That Kicks Asss
Sebastian Bach is wild. So what's new? For Skid Row's tall, elegant, blond frontman, shrieking your heart out for the sheer joy or rage of it is just one of those things you do. "It's you! It's you!" he screams at me from Atlantic's offices in New York City, where his band has jusl delivered the amazing Slave to the Grind, their second blockbuster album. "All those naughty road stories I did with you on our first tour!" he wails, recalling such stomach-turners as "the time I was so drunk, I climbed that tree in a swanky hotel, ate all its leaves, then vomited on myself and my tour manager."
Yes, without question, since he exploded into the rock world in the fall of 1987, when McGhee Management grabbed him out of the Toronto club scene and stuck him in front of Dave "The Snake" Sabo (guitar), Rachel Bolan (bass), Rob Affuso (drums) and Scotti Hill (guitar), Sebastian Bach has sometimes chowed a bit too heavily at the smorgasbord of rock excesses. His white-hot vocals, combustible temper, stripped-nerve intensity, questionable judgement, endearing boyishness and breathtakingly good looks quickly catapulted him to the outer limits of rock stardom.
"This time I've got to cool it a little," he says, contemplating some kind of shortcut to adulthood. "But that won't be easy. With this Guns N' Roses tour, it's going to be very hard to behave myself! Axl Rose is calling it our 'Get Into The Ring' tour, and I think that's a very cool description of our two bands on the road together. But I don't want attention just for doing, um, bad shit. You know? It's kinda weird, but before I got into all that trouble last year, I was winning Best Singer in every magazine, it's so outrageous. I don't want to distract from the music, because I think we've got an awesome album. I wrote three-quarters of the stuff with Rachel and Snake this time. It's very, very cool. We just took the elements of, say, a 'Sweet Little Sister' or a 'Big Guns,' and took it to a hundred times the intensity that it was on the first record. It's like the same kind of emotions and feelings, but more intensified. It's like the first album, only like we ate a whole bunch of speed before we made it."
And did they eat speed to whip the notes of songs like "Livin' on a Chain Gang," "Riot Act," "Get the F?!k Out" and "Monkey Business" into the awesome weapons of mass destruction they've become? Bas winces. "Naw, no...It just sounds like we did. Listen, we even have a ballad about heroin abuse on this album, called 'Wasted Time.' In fact, we have three ballads on this album. We also have 'In a Darkened Room' and a song about trying not to lose faith in God with all the shit that goes on in the world. That's a tough thing to do. It's called 'Quicksand Jesus.'"
Recording Slave to the Grind in both Los Angeles and Florida, Bas reports that the band locked themselves away, shunning most of their well-known half-corked lost weekends. "We wanted to come back with an album that would continue to show how hard we can rock, and how great we are at it," the lean machine insists. "I know my reputation last year sort of colored things all one way. What have you heard about me?" he digresses with some concern in his voice.
What have I heard people say about Sebastian Bach? I riffle through my memory banks, censoring frantically. Despite his youthful inability to keep his lid on when it comes to expressing himself, I have noticed in past meetings how easily Bas is hurt by chips flying off other people's shoulders.
"I know that people who don't really know you are a little afraid of you When you walk into a room, you can see some people worrying. 'Uh oh! I've heard about him. He might do something wild--and I'll get hurt!'"
Bas smiles. "Yeah, okay. I like that. You're right. People are afraid of me when I walk into a room. I can feel it. They have all these preconceived notions about me. Now that you've said it, I realize it's true. But you know what? I really kind of enjoy that, I'd much rather have them think that when I walk into a room, than have them say, 'Oh, look, here comes little f?!king nobody.' " [Doubtful. Looming at least two heads above all those gawking at him, Sebastian will never be mistaken for a "little f?lking nobody."]
After the furious success of their first album and tour and the succeeding months crammed in the studio together, I wonder how Skid Row is getting along these days.
"We fight like cats and dogs!" Bas says. "I cannot tell a lie. I'm not going to tell you that we don't fight--we do. It's just part of rock 'n' roll, you know? And it's the tension that makes the music sound so good. I read this interview with David Lee Roth a long, long time ago. He said that the process of making a record was really just seeing who could argue the loudest. Whoever could, would get his idea on tape. Making a record is a lot of arguing, but it's all done with one objective in mind: making the best record possible. We all have the same end goal. But I'm not going to sit here and lie to you. We f?!king fight all the time."
On their first album most, if not all, of the songs were written by Rachel and Snake. In addition, a portion of the publishing went to people outside the band. A publishing company called New Jersey Underground Music ASCAP, which Rachel once told me included Jon Bon Jovi In its ownership, collected the Skids' publishing money. This time that isn't going to happen.
