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> Login to your account > RegisterSEBASTIAN BACH EX-SKID ROW
From page 43 of Classic Rock Magazine August 2005
Cover of August 2005 issue.
The outspoken singer says the success of I Remember You was all down to him, even though he didn’t actually write the song.
You’re probably not surprised that I Remember You made it into our power ballad top 40.
Dude, you couldn’t have a list of best ballads without that song. And you know the strangest, most fucked-up thing? After I flew down from Toronto to New Jersey to join Skid Row, I heard Rachel [Bolan, bassist] playing it on the acoustic guitar in rehearsal one day. It was incredible. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. But he said although he’d written the song with Snake [Dave Sabo, guitarist], he didn’t want it to go on to the record. It became one of our first huge blow-ups. I told him he was fucked in the head if it didn’t go onto the album. He was like: “Fuck you, it ain’t gonna be used.” I was: “‘Fuck you,
motherfucker, it definitely fucking will.” That was Skid Row for you.
Doc [McGhee, manager] was due to come to rehearsal one day, and I begged Rachel to play the song for him. He replied: “No. I hate that fucking song.” Anyway, I persuaded Rachel to play it for Doc, just me singing and him on an acoustic guitar.
Doc fell in love with the song, and then began laughing when he heard Rachel didn’t want it on the record – till he realised he was serious.
And the rest is history. It became a hit single and helped to propel the first Skid Row album to multi-platinum sales.
But dude, it still gets played on the radio.
K-Rock is one of the biggest stations here in the States, and coming home from Manhattan two days ago – and this was, like, four o’clock in the afternoon – I heard them play it, right into Them Bones by Alice In Chains, Van Halen’s And The Cradle Will Rock and into some Nirvana song. It’s all coming back in again. This is a crazy business, dude.
Do you actually like power ballads? Dude, one of my biggest influences is Rob Halford [of Judas Priest]. When I listen to Beyond The Realms Of Death or, going further back, to Epitaph or Dreamer Deceiver, those are powerful but beautiful songs. I can barely listen to them without becoming emotional.
Of course, Skid Row re-recorded I Remember You as a power-pop song on their last album, Thickskin. Have you heard it? What do you think? No. The original’s good enough for me.
Dave Ling
