Over the last few weeks (and really for a long while now), we’ve seen multiple instances where Sebastian Bach has openly floated the idea of coming back to the band he was kicked out of nearly 30 years ago, Skid Row. We’ve gone from “I can definitely see” a reunion happen to outwardly reacting negatively to a fan wearing a Skid Row shirt during a recent show.
Seeing as the band’s now headed back to the drawing board when it comes to their vacant singer position after Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale finished her brief run as vocalist, guitarist Dave “Snake” Sabo has been openly asked about who’ll end up fronting Skid Row. With Bach in the headlines talking about it openly, Sabo was asked during an interview on The Hook Rocks (as transcribed by Blabbermouth) if a reunion with Bach would ever happen. His response was pretty definitive.
“Well, the answer has been the same for — I don’t know — 20,000 years now. It’s not gonna happen. And I say the same thing every time. I’m thankful that people have such an interest in wanting to see that happen, but I also have to reiterate that this is about being happy in the situation that you’re in. So I’ll speak for myself personally.
“First of all, I do need to say something too, is that the reason that this isn’t happening is because there’s three of us — myself, Scotti [Hill, Skid Row guitarist] and Rachel [Bolan, Skid Row bassist] — who’ve had conversations about this, and we’ve all been on the same page that we don’t wanna go down that road again. We just — we don’t.”
Sabo reiterated that it was a group decision not to pursue reuniting with Bach and that it wasn’t just one person holding things up, as has been suggested online. And while he’s tried to not get too involved in the discussion, Sabo said it’s been incredibly unfair to the rest of the band that blame and anger has been pointed at them when all they want to do is play music.
“Rachel has taken a beating over this through the years. He’s the one who’s been blamed for this. ‘Oh, it’s Rachel’s ego.’ ‘It’s this and that.’ No, that’s a load of bullshit. That is not true. And I feel bad because he’s really, really had to shoulder that blame and has never said anything derogatory or anything like that. But you know what? The truth of the matter is that Rachel, Scotti and myself have continually felt the same way, that we enjoy being happy in this band and we’re really happy.
“It’s been such a great experience for the last however, 35 years, everything, all the ups, all the downs, everything, but we just don’t wanna revisit that particular aspect of our history. I love the songs, [I] love a lot of the memories, [I am] not fond of some of the memories, but just as individuals and as a collective, that’s just how we feel. So this is not on Rachel. And this has nothing to do with anyone’s ego or anything like that. So that’s just gotta be clear. Again, for anyone to sit there and make assumptions that this is Rachel Bolan saying ‘nope,’ it’s not. It’s the three of us, and we’ve all collectively sat there and just said that we don’t wanna do it. We just don’t wanna do it. And we wish everybody all the best.
“We’ve been just ripped apart by ex-members of the band and stuff — ripped apart. Some really shitty stuff [has been] said about all of us. And we just choose not to [respond]. It’s not who I am. It’s not who we are. We won’t go down that road. We just wanna play music and be happy. This has really never been about a monetary aspect of things because it’s known that we’ve been offered a good amount of money to do shows together and to reunite [with Sebastian] and whatever, but it’s just never been about the money, man. I choose my happiness, my willingness to continue to be a really good friend to my best friends and a really good husband and a really good dad and bandmate and person. And I don’t wanna endanger that in any way. So the people that we choose to play with, those choices are made in order to keep those particular things in line for all of us.”
I think we should all be able to put this whole thing to bed, honestly. Door’s closed, Sebastian. It’s been closed for a long ass time. Now’s the part of your career where you sing your own songs, cover some of the old Skid Row tunes, and get in feuds with the likes of Ronnie Radke and Chris Jericho.