SEBASTIAN BACH: 'I'm Still Singing Higher Than Ever'

Leslie Michele Derrough of Glide Magazine recently conducted an interview with former SKID ROW singer Sebastian Bach. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Glide Magazine: What would you say was the song or album that literally changed your life, that made you want to do this?

Sebastian: Well, the album that changed my life was the first SKID ROW album. That album made me a wealthy man and I bought a home and a car and I bought cars as gifts for other people. And this all happened when I was twenty years old or twenty one. So that's the album that changed my life for sure, without a doubt. The album that made me want to do this would be MÖTLEY CRÜE's "Shout At The Devil". Maybe, yeah. [laughs]

Glide Magazine: What was the hardest lesson you learned on your own when you first became a professional musician?

Sebastian: This is a very standard answer to that: It's the business side of it. Sign your own checks. Don't let anyone else sign your checks. Very simple concept. Anybody that knows the music industry knows you have to fight for that to happen. Very simple. Be the guy that signs the fucking checks, which I am. That's a very solid, useful, practical, meaningful lesson.

Glide Magazine: How do you take care of your voice because it sounds amazing?

Sebastian: I don't drink anymore, so I don't know what that means, but I have a scale called Bel Canto. You know, I'm still singing higher than ever. Even my speaking voice is quite high. I'm 6'4 and my arms are super long, my legs are super long, my fingers are super long and I've always thought that maybe my vocal cords are super long. [laughs] Because, like, when I listen to "Push Away" on the new record, I'm singing higher than I've ever sang in my life. And that's insane to think about. But maybe I have tall vocal cords like the rest of me. [laughs] Maybe I have a bigger depth of scales that matches my range of my voice. That would make sense, you know.

Glide Magazine: Does it surprise you that at your age you are still hitting the high notes?

Sebastian: Yeah, it 100% does. In the mid-Nineties, when I told you before that I didn't really try so hard 'cause I didn't think people wanted to hear that, I maybe would sometimes try and I wouldn't be able to do it, because I didn't have those muscles revved up and going. But once I get them going, I know how to keep them. It's just a way of singing. I save all my power for those super-high notes and I get it going like that and I try to sing as clean as possible and save the dirty part of my voice to use as little as possible. It's kind of like a trick. [laughs]

Glide Magazine: Do you think you are at your happiest moment now?

Sebastian: I've been through a lot of personal things. I'm in love deeply with this girl for over three years now and she makes me very, very happy in my personal life. So that's good. But yeah, I'm pretty happy. Yeah, I would say so.

Glide Magazine: What still excites you about making music?

Sebastian: You know, some rock bands get really fixated and obsessed with one or two songs or albums in their life. I don't get that. What excites me is adding to the catalog. If you like the albums I've done before, I want to give you another one that you're going to rock out to. That's exciting to me. Playing live is fun but that is more of a physical test — traveling and getting to the next town and blah, blah, blah, dealing with the airport and then customs and all that kind of thing. But albums are for forever and ever and ever. So I really enjoy making records. It's exciting to me.

Read the entire interview at Glide Magazine.