Sebastian Bach is making headlines, for events in the future and far in the past.
Earlier this month, Twisted Sister announced that Bach, the former Skid Row vocalist, would be filling in for Twister Sister frontman Dee Snider for the band’s 50th anniversary concerts.
Bach also popped up in even more news alerts when tabloids picked up on a mention in actress Christina Applegate’s autobiography, “You With the Sad Eyes: A Memoir.” (In the book, she tells the story of ditching Brad Pitt at the 1989 MTV VMAs in favor of Bach.)
“You know, I was kind of surprised when I saw all those headlines,” Bach said Wednesday. “All I can tell you is that I was not married when I met her. I was a single guy. So I apologize for hurting anybody’s feelings in any way, but I was a single guy. I was not married, so…”
Beyond those mentions, Bach is still going strong as a solo act, bringing his The Party Never Ends tour to Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale on March 20. (In fact, his May 2024 show at Jergel’s sold out.)
Bach can remember playing huge shows with Skid Row in the past in Pittsburgh, whether it was with Bon Jovi, Aerosmith or Pantera. But it’s a memory from the start of his solo career after leaving Skid Row that still stands out.
In 1997, Bach played a show at the now-closed Graffiti in North Oakland, where a metal drumming legend made a surprise appearance.
”I was only on tour for two weeks. We were just seeing if anybody would even come to a Sebastian show. And that night, Vinnie Paul from Pantera — he was in Hellyeah at the time — he came to the show, and he was all liquored up,” Bach recalled. “And he gets on stage at the end of the night to sing ‘Cold Gin’ with us at this little club in Pittsburgh. And he gets up to the mic and he goes, ‘Hey, Pittsburgh, we’re going to bring this guy on tour with us starting next week, man, because he brought us on tour in ‘92 or ’91.’
“And I go, OK, he’s drinking. He’s not bringing me on tour. … When I got home, I looked in my fax machine and there was a full list of Pantera arena tour dates. And they said, we want you to open for us. I couldn’t believe it.”
In a phone call Wednesday, Bach spoke with TribLive about his Twisted Sister fandom, partying as he gets older, having his son on drums and more. Find a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length, below.
Where are you calling from today?
I’m calling from St. Cloud, Minnesota. We just played three cities in three nights. Last night was Minot, North Dakota. The night before was Billings, Montana, and the night before that was Great Falls, Montana, which I kept calling Great Falls, Manitoba. (laughs) They understand. We did 91 cities last year, and this year is looking to be even more than that. So there’s a lot of touring going on.
You’ve been in the headlines a lot recently, so congrats on the Twisted Sister gig. How did that come about?
They had their 50th anniversary tour all set up, and the doctors told Dee that he couldn’t do it. Rather than cancel their tour, they called up SMF No. 2, and Dee Snider himself named me that decades ago, because I’m a real fan. I am a real fan. If you’re like, oh, is this going to work or not? Anybody that says that, I’m a bigger Twisted Sister fan than you are, OK? So don’t even challenge me on my love for Twisted (expletive) Sister. I am a true sick mother you know the word. (laughs) I am. I stood in line to watch them on the You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll Tour in 1983, I believe, with Queensryche opening up. I’m also a guy who collects vinyl. I’m a person who went and purchased the very latest Twisted Sister live vinyl record, which was recorded during the period when they did “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It),” “Tear It Loose” and “Destroyer.” Those are the tunes that I really, really, really love. I like that earlier Twisted Sister. I love “I Wanna Rock”, I love “The Price.” I love “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” but my heart really belongs to the earlier records, “Under the Blade” and “You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll.” So I’m a real fan, and nobody can deny that I am a real fan.
On your current tour, are you going to bust out any Twisted Sister songs to serve as a warm-up for the fall?
We have been jamming the last couple nights on “I Wanna Rock” just because I want to rock. (laughs) Yeah, we have. Guess what? Going from “I Wanna Rock” into “Youth Gone Wild” is not a bad thing at all. The crowd is into it, dude. I’m telling you. They really like those songs, and so do I.
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This is the Party Never Ends tour, but does partying change as you get older?
Partying for me is going to dinner at a steakhouse and having a filet mignon on a day off and a glass of wine and then going to sleep. If that’s partying, my grandma parties. (laughs) I party like my grandma parties, not like Pantera or Guns N’ Roses. But really, OK, I’m 57 years old. I can still do the show at the level I want to and my fans want me to do it at. But when I’m done with the show, man, I am pretty physically exhausted and I have to circle the gig and the rest of the day I’m like, oh man, I got to get up there and do this? (laughs) I do it almost every single night.
