Sebastian Bach is back, with his new album Angel Down finally getting a UK release over six months after it first saw the light of day in America. With the UK release imminent via DR2 Records it therefore seemed like the opportune moment to speak with the former Skid Row front man to get the low-down on the album and all the things he has been involved with in recent years. 

It feels like a while since we have heard any solo material from you? 

Sebastian Bach:  I put out a record in 2005 called Frameshift 2, An Absence Of Empathy, which was a progressive metal album that I do all the vocals on.  Frameshift 1 was a side project of James LaBrie from Dream Theater, and he called me up and asked me if I wanted to do number two.  Any fans of my voice will definitely find some cool material on that record, but just to be perfectly clear, Angel Down blows away anything I’ve ever put out solo wise.  This is the best CD that I’ve put out since Slave To The Grind and that’s what everybody tells me and I agree, and this is what you’d expect from Sebastian Bach, high energy rock n’ roll with kick ass screams, great songs, great guitar riffs, great production, great artwork, it’s just fucking great dude. 

And with a couple of good slower songs that show off your voice. 

SB:  Absolutely, I will always do songs like that, definitely. 

How would you describe it in relation to your other material? 

SB:  I don’t think that Angel Down sounds like anything that I’ve done before, but it makes sense in your iPod next to Slave To The Grind and the first Skid Row record, and Subhuman Race, it makes sense next to those CDs.  That’s all I try to do, I look up to bands that have been around, you know, forever, like Rush, AC/DC, Neil Young, bands that have put out like 20 or 30 records, and I’ve got like six.  So I’ve got a lot of rocking left to do dude. 

How long has the material for Angel Down been written for, you were touring some of it a couple of years ago? 

SB:  Absolutely, yep.  The first song I wrote for it was in 2000, which is the last song on the album called Falling Into You, which I co-wrote with Desmond Child down in Nashville, Tennessee.  I did that right after I did Jekyll And Hyde on Broadway, and the guy from the record company, Jason Flom, came to see me on Broadway and he came backstage after the performance and said ‘Sebastian, I want you to write a song with Desmond Child’.  So I said ‘sure’ and Atlantic records flew me down to write with Desmond, and it was Jason who gave me the record deal for Angel Down seven years later so he is very consistent with what he likes; he’s also the guy that signed Skid Row in ‘87, so he’s always been there for me.   I’ve written the rest of the record over the course of the last seven years, and of course all the war has happened in that time, and I don’t see how you can be writing lyrics in the last seven years without taking into account what’s going on in the world, and some of the songs have to do with the war situation, namely You Don’t Understand and Take You Down With Me, are both influenced by that.   

So yeah I really love how it sounds and also I should say in the UK it’s coming out on July 21^st and every copy will have a DVD enclosed with the CD.  The DVD is called Roadrage and it’s got five live songs and also the movie encompasses the making of the CD and it’s very funny and it’s very cool, and it’s also got the (Love Is) A Bitchslap video on it, which just got added to VH1 here in America.  They’ve been playing it all weekend so we’re very excited about that.  Also Angel Down is coming out on vinyl in the UK about two weeks after the CD.  It’s going to have a double gatefold colour sleeve, a poster, and double sided colour picture disc, which is so awesome for a rock collector like me, so that will be available in the UK as well. 

Is that going to be limited edition? 

SB:  I don’t think it’s going to be limited edition.  If you want to buy it we’ll make you one.  That’s all domestic in the UK, so only the UK will have the vinyl, and also the UK’s the first place that will have the DVD available, it’s coming out in America too but first it’s coming out in the UK. 

You cover Aerosmith’s Back In The Saddle, was this chosen as it shows your intent, you’re back with the new album and everything? 

SB:  Yep, that was a suggestion from the producer, Roy Z, who of course produced Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford.  We had 13 songs done and then Roy said ‘dude you’ve got to do Aerosmith’s Back In The Saddle’, I’m like ‘dude, we’ve already got 13 songs’, and he’s like ‘yeah but you’re back and you’re Bach and you can come on stage and go I’m back’.  He was right and of course Axl Rose sings on three songs, Back In The Saddle was one of them, and for all of you Guns N’ Roses fans who’ve been waiting 15 years for Chinese Democracy, in the meantime pick up Angel Down because Axl sings his ass off on this CD, he sings three songs, so fans of Guns N’ Roses will definitely want to pick this album up. 

Do you find that while having Axl on the album is a good selling point, it can distract from the fact that you have done the album? 

SB:  If it’s distracting to someone that’s on them because that’s only in heavy metal that would happen.  I’m a fan of all kinds of music, I love Willie Nelson, and pretty much every Willie album I’ve got has guest singers on all over it, or Neil Young has guest singers on his CDs all the time.  One of my favourite albums growing up, one my dad used to play, was Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline, where he sings lead with Johnny Cash.  Just because we’re two lead singers I do not understand why that would distract, all I’m trying to do is make a good CD, if Axl Rose wants to sing on my CD to me that makes it a better CD.   

There’s no problem in the country world or the pop world to have a guest singer on a song, like every Mariah Carey song, which I can’t stand Mariah Carey, it’s always like a pop singer featuring this rapper, or Timbaland, or whoever it is.  So for me I’m trying to make the best music I can in the world, and to me having Axl Rose guest on it, that just makes it better, so I don’t think it’s distracting to make excellent music. 

I read that you financed the album yourself. 