"You know what we did?" Bas says, confiding. "This time we just split up all the money between us. Last year we had so much trouble with the music industry and stuff like that, as far as who got what out of our band. This time we made sure that it was all us! And we divided the songs up equally. It eliminates all the fighting about 'I want my song on the record, so that I can have a house!' Because, you know, that can become very real. So we said, 'F?!k that! Let's just split the money up all equal, and then it doesn't matter whose song gets on the record.' Then you're really just trying to pick the best song."
Other major things have changed for Bas since Skid Row first hit the limelight. Even though he was barely out of his teens when the band began climbing the charts, Bas had already fathered a son, Paris, by a woman named Maria, with whom he was rumored to live. None of this has changed. What is different is that rock's seductive heartthrob is now refusing to hide anything.
"I've decided that people have a right to know everything," he says. "I have a son who is now three years old, whom I love very much. I'm not married. I'm too young to be married. I just turned 23. I was born on April 3, 1968, and my son, Paris, was born on April 4, 1988. It's 20 years, almost to the day. It was unplanned. See, I had been the typical rock guy, f?!king every single girl I could get my hands on. And then I met this girl, Maria, who I really got along with good. She's like one of the only girls I can talk to, or who really wants to talk. Do you know what I'm saying? I'm not married to her, but I do love her, and maybe someday I will get married to her. But when I do, I want it to be totally f?!king solid and everything perfect.
"But if some kid is having a child, and if he could look at me and see the stuff that I do, and see what my life is like, maybe he'll say to himself, 'If he can do it, I can do it too,' " Bas continues, "It's hard, and it hurts that I can't see him as much as I'd like, but I definitely have a commitment to him. I wouldn't bring him into this world if I didn't have a commitment to him. I believe you have to have some sort of responsibility for your actions. And there's a lot of joy for me too. When he comes in singing, 'We are the youth gone wild!' it freaks me out.
"And another thing," he says, on a roll now, "If I do get married or something, I'm not going to do it behind everybody's back. I won't attempt to live a lie. I'm not interested in living a lie. Last year I was told by certain people that if I said I had a son, I would be like the Mr. Rogers of rock. I can guarantee you, when you listen to this record, and when you see us up there playing a gig with Guns N' Roses, it certainly will not be Mr. Rogers up there that you see! I know that the girls like to think of rock stars as available, and I am, I'm not married. That's part of why. I think to myself, what if this or that happens? I'm leaving my options open. But that does not mean that I don't love my son with 150% of my heart."
The son of hippies, Bas still remembers when his folks packed up their kids and crossed the country to Toronto, Canada, in a green VW van with a peace symbol on the back. He also remembers the day he told his parents that their 1968, Summer of Love child wanted to be a rock star. All hell broke loose....
"I said, 'Dad, I want to be a rock star,' and he said, 'Get out of my house.' I had some hard times back then with my parents."
Bas was shocked that people like his parents, who were so into the '60s--they named his sister (a successful model) Heather "Dylan," and called his dog "Lennon'--were so freaked out over his desire to sing in a rock band. "Maybe they were just looking out for me," he admits, "because I was always kind of wild. Today, they couldn't be happier. My dad came to our Forum show last year, and he came the night Little Richard jammed with us and everything. Well, for him to see me and Little Richard together, it just blew his mind, because Little Richard was his favorite. He was in seventh heaven. My mom came down to see us all the time. She loves us! She loves the Skids."
After being tossed out of the house, Sebastian joined a band in Toronto. He was 16 years old, and already six foot two. "Because of my height, I could get into all these bars and stuff. I played around for a year or two up there, and then I got into an American band in Detroit. I was in a band called Madam X for a while. I met the photographer Mark Weiss when I was 17, and went to his wedding. There were some people there that knew Skid Row. There were also some people from Bon Jovi's management, McGhee Entertainment, and they were looking for a singer for Skid Row. They had auditioned a whole bunch of people. They were looking for a kid who could sing a song called 'Youth Gone Wild.' They needed someone who looked young, because a song like that would sound pretty silly with a guy 35 up there singing it, wouldn't it? I had already had experience, so when we all met, it was like we already knew each other a long, long time. I knew right away when they sent me their tape that this was the band I'd dreamed of being in ever since I was a kid of eleven, listening to Ted Nugent records. I officially became a member of Skid Row in October of 1987. I'm really glad to be a part of the songwriting now, because when I first joined the band, the songs were all there. I wasn't one of those cliche lead singers who comes in and says, 'Hey, let's change everything,' just to get my name on it. When they sent me the tape, the songs were great. That's why I joined the band--because the songs were so good. If it ain't broke, don't break It. Just leave it the way it is, man."
