Former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach has once again addressed the long-running question of a possible reunion with his former bandmates. Speaking in a new interview with Get On The Bus, Bach was asked if he has any career regrets. He answered: “ Well, yeah, the fact that Skid Row is not together doesn’t make any sense. We’re five guys that are playing the same set, but we’re not together. Well, they don’t have a singer right now, but…”
He continued: “I play with everybody. I’m in a band, Kings Of Chaos, with Matt Sorum, and I’m in a band called Royal Machines with Billy Morrison, and I play with all kinds of musicians all the time. So it doesn’t make sense that I can’t play with those guys. But as I said, it’s a business matter and maybe someday the business can get sorted out. That is a regret, that that band broke up. Yeah, that’s a regret.”
Bach was fired from Skid Row in 1996. The remaining members went on a brief hiatus, forming Ozone Monday before officially reviving Skid Row in 1999. Over the years, the band has seen a revolving door of vocalists, including Johnny Solinger, Tony Harnell, ZP Theart, and most recently Erik Grönwall, who departed in 2022.
Back in March, guitarist Dave “Snake” Sabo discussed the ongoing reunion speculation on The Bad Decisions Podcast. He responded directly to calls for a reunion with Bach, stating: “I’m not gonna go out there and do it, and fake it for the blank check. I’ve never been about that. Rachel‘s never been about that, and Scotti‘s never been about that. So we’re not gonna do it. And there’s been a lot of people saying, ‘Oh, just do it for the money.’ It’s, like, man. No. I’m just not built like that, man. And I’m smart enough — we all are smart enough to make sure that we’ve done okay with what we’ve made.”
He added: “Look, I don’t live lavishly by any stretch of the imagination, but I could take care of my family. I don’t worry about the future from a monetary standpoint. And so I’m really fortunate like that. And it’s because that’s been my viewpoint all along. It’s never been about, ‘We’ve gotta make a buck.’ It’s always been about, if we do things and we’re genuine and we stay true to our character, to our spirit, and this is gonna sound weird, and we are selfish songwriters. And what I mean by that is that we are writing for ourselves. We’re not writing for anybody else. And then you hope that the way that you translate how you feel through music and lyrics and melodies and performance will have a positive effect on people and thus they’ll wanna come see and hear this music. And that’s what we’ve always done.”
Sabo also spoke to The Hook Rocks podcast in May 2024, saying firmly: “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.”
He elaborated: “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 and Rachel, 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.”
“Rachel has taken a beating over this through the years,” Sabo continued, “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.”
He clarified further: “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.”
Sabo added that their stance has been tested by public criticism: “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.”
He concluded: “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.”
Years earlier, Rachel Bolan also addressed the possibility of a reunion after Harnell’s exit, confirming to fans that the band had “entertained the idea.” But when asked about his personal relationship with Bach, he clarified: “Well… Here’s the soundbite for Blabbermouth. