SKID ROW's DAVE 'SNAKE' SABO Says JAMES HETFIELD Is 'One Of The Most Underrated Guitar Players'

In a brand new interview with RadioactiveMike Z, host of the 96.7 KCAL-FM radio program "Wired In The Empire", SKID ROW guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo was asked which of the METALLICA guitarists, James Hetfield or Kirk Hammett, had more of an influence on his playing. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Hetfield, without a doubt. And it's funny you should say that because I have a warm-up playlist that I go through before every show, and there's two METALLICA songs I put on there to work out my right hand. And the first one is 'That Was Just Your Life' off 'Death Magnetic', and the second one is 'Disposable Heroes' [off 'Master Of Puppets']. It's [James's] right hand. Because that was something I didn't really develop as I was developing as a guitar player; it was more about my left hand than my right hand. And then when I started hearing how just efficient and precise he was with his rhythms, I was, like, 'I've gotta develop that somehow.' And he's just the king of that — him and guys like Scott Ian [ANTHRAX], whom I think the world of, and Dave Mustaine [MEGADETH] as well, and Kerry King [SLAYER], without a doubt. They just have tremendous control over the synchronicity between their right and left hands, and their right hand in particular.

"[James's right hand is] insane. To me, he is one of the most underrated guitar players. 'Cause every guitar player will say that, but the general public doesn't have the full appreciation of how just unbelievably over-the-top talented he is as a rhythm guitar player… Kirk is amazing in his own right. James's right hand and the riffs that he writes utilizing that talent, it's pretty unbelievable."

SKID ROW's new album, "The Gang's All Here", will be released on October 14 via earMUSIC. The band recorded most of the effort in Nashville, Tennessee with producer Nick Raskulinecz, who has previously worked with FOO FIGHTERS, STONE SOUR, HALESTORM, EVANESCENCE, RUSH and ALICE IN CHAINS, among many others.

In May, SKID ROW shared the music video for "The Gang's All Here" title track.

Swedish singer Erik Grönwall joined SKID ROW in January as the replacement for ZP Theart, who had been in the group for more than six years. Theart played his final gig with SKID ROW in February before being officially given the boot.

Grönwall was a member of the Swedish hard rock band H.E.A.T. with whom he recorded four studio albums — "Address The Nation" (2012),"Tearing Down The Walls" (2014),"Into The Great Unknown" (2017) and "H.E.A.T II" (2020) — before exiting the group in October 2020.

Grönwall was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in March 2021. Six months later, he announced that he was cancer free after receiving a bone marrow transplant in August. "Some anonymous wonderful human being somewhere in the world donated his/her blood cells so that I could get a second chance at life," he told Headbangers Lifestyle in January. "Sometimes I can just get tears in my eyes when I think about it. It's so beautiful that one person who is not connected to me in any way wanted to do that for me. He/she doesn't know that the blood cells were for me. It's completely anonymous."

Last September, Grönwall released his cover version of "18 And Life" via all streaming platforms.

In 2018, Grönwall debuted in the U.S. for 10 million viewers in NBC's live broadcast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's and Tim Rice's musical "Jesus Christ Superstar". Along with John Legend, Alice Cooper, Sara Bareilles and others, Erik played the key role of Simon Zealotes.