Skid Row on skids, row

There was never much dignity about Skid Row to start with, but now drummer and singer are trading insults over what is cheesier: Paul Varone's naked pictures for Playgirl, or Bach playing in a Broadway musical.

To be fair, Varone's appearance in Playgirl is - if you'll pardon the pun - hung not on his brief period in Skid Row, but on his stint on Sex Rehab.

You'd have to question how successful sex rehab is if it takes you to being the front of a porn magazine, surely?

Sebastian Bach takes all the blame

If there was to be a battle over who was mainly responsible for Skid Row, you'd picture it as being an attempt to pass bucks. Not so, for Sebastian Bach and theothersoutofSkidRow are currently involved in a battle to claim responsibility. Like terrorists who've blown up a bus, or something. Bach is fuming that theothersoutofSkidRow have tried to play down his contribution:

"Yeah, well, those guys are liars, for one thing. To say that I don’t write songs is such a hilarious thing to say. All you've got to do is look at the back of the records to see who wrote the songs. It's like… I don't know what to say. When I walk around the house in 1991 with a dictaphone, a little tape deck, and I'm humming the riff to 'Slave To The Grind', going 'Here's a cool riff.' And then I go into the rehearsal room and I go, 'Hey, play this. Here’s a drum beat (makes drum beat). Here's a fuckin’ melody (sings the melody).' How the fuck is that not writing a song? I wrote 'Wasted Time', every single word of the song. It's just weird that they would say that, because they know that it's not true. Here's the deal. Those guys in that band, all they ever say is how much they hate me and they hate the old band and we never got along. There's a real brilliant marketing strategy. Let's be SKID ROW and tell everybody how much we hate SKID ROW. There's a great idea. What the fuck?! I LOVE SKID ROW. I AM SKID ROW! I can guarantee you out of all five guys in that band, the original band, I'm the only one walking down the street that people pull their car over and go, 'Hey, SKID ROW, motherfucker! Yeah! Alright! Yeah! Dude! SKID ROW!' I can guarantee you that none of them get that, ever! And I get it everywhere I go [and I will] until the day I die. People hanging out of their windows screaming 'SKID ROW,' walking through the mall going, 'Hey, fuckin' SKID ROW, dude.' I can guarantee you that none of those other guys get that, 100%. And I can’t leave the house without that happening at least a couple of times a day. I can't even go in my driveway without people screaming that shit. 'SKID ROW, dude! Yeah!' You can call it what you want, but all I've gotta say is when you listen to 'Angel Down', and then you listen to the stuff they put out without me, you can hear who the rock 'n' roll fan is.'

Since Bach has spent most of his life torturing rock to within an inch of its life, we're not sure we'd want to be the object of his fandom.

We do enjoy the suggestion that his claim is greater because he's more likely to have obscenities screamed at him in the street.

The horror done in the name of Skid Row

Sebastian Bach who, back in the 80s, was the traditional ending to the phrase "okay, if I really couldn't just shoot myself, and had to have sex with one of Skid Row, it would probably be...", is worried that the band's name is being traduced by the current version of the group. He frets:

. The Skid Row of 2007 doesn't help matters at all by what they are doing. They are wrecking the name worse than can ever be wrecked. So they make my job harder when I am trying to do something cool and new, and they are just touring the world two out of five original members, playing with all the bands that we would never have toured with me in the band. So they make it hard.

Yes, it's simply because of the rump-leftovers of Skid Row touring that people find it hard to take you seriously when you do something "cool and new", Mr. Bach.

And what is the "cool and new" thing that you're doing that being linked with 80s pop metal makes it hard to pull off? Ballet? Grime? Crunk?

Angel Down is more of what you would expect from me and what I expect of myself, which is ass kickin' rock n' roll! I am really happy with the songs, the playing, the production, the artwork and, oh yeah, I have a guest star on the album, too!

Yes, he's made a rock record with Axl Rose. And yet Skid Row keep trying to suggest that he's nothing more than a pantomime rock horse stuck in the 1980s, trading off faded glories. That really must suck.

[Via Idolator]