SKID ROW Guitarist On New Vocalist ZP THEART: 'He's Not Self-Serving At All'

SKID ROW guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo recently spoke with the "Australian Rock Show" podcast. The full conversation can be streamed below. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):

On the forthcoming final chapter of the group's "United World Rebellion" trilogy:

Snake: "There is no release date. We're still in the midst of writing it. We're going in to start pre-production in about two weeks with [producer] Michael Wagener. It's the beginning of the pre-production, so we're going to start working on a bunch of the songs, but Rachel [Bolan, bass] and I still have a bunch of writing left to do and a bunch of unfinished ideas that we're really high on, that we want to make sure that we give ample time to see them through."

On whether the group plans to tackle any cover songs this time around:

Snake: "We don't even know if we're going to put covers on it. We did that just out of... for something fun to do, and pay homage to some of our heroes. Obviously, we have a ridiculous amount of influences in our lives musically, and to just pick one would be ridiculous. For us, it's really about making the best record possible at that particular time. If that means that this record, we don't have covers on it, and it's just twelve originals, then so be it. If while we're in the process of putting this together, we go, 'Man, let's do this song or that song,' then cool. The great thing is that this is all about enjoying the process, being as creative as possible and capturing where we are at this point in our lives, and hoping that it resonates with people."

On new vocalist ZP Theart:

Snake: "It's such a welcome change. He is just a naturally positive guy. I know him only for the last few years, and it's really difficult to find that guy in a bad mood. He is one of those people who has such a positive outlook on everything, it's infectious. It has a great effect on those around him. He seems to be always about the group — like, 'What's best for all of us?', not 'What's best for me as the singer of SKID ROW?' Like, 'What can we do to make SKID ROW more visible, more relevant, more accessible, more successful. It's always about us — 'What can we do?' It's never singular. He's not self-serving at all. He's also extremely respectful of our history, and does his best to honor that every night on stage. I admire that a lot. People could take this position and they could utilize it strictly for their own personal gain and not be concerned with the legacy or the longevity of the band itself. It's not a springboard for his ego; it's an outlet for his art."

On the group's punk influence:

Snake: "The punk influence in the band comes from Rachel. It's interesting — we didn't grow up together. We met each other when we were in our early twenties, but got to know each other really fast. We hit it off amazingly, so we just started hanging out and writing songs together. The basis of this band was built around Rachel and I writing songs together. You have these conversations – you're riding around in your car, you're listening to different records and stuff like that, and we found we had common ground is KISS and AEROSMITH and JUDAS PRIEST and CHEAP TRICK and [Ted] Nugent, stuff like that. He was into a lot of the original punk rock — the RAMONES, the SEX PISTOLS, THE TUFF DARTS, THE DAMNED, THE CLASH — and where I grew up, we were very familiar with especially the RAMONES. I was 45 minutes out of New York City, and CBGB was legendary as a kid. But I tended to lean more toward the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal when that started filtering into the United States, and a lot of those band — IRON MAIDEN, TYGERS OF PAN TANG, SAMSON, all those bands. When we got together, he ignited my fuse with regard to those bands, and reintroduced me to them. He had much more of that influence in him than I did, so that's part of what he would bring to the table when we would sit down, and part of what I would bring would be that heavy metal portion of our writing. He brought the RAMONES in and I brought IRON MAIDEN in, and somehow we met somewhere in the middle where KISS and AEROSMITH lie."

SKID ROW has collaborated with several other artists, including members of SLIPKNOT and HALESTORM, on the songwriting process for the final installment of the "United World Rebellion" trilogy.

Theart officially joined SKID ROW last year. He stepped into the group following the departure of Tony Harnell, the former TNT frontman who hooked up with SKID ROW in April 2015 as the replacement for Johnny Solinger, the band's singer of 15 years.