monkey Business," it just rips my head off. That's what I want to keep doing. We only did three and a half records. I mean, God. So I'd never quit the band. I have it on tape: I've got Snake [guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo] kicking me out on tape. I had it up on my website [www.sebastianweb.com] for a day, because I read him saying in Kerrang that they didn't kick me out. And I'm like, "Oh, yeah?" I fuckin' put it right on my website for one day. I can e-mail you a copy of him kickin' me out.
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