There are several moments in my phone conversation with Sebastian Bach that are inaudible, because he begins the interview at a full scream and never relents. Who can blame him? Rock and roll is dead! America is over! The president doesn't believe in science! The red wine isn't hitting the same as it does on the tour bus! (More on that in a minute.)
Bach, 52, is the former lead singer of Skid Row, which ranks as one of the peak hair metal bands of the late '80s and early '90s. Songs like "18 and Life" and "I Remember You" aren't exactly rock anthems, but they do capture the spirit of that time and that genre: guitar rock designed for arenas that felt dangerous until Nirvana came along and blew everyone's minds. I called Bach because, on the evening of July 15, he channeled his rage onto Twitter, firing off a tweet aimed at Trump and his supporters. Standing with Trump, he argued, is standing against rock and roll. Not cool, man. The tweet blew up. And ol' Bas was on fire. Detractors were saying "stay out of politics," to which he responded: "Fuck you. I believe in rock and roll." The next day, he was trending nationally.
Bach has joined the ranks of a handful of other prominent '80s musiciansâamong them Axl Rose from Guns N' Roses and the solo artist Richard Marxâwho have said to hell with alienating fans and tweet angrily about the Trump administration. According to Bach, he gained about 25,000 followers over the course of one night. Now he has his Skid Row fanbase and a new, energetic crop of followers who are curious to see how this blonde-maned musician is going to tear into the president next.
During our phone conversation, Bach tells me he's been quarantining at home in L.A., mourning the state of (gestures wildly) this. On the brink of a new solo tour, he had to cancel his professional plans for the year. "I'm working on new music, but you know, when the U.S.A. ended in March, I was like, I'm gonna fucking write the best [inaudible] of all time!" he screams. "Funnily enough, the end of life as we know it... that's not the heavy inspiration I thought it was going to be." Bach also goes into detail about the night he went viral, how he thinks we'll get out of this mess of a year, how he's managing to get by, and more, much more. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
ESQ: Sebastian, how are you doing, man?
Sebastian Bach: Never worse, you know. Music doesn't exist anymore, let alone rock and roll. No music exists, so for Sebastian Bach, that's not very much fun. Though I have tried as hard as I can not to lose my fucking mind.
I get it. It seems like these days, you get a little bit of footing and something else awful happens in the world.
There's no end in sight, and I know it's clichĂŠ... but I don't know what day or time it is. I can't even make a Zoom call happen. I check and I'm like what's on my schedule today? Hm, I have nothing to do with the rest of my life. That's my fucking schedule, unless something changes. So then I go, Holy shit, I'm in a bad fucking mood, so I put my phone down and press do not disturb, and I'll go out in my garden, which is the most soothing place to me in all of this madness. I am fortunate enough that I can walk around in nature, and I do not take that for granted.
People comment on my page, "Hey motherfucker. Don't even fucking try it when I'm in a fucking one bedroom apartment, and then you have a pool and shit. Shut the fuck up," and I'm like, "You are right. You are 100 percent right." But I am not built to not sing. I have to say, the seed was planted when I was eight years old. It's like my fucking brain, after all this time, is turning into mush. I don't know if people can relate to that. There's no end in sight. Actually! There is! November 3. On November 3, we can vote the reality show experiment out. We can fucking end it.
You've used your platform to speak out, and then last week, you became a national trend on Twitter. What was that like?
Well, let me give you the God's honest truth. The one thing about this pandemic that I've realized is that alcohol produces a different buzz locked down in your house for five months than it does riding on your tour bus to your next sold-out gig. It's a different buzz, actually, I've found. [laughing]
What would you say is different?
Well, I'm trying to paint a picture for you! I've loved red wine my whole life until March, when this shit happened. When this shit happened? I lost myâit's just a different buzz! It's a different feeling, no matter how hard I try, I can't really drink red wine anymore. What happened was that night was one of the nights I tried. And for some reason, I gained like 25,000 fucking followers on Twitter in one night, and I was drunk. I was like, What the fuck is happening? I've been on Twitter for ten years, being just me, and that night, I made one tweet that hit the center of America. I don't know why. Maybe I should drink more red wine.
You might be the only case of getting drunk and getting on Twitter, and that working to your advantage.
It 100 percent did! When the wine gets flowing, I'm like a caged animal. So are you! Like, get me the fuck out of my house!
One of the hardest things to do is come out of a successful band and be a successful solo artist. It's one of the hardest tricks to pull off in music, and I got kicked out of Skid Row in 1996. I had no choiceâwho the fuck is gonna come see me play? So I've toured and toured and toured and toured and toured, and finally, this tour that was supposed to happen now was my first tour of all theaters, no clubs. Every show, I had finally fucking gotten out of one level and venues where they have bathrooms and dressing rooms. And then it all gets canceled! And yeah, I could postpone, but until there's a vaccine? What the fuck? We can't do this. So we're all trapped in our house, and all we can do is vote for science. Vote for school. Vote for rock and roll.
Do you feel like the past four years have inspired you to be more political?