SB:  I financed part of it myself, I didn’t finance the whole thing.  I used to be on the label Spitfire which is a subsidiary of Eagle Rock, from the UK, and my first solo record Bring ‘Em Bach Alive came out in 1999 in the UK through Spitfire and Eagle Rock.  And Eagle Rock shut down Spitfire and that happened in 2006 in the middle of me recording Angel Down, so they put up about half the money that was promised in the contract.  I was left with an album half finished with owing money to the producer, and the band, and the studio, and the engineer.  So I had made a great living over the last 10 years in television and Broadway and playing live concerts, so I just decided to put my money where my mouth is and pay for it myself to finish it as good as I could.  I got it about 90% done and then I sent the CD to Jason Flom, and he sent it to Jack Ponti in New Jersey with MRV, and between the two of them they gave me my own record label, Get Off My Bach, which is distributed in most countries through EMI and in England through DR2 and that’s what happened.  So you’ve got to believe in yourself, I didn’t get signed again because of my name or my haircut, or what I did in 1989, I got signed for the way Angel Down sounds, and that means so much to me.  I think it sounds great and the reviewers think it sounds great and the fans think it sounds great so that’s good enough for me. 

You mentioned that you have done Broadway and reality television.  After Skid Row you went onto do a few roles in Broadway, I take it that it is something you enjoyed and what did you take away from the experience? 

SB:  Well I love singing first and foremost, I’m a singer, that’s what I love to do.  That’s what will last in my life is 18 And Life and I Remember You, and hopefully Angel Down will be put in that category, I’m pretty sure it will be.  But that’s 20 years of people listening to 18 And Life, where it becomes a classic song, which it is now.  The thing is I’ve always played rock n’ roll, since 1983, I’ve been playing professionally in bars or whatever, I started out and to go to Broadway in the year 2000 after rocking n’ rolling for over 15 years at that point was an incredible experience.  To learn about the stage and performance and singing, learn things that I didn’t know, with a director who knew more about stage presence, how I carried myself on stage, all these things that I was taught on Broadway that I could bring back to the rock n’ roll stage.  It’s such a great opportunity that I don’t think anybody else in heavy metal has ever got.  You know I’ve done four Broadway shows, on Broadway not up in some other town or something, so that’s a major feat and I look forward to doing some more.  But for now it is time to concentrate on rock n’ roll, which will always be my first love. 

You’ve also done a few reality shows, what with the rap show and Supergroup. 

SB:  Yes and I’ve just finished filming a brand new one, called Gone Country 2, will be coming on in August on the CMT Network here in America.  Where I lived in Barbara Mandrell’s mansion with Jermaine Jackson of the Jackson 5 as my roommate, Lorenzo Lamas, Sean Young from Bladerunner, Mikalah Gordon from American Idol and Chris Kirkpatrick from *NSYNC.  It’s a crazy show and it’s all about music and it’s a lot of fun to watch; that’ll be coming on in August. 

I just look at the television shows, honestly, as a way of promoting my name so people know I’m still doing stuff.  Back in the late 80s, when I started out in Skid Row, you could see rock videos on TV all the time, and now it’s harder to see.  Although I’m very happy to say that VH1 has just added the (Love Is) A Bitchslap video off of Angel Down.  I saw it myself this weekend on the channel which is so cool, they played I Remember You, (Love Is) A Bitchslap and then Bon Jovi I’ll Be There For You, and I saw it on my big screen TV in my living room, and it was one the greatest moments of my life.  Because people have been watching I Remember You for 20 fucking years, and so long, and to see VH1 add the (Love Is) A Bitchslap video just really meant a lot to me, it just really really did.  What it means for me is that the future is wide open, that’s what has happened with Angel Down.  

We’ve already done a month of touring, we did an incredible headline tour of Australia and then we played an amazing festival in Finland, Tampere, called the Sauna Open Air Festival, with Children Of Bodom, Whitesnake and Scorpions.  The reaction of the fans to the new songs, it just lets me know the future is wide open, because that’s what I enjoy, is making new CDs, that’s what I dig.  When everybody fell in love with the first Skid Row record, that was a brand new CD.  A lot of people latch on to their favourite songs from their youth, but as a musician I’ve got to keep creating new stuff or I quit, because that’s why I do this.  So the last month of touring has really been pivotal and meant so much to me and the band, to be able to push ourselves and play songs that push us musically, because I’m not the same as I was when I was 19, I’m fucking better dude.  So the new record is the sound of me and the band pushing ourselves to rock as hard as we can and it sounds great to me, and to be able to do it live just really means a lot. 

Are we going to see you touring the album in the UK? 

SB:  Well here’s the deal dude.  The last tour I did in the UK was 2006, Guns N’ Roses and Bullet For My Valentine, and we played every arena there is to play in the UK and sold them all out, and two nights at Wembley.  So I’ve got to follow that tour up with a proper tour and I’m in America until September with Poison, playing the biggest places in the United States that there are to play, and that’s how I like to present myself.  So hopefully in September or October there will be an opportunity to come to the UK with some other band where I could team up with somebody and do some big shows because that’s what I like to do, I like the really big show. 

When you say hopefully an opportunity is there anything in the pipeline or is it just speculative? 

SB:  Well at the moment no, but I always hold out for what I believe is right and something always happens.  I can give you a list of bands I’d love to play with: I’d love to play with Whitesnake, Children Of Bodom, Saxon, Rose Tattoo, Hanoi Rocks, Bon Jovi, there’s a ton of bands I would do shows with.  Of course Guns N’ Roses would be at the top of the list but I just played with them.   

And you were at the Download festival with them, which was great to see. 

SB:  Yeah that was wild.  That was a wild day, in the history of my career that would be one of the wildest days, Guns N’ Roses at Donington, that was intense.  Hammersmith Odeon was really good with Guns N’ Roses too. 

Ok, thanks a lot for your time. 

SB:  Thanks very much dude, great talking to you. 

Hopefully we will see you somewhere in the UK soon. 

SB:  As soon as there are UK dates I will put them on the website of course.

Darren Brushneen