SKID ROW Guitarist Recalls Battles With SEBASTIAN BACH Over Songwriting

SKID ROW guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo recently spoke to Classic Rock Revisited about the difficulties of working with former vocalist Sebastian Bach during the singer's final years with the group.

"[Bassist Rachel Bolan and I] started the band and we wrote at least 90% of the songs," Snake said. "We knew what our role was in SKID ROW. I used to always say this to Sebastian… It took us ten years to learn how to write songs together. We did this together for years and then Sebastian walks in and sang his ass off. He was a great performer. On the second album he suddenly wants to be a songwriter. Now I am not saying that a person who wants to be a songwriter can't be a songwriter. You have to grow into it though. You have to learn from other people and it takes a long time to get to a certain point. He was like, 'I'm writing songs now.' I was like, 'Cool but best idea still wins.' Once his ideas started getting shot down he started to develop this huge animosity to us. It was not persona — it just was that the song wasn't there. It got to the point that when we brought in an idea he would say, 'Nope, nope, nope, nope.' He did it out of sheer resentment. It got to be a chore to write songs . . . Democracy was fine as long as [Sebastian] was on the side the two other guys were. If he was on the side with just one other guy and his idea got rolled out, forget it.

Snake also spoke about the group's new album, "Thickskin", due Tuesday (August 5) through the band's own Skid Row Records.

"On the first album we had 'Sweet Little Sister' and 'I'll Remember You' and on the second record we had 'Monkey Business' and then you had 'Darkened Room'. Even on 'Subhuman Race' you had 'My Enemy' and 'Breaking Down'. We do the same thing on this record as well. I think it is a little bit lower sounding because we produced it ourselves. It is still really heavy. Everybody did a great job. We self-produced it. We recorded it once and we went out on tour and we came out and were not happy with what we did. We re-recorded a bunch of shit until we were satisfied with it. We have not released a studio album in a long time. We have grown. We don't follow trends — I don't give a shit about that. You do have to grow and you are going to be influenced by the music that is around you and the music that you listen too. I still listen to all my old favorite shit, whether it is IRON MAIDEN, UFO, BLACK SABBATH or AC/DC. I also get into new stuff as well. That has an effect on me. I might dig the way certain bands arrange their songs. By the same token, you will never hear someone scratching on one of our records." Read the rest of the interview here.