It's never made sense to me that people would vote for a guy who hosted a reality TV show to run the country. People are like, "What about Ronald Reagan?" Ronald Reagan was the fucking governor of California. He actually tried to do this once. It's like being in a band and you book your first show at Shea Stadium. It doesn't work like that! It doesn't make any sense to me that someone would say, "That's the guy." Like, what was the episode of The Apprentice where you said, "You should run the country." Was it the one with Coolio? Was that your favorite fucking episode? Go watch Vanderpump Rules. Maybe Stassi [Schroeder] could run this shit. She's pretty good, right? Where is the fucking qualification? Get Stassi. She seems really good to me.
This is too much. I can'tâ
Hold on. What the fuck? (buzzing) Oh my God, you're not going to believe what I just did. I turned on something of my wife's. I just sat on a dildo. That is the truth. I was like what is that noise?
This interview is out of control, but it's worth it.
I justâI just miss smarts. I can't watch footage of JFK from 1962. I can't even watch that shit because I'll cry. Because motherfucker is so cool and so smart and hates racism. And then we have this fucking jackass. And it's just not fair to the country. I put Barack Obama in the same category. When I watch him speak, it rips my heart out because he makes you feel safe.
And then he says "Sleepy Joe." I can't think of something I'd rather do more than get a good night's fucking sleep. If Joe Biden will bring us a good night's sleep after four fucking years, who won't vote for that? Bring on the sleep, man.
You said rock and roll is dead and there's no good music out there, but you also said rock and roll is inherently political.
What I mean by that there is a belief that science is not real! When you look at Europe and see they're almost back to normal because they believe in science. You're not allowed to say you don't believe in science!
I feel you, but specifically from the music side of things, how do you think it relates to this moment? How do you think it all folds into politics?
Here's how I see it. Literally one of the most infectious activities you can do is singing. In a choir or on stage, you're opening your mouth and singing. Or you're going to risk your life by seeing a concert. So you have singing and concerts. Those are definitely out right now.
If we had listened to Dr. Fauci at the beginning of this, we wouldn't be in this situation now. Then there's the racism of the "China virus." It's not their fucking fault. What about the wall? Why didn't the wall stop this shit? Are we still building that fucking thing? Is that to keep the virus in the fucking country?
I have a more philosophical question for you. Say we make it to November, and Joe Biden is elected. There are all these people who voted for Trump, and we're so split. When I was getting to know your background, I know you infamously wore a tee shirt that said, "AIDS KILLS FAGS DEAD." But you've had your own transformation. You've been on Broadway and donated to LGBTQ charities. So my question is, do you think the people of our country have the capacity to change?
There's a great site called... I can't remember the name of the site, it's on Twitter. But it's testimonials from guys who voted Trump and are explaining why they're not voting for him this time. Nobody can put it better than them. Ninety-nine percent of them said they voted for him because they hated Hillary! That's not a reason to vote for somebody, but I don't think everybody has the capacity to change. I think if everybody had the capacity to change, we wouldn't be in this situation right now. All we want, as a country, is to have somebody to look up that makes us feel safe. Like everything's going to be cool and our kids are going to be okay, and it's never been more opposite than that as it is now.
Once we eventually get past this, how are you feeling about getting back out there and doing this solo tour?
I, and every musician, am excited to get back on tour and get back to work. Nobody knows when that's going to happen. It gets more frustrating and scary every day. I could just repeat what David Crosby said in his article. "I have savings that get smaller every day, and one day, they're not going to be there." I know all of America relates to that. I don't know how long we can fucking do this. Thank God for Cameo, that's all I got to tell ya.
I'm like the Tiger King chick. Hey all you cats and kittens. That's what I do now. I went from Broadway to Hey all you cats and kittens!
I know you've had this crazy past few days with a shit ton of followers you've never had before, and things like this can make a substantial change. You see someone whose music you like, and you think, "Hey, if Sebastian thinks that, maybe I should look into it." Do you think there are enough people of your stature using their platform like this?
That's one way to look at this. One of my heroes, Alice Cooper, has a complete opposite way of looking at this. He said music and politics should never mix. He considered musicians that speak about politics to be an abuse of power, and I can appreciate what Alice Cooper is saying. I look up to Alice Cooper, and I understand why he says that. Then I tell myself, "What if music doesn't exist anymore?" You want to not alienate your fanbase from music, but once there's no such thing as music, what fanbase are you talking about? There's no such thing as concerts. Where's the logic? This is fucking reality. There's no fanbase coming to your concert, if there's no concert.
I'm assuming you're in the camp that you don't get the same experience out of a song on Spotify that you do being there.
It's a primal experience in gathering or creating a fire. It's the people you want to be around, and you all like the same song. When you're in a crowd of people all singing the same song, it's different. It's not like looking at your phone in your bedroom because you can't leave the house. It's primal. People in the cavemen days got out their drums and beat it with a stick and everybody came out and danced. That's my job, and it's ended... for the first time since B.C.
I'm going to get some red wine tonight by the way, log onto Twitter, and just see how it shakes out.
What are you going to do! What are you going to drink?
I mean, I like red wine, too. I'm a cab sav guy. What you got?
Try the Syrah. Andrew Murray's Syrah. It's the wine in the movie Sideways. They're in the kitchen and said: "It's pretty good. I think they went a little big." That's exactly the wine I was drinking, and yeah, I do think they went a little big. [laughs]
