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Despite his angelic face and comely pipes, Sebastian Bach made it big as a heavy metal dude in a world of scraggly guys. After forming in 1989, his band Skid Row released two albums, a self-titled debut and a 1991 follow-up, Slave to the Grind, that sold a combined 10 million copies. Skid Row reunited for a 1995 record, Subhuman Race, which cracked the Top 40. Bach has gone on to launch a solo career and a side project, the Last Hard Men, with ex-Breeders guitarist Kelly Deal. He recently spoke with Willamette Week from his home in New Jersey. WW: What have you been up to, musically speaking? Sebastian Bach: I've got a solo band that we started in November. Richie Scarlett from the Ace Frehley band is on guitar, and Jimmy Flemion from the Frogs is on the other guitar--he's a freak. How did you hook up with Jimmy? That seems like an odd pairing. Totally. Odd is my middle name. We also have a band called the Last Hard Men, which is Kelly Deal, me, Jimmy Flemion and Jimmy Chamberlin [former drummer for the Smashing Pumpkins]. When I started this solo band, I put it together for fun because we're still signed, as Skid Row, for four more records to Atlantic, and we're still together in a business sense, but we really don't get along any more. That's too bad. I still wanted to keep it going, but the other guys had different ideas. I just got really bored of not being on the road because I love playing on the road--that's how I got into this. We did a week's worth of arena shows with Pantera and Anthrax and the Sebastian Bach band, and it was awesome to do that. We have a lot of fun and we do all the old Skid Row stuff that the kids want to hear from me. We come out and we do "18 and Life" and "Monkey Business." I'll be doing those songs until the day I die. Nobody can stop me from doing Skid Row, not even Skid Row. What was your reaction when Kelly Deal asked you to work with her? She called me up out of the blue one day and said, "I want to work with you," and I said, "Why?" And she answered, "I like your attitude and your voice." That's as far as things go with me. If I'm working with somebody like Jimmy Flemion, we don't even analyze what genres we're from. He's a guy who likes to play rock and I'm a guy who likes to play rock and it's that simple. I was the lead soprano when I was a little boy in my choir, and I've always loved to sing. I found out when I was 13 or 14 that I could sing rock 'n' roll. What are the perks of being a pretty boy? To me, when Janis Joplin sang, she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Some people might not think that, but to me she was the most gorgeous girl because of her heart and the way she sang. So maybe singing is what makes people think of you like that. It's hard for me to analyze the way I look. I will say this though, James Hatfield from Metallica, the first time we met, he came up to me and stared at my face for five minutes, though it seemed a lot longer because he looks pretty scary. He's staring at me, and he says, "Wow!" and I'm like, "What?" and he says, "It's really true. You really do look like that!" What about groupies? Do you get the girls? I'm married. I hate to bum anybody out. Do you drive fancy cars and sit in hot tubs and drink champagne? I sit in a hot tub and I drink champagne, and I had a fancy car that I smashed. That stuff really doesn't mean anything to me. I thought it did, but it didn't. As long as I have enough money to live and buy batteries for my Walkman, I'm OK. What are you listening to on your Walkman? I listen to Jeff Buckley. He's my favorite singer. We actually cover a Jeff Buckley tune called "Eternal Life" in our set. When he died it really hit me, because he was an incredible singer who only did one album, Grace, and his voice was so beautiful that I couldn't believe it when he died. Since he's not around to sing songs anymore, we decided we'd give it a shot. Is metal dead? I think that the biggest tour this summer is Ozzy Osbourne, and the biggest tour two summers ago was Kiss, and I just played arenas with Anthrax and Pantera to 17,000 kids a night, so it's hard for me to say that. Obviously it's not as big as it was in the late '80s, but that is kind of what wrecked it. Anytime you get too much of anything, you get tired of it. |