I just did three in three with these hellacious drives. We drove from Victoria, British Columbia, which is not even part of North America. It’s an island, OK. We drove the tour bus on a ferry, which seems nuts to me. We drove from there, Victoria, British Columbia, to Boise, Idaho. That’s like driving from the Arctic to Mexico. (laughs) It’s ridiculous. And just the last three nights we played Great Falls, Manitoba, which I kept calling, no, my God. We played Great Falls, Montana, you (expletive) dope. (slaps himself) Not Manitoba. Montana. And then we drove from there to Billings, Montana, and then we drove from Billings to Minot, North Dakota. These are all like 10-hour drives. We get out of the bus, we’re like, ohhh, and then we play. What I’m trying to say is that sometimes bands do fly-in gigs, which is getting on the plane the day before the show and going to the hotel and doing the show and then flying home. That’s a lot easier than being on the bus playing every single night. It’s just a different way. This is old school touring is what we’re doing. I do love it, but it’s physically very demanding.
Your son (Paris Bierk) is playing drums on this tour, so what’s that like to have him on out on the road with you?
My immediate answer to that would be that in my past, in Skid Row, I missed a lot of him growing up. I even missed his college graduation, which really messed me up. I was really sad, but in this business, you don’t say no thanks, I don’t want to do the gig. I mean, I don’t do that. If you want me to play, I’ll play. (laughs) I consider myself lucky to be doing this, but at the same time, I see a dad in a family that never leaves home, I see him as lucky. But he probably doesn’t realize that. He’s like, I wish I was a rock star. If you’re a rock star, you better be ready to leave home, leave your family, miss your kid’s graduation, miss birthdays and important events. So the fact that he’s in my band, we get to go to dinner on a day off, and we get to hang out at the airport. Precious times that are lonely on the road, I could spend with my son, so it’s good to catch up and make up for lost time.
You’ve got the new album, “Child Within the Man,” out from 2024, so how important is it for you to keep making new music?
It’s very important, but music’s always reinventing itself. Right now I have been claimed by the world to play live shows, like people want to come to live shows. In my solo band, we’re doing more shows, and more people are coming to the shows and the venues are bigger and we’re selling more T-shirts and stuff like this. And now I’m going to be doing shows with Twisted Sister. So there’s no time for me to make a record. I love my album. But the truth of the matter is we did it during the pandemic. We weren’t doing any live shows. I lived at Elvis Baskette’s house, his studio, the producer, for a month or maybe more, and we did nothing but concentrate on that album. You can hear it. To me, it sounds exactly the way I like my rock ‘n’ roll to sound. So I would love to do another record, but when am I supposed to do that? On the day off on the road? I don’t know when that’s going to happen. You guys want to rock so bad. The whole world is like, please play a show. I’m like, OK, all right. (laughs) So we’re coming to Pittsburgh! (flashes peace sign)
Looking back a little bit at the Skid Row days, is “Riot Act” a song that you look at fondly?
That is a heavy, heavy tune. We just got back from Australia where we did seven sold-out shows and the first show Melbourne the first show sold out so quick, the promoter added a second gig. We had promised Australia that we would do the first album in its entirety because we were supposed to do that in 2020, but the pandemic happened so we couldn’t. So the promoter’s like, please, please, would you please do that? I go, OK, OK, all right. So we did the first album in its entirety, but when we had a second gig in Melbourne booked, I said, OK, now we’re going to do the second record in its entirety.
I was like, do people really remember songs like “Riot Act” or “Mudkicker” or “Psycho Love”? And the answer is yes, they do. (laughs) That gig was off the chain. People just love that album, and it’s much heavier than the first Skid Row album. As a singer, what I would say is that the first Skid Row album has more singing on it. “Slave to the Grind” has way more screaming on it. A song like “Livin’ on a Chain Gang,” that’s basically me screaming at the top of my lungs for like three minutes. (mimes screaming) It’s like, jeez. (laughs) I love that album, but at my age, it’s more fun to sing than scream. I can still, believe me, I scream a lot in in my shows.
So that’s probably bad for that to be the second night of the tour?
What was weird is that when we booked that second gig, the only availability in the venue was before the other gig. So we did “Slave to the Grind” first. And we came out to “Riot Act,” I think. Did we? I don’t know if we did, but we thought about starting the show with that song because it’s very up tempo, like Ramones.