SEBASTIAN BACH: 'Good Titles Are Rare; They're Not Easy To Come By'

MetalTalk.net recently conducted an interview with former SKID ROW singer Sebastian Bach. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the title of his new studio album, "Give 'Em Hell":

Sebastian: "I look for titles that are fun to say and roll off the tongue, and I like saying 'Give 'Em Hell'. It's like an expression from comic books or like the '60s of, like, 'Go in there and give 'em hell.' It's kind of the way I feel when I go on a stage; I walk up there and I look at the crowd and I give 'em hell. Just kind of an energetic, fun expression that means go in there and give it all you've got. That's pretty much what rock 'n' roll is to me."

"Good titles are rare; they're not easy to come by. I'm always looking for titles and I jot them down. My last record, 'Kicking & Screaming', that title I had for ten years. But we came up with that song and I was looking for a title for that and I just scrolled through my list of ideas and that popped right out.

"I think part of being a writer is being organized, and if you have an idea, no matter where you are or what you're doing, if you're organized enough to jot it down and have it accessible at a later point, then I think you're ahead of the game."

On the "Give 'Em Hell" recording process:

Sebastian: "I was under a deadline for this record. In the past, I would never acknowledge a deadline, but the CD industry is so different now, who knows how long CDs are gonna last? I was, like, 'Sebastian, instead of whining and complaining about the deadline, why don't you just meet the deadline?' So I didn't know who was going to play bass on the album and before I asked Duff [McKagan], he was my number one choice, I was, like, I had to get my nerve up, 'cause he could say no. He could say, 'No, thanks.' So who wants to go through that?! I was playing with AEROSMITH and VAN HALEN in Australia and we were on our way to soundcheck and I turned to Duff and I go, 'Hey, man, do you want to collaborate on some music and play on my record?' He goes, 'What kind of music?' And I said, 'Rude! Just totally rude!' And he starts laughing. And he goes, 'Baz, I can do dirty.' We started laughing and that was that. You can crank it up and can listen to Duff do dirty and me doing rude!"

On the song "All My Friends Are Dead":

Sebastian: "The title is meant to be taken humorously, you know; it's like a funny thing. I had a t-shirt that says 'All My Friends Are Dead' and has the picture of a baby dinosaur on it, and every time I'd wear it, I'd laugh. And again, I'd always try to put lyrics with the music that seemed to fit, the way the music sounds. That just seemed to sound like a haunting musical song; a haunting lyric and a haunting melody."

Read the entire interview at MetalTalk.net.