SEBASTIAN BACH: 'I Want To Establish Myself Touring-Wise As A Solo Artist'

Dave Reffett of GuitarWorld.com recently conducted an interview with former SKID ROW frontman Sebastian Bach. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

GuitarWorld.com: Who in modern music do you really like these days?

Bach: I really like the album by BLACK VEIL BRIDES, "Set The World On Fire". That's a great guitar record with blistering solos, and I really like ASKING ALEXANDRIA from England. There are a lot of bands that are coming out now that are really into just straight-up rock and straight-up heavy metal, and I really love that BLACK VEIL BRIDES album. I think that's an incredible album.

GuitarWorld.com: [Have you] ever had any Zen moments on stage that you can think of?

Bach: The most recent one I had was when we first did the song "Kicking & Screaming" live on the beach summer stage in New Jersey, and we had worked really hard on the record for years, and that was the last song we wrote. So right before I sang the first line onstage, I just looked at Nick [Sterling, guitar] and I said, "Dude we did it," and had a Zen moment. I opened my eyes and we started the song and I felt like we had accomplished a lot. And it feels good, you know? The new record is doing really well on the charts. It's the highest I've ever charted with any solo project, so that's very very satisfying, and I'd really like to bang out another record as quickly as possible and capitalize on the momentum.

GuitarWorld.com: You have an amazing tone in your vocals, and to me very few people can pull you into a song the way that you do. Any advice on tone?

Bach: Well, about the tone of the voice, I'll get a lot of people that come up to me and try to sing my songs in my face, and they're always yelling too hard and screaming too much. It's more of a spoken-voice singing style. So it's more of a speech kind of style of singing, like I'm trying to make people understand the words and what I'm saying, and I save all of my power for the big high screams. A lot of people when they try to sing SKID ROW songs, they're screaming and yelling too much. It's more singing than screaming.

GuitarWorld.com: Do you have a bucket list, and is there still anything you want to accomplish?

Bach: Yeah, I want to establish myself touring-wise as a solo artist, away from the band, like I have now on record. So I would like promoters to kind of look at the content of what's going on sometimes more than the form, you know.

GuitarWorld.com: What is on your iPod that you love to listen to that your fans might be surprised by?

Bach: Probably Neil Young. What impresses me about him is his writing is very dark and his melodies are dark, and he keeps making great albums. You have to go to the store like every eight months to get his new album, and I just think that's awesome. I think that's it's so cool that he is so relentless.

GuitarWorld.com: Over the years, you have met and played with so many amazing musicians you grew up on. Could you share any cool stories from a fan's perspective what it was like to jam with some of these great guys?

Bach: Jamming with Lemmy from MOTRHEAD is the loudest experience I can think of (laughs). I don't know how he hears his vocals up there, but when I go up there with MOTRHEAD, it's just an amazing experience. Playing with Axl [Rose] is amazing. When I do duets with him, it's always fun. He's a great singer. I've jammed with Chris Cornell; I've jammed with [Rob] Halford. Halford is probably the loudest singer. Angry Anderson of ROSE TATTOO is extremely loud on stage. But, of course, I'm jamming with my band more than other bands (laughs).

Read the entire interview from GuitarWorld.com.