Bas is definitely a song man. In fact, he is so enthusiastic about his band's tunes, he can barely understand why a rock fan could actually care about anything else. "When you were asking me questions about being single or available so that the fans don't lose interest in Skid Row, it seemed so weird to me. I know what you're saying, of course, but I honestly feel that if a fan loses interest in a rock star because he gels married or has a kid, then they were never really relating to the band in the first place. I know that relating to the myth is a large part of rock 'n' roll, but I'm telling you, my records aren't going to sound any different and I ain't going to sing any worse because I've got a kid. Hell, I had a kid when I made the first Skid Row record!"
The day of our interview, Bas had just learned that Skid Row's lead track, "Monkey Business," had been selected as the theme song for the new Arnold Schwarzenegger film, Terminator II.
"I just can't believe it!" he bellows from the heart. "It's so weird, because when you're so close to everything, the way I am at this point, all I'm thinking about is how each mix sounds as I hear it, how this or that note sounds, what the stage is going to look like, and where the tour will be playing. Then I get word that one of our tunes is going to be in a film like that.... Man, it's like f?!?!?!ck! My music in a film!"
What about Bas's face in a film? Will he follow in the steps of his buddy Bon Jovi, who spent years swearing he'd never do any acting? Bas hesitates. "Well, I'll tell you something," he smiles. "I've gotten acting offers. I turned them all down, because right now I'm just not interested. It isn't what I'm about. Maybe someday. You never know. But right now I just want to f?!king rock the planet! That's what I'm here to do. I can't wait to get this tour in gear.
"We're going everywhere, even Europe." Bas's face brightens as he plots out the months ahead. "Last year we headlined over there, and we're really mega in England. England is a place where they either love you or hate you. We sold out Hammersmith Odeon faster than any artist in history. We sold it out in two days. We played, and Steve Harris from Iron Maiden came onstage with us. Lemmy from Motorhead came onstage with us. Robert Plant was at the side of the stage, watching. I was thinking, 'This is f?!king outrageous!' That kind of thing makes me feel like I'm 12 years old again. I'm still such a big fan of rock 'n' roll that I freak out when a guy like Lemmy is playing bass right next to me on the same stage. When I think of all the cool people we got to jam with on that last tour--wow!
"And the fact that we're opening up for Guns N' Roses! I spend every single night after we do our show grabbing a couple of beers and standing at the side of the stage, watching the Guns play. Am I lucky or what? I gel to see them play every f?!king night!"
To make sure he has the stamina to keep up with this year's awesome agenda, Bas has been pushing himself physically. Always a kung fu fan, he is now seriously studying the martial art on a daily basis. "I'm more into it than I was," he says. "It's a good way to release your aggressions. There's nothing like beating the shit out of a punching bag for a couple of hours. Also, I'm starting to run again this week. I want to keep my strength up, but frankly we're not playing that much onstage. We're only playing 40 minutes tops. It's frustrating. And we're only working four days a week, so we'll actually only be onstage two and a half hours a week!"
This could definitely be a catastrophe for Sebastian Bach. Time on his hands? Sounds like trouble, "I know," he winces. "I drove our last tour manager, Terry, into having a nervous breakdown. You know all the road stories; you were the one who wrote them. But I'll tell you, I'm serious, I hope it doesn't turn into a lot of trouble. When I read all the stories I told you, it was like they got magnified 800,000 times. It takes away from the musicianship. Like I said before, it's a distraction that maybe I don't want to be a part of anymore. I've always gotten into trouble. I got into trouble before I got into rock 'n' roll. I didn't want to go to school. I went to grade ten. I always had good grades, but as soon as I thought about being in a band, I was out of there. When I got into rock 'n' roll, I was thrown out of my home. My dad said I could either live in his house and go to school, or get out. I got out. Things went steadily downhill for about four years. When I proved myself later on, things got much better."
Things have definitely gotten better. "This album is so great," Bas says, bringing the interview to a close. "There's a lot of power in it. It's a very varied record. I think this band has grown a lot. I know I have."
But is Bas really ready to flag down mass attention with his musicianship rather than his pinup face or heated, adolescent antics? Despite past mistakes he has publicly regretted, is the charismatic frontman for Skid Row truly ready to accept what he really is--perhaps the greatest hard-rock singer to come down the pike in a long time? Here's hoping....
