SEBASTIAN BACH: One Month Sober And Counting

Alexis Colvard of The Georgia State University's Signal student newspaper recently conducted an interview with former SKID ROW frontman Sebastian Bach. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On starring with four other rockers (Ted Nugent, Evan Seinfeld of BIOHAZARD, Scott Ian of ANTHRAX, and Jason Bonham, the son of the legendary LED ZEPPELIN drummer John Bonham) as the band DAMNOCRACY in VH1's new reality show "SuperGroup" (which premiers May 18):

"Here we are in 2006. MTV and VH1 do not play rock videos anymore. They play reality shows. So I didn't change the game, (but) I still play the game. If in 1989, '18 and Life' was the way that I promoted my career, great. If that doesn't exist anymore, I'm still on the channel."

On being less than completely sober during the filming of "SuperGroup":

"The truth of the matter is, between the ages of 15 and 37 — I cannot think of more than five days or a week that I did not drink alcohol. That's just the way that I've lived since the mid-Eighties, (with) all my bands, and my family, and being Canadian. Where I grew up, there were three things: hockey, beer and RUSH. That's pretty much it. I didn't know one person when I was fifteen that did not drink beer."

"One of the episodes is Ted doing a mini-intervention on my ass. It's extremely emotional, this episode. Lots of tears. Not an easy thing to do. And Ted's not Mr. Nice Guy about it. I don't want to give too much away, but a little tough love happening."

On being sober for three weeks and counting:

"Instead of getting hammered as part of my daily thing, I can go to coffee shops at seven o'clock at night with my son and spend time with him and not be a loud, sweaty, slobbering drunk."

On DAMNOCRACY's recording plans:

"We have three songs that we're working on right now, plus Jason Bonham has this beautiful piano ballad that is totally gorgeous that I want to sing. We're working on demo stuff so that when the show does start airing, we're going to have five or six songs that we can either put out through our own websites, or get a deal, or see what happens."

On DAMNOCRACY's sound:

"I find talking about music so futile because I could describe the songs to you, (and) I could say it's really dark and heavy and in minor key and it's got a real driving beat, and it sounds really gothic. I could be describing BLACK SABBATH or WAGNER. You'd use the same adjectives to describe both, who sound completely different."

On the negatives that come with traveling and rock 'n' rolling all over the world:

"If you're gonna play the game, fuckin' get ready, or you're toast. And if you're not prepared for all the attention and the time away from home and everything, don't do it.

"I read about all these British bands who are huge in England and they try to crack the States, and I laugh at these articles, like the guys in THE DARKNESS saying, 'We had no idea how big America was- like the drives between the shows.' I'm like, 'Shut the fuck up!' You're complaining about driving to the next city? Why do you do this? You're lucky to be driving to the next town. 'It's so hard. I didn't know how big America was.' Then fuck off back to England!"

Read the entire interview at GSUSignal.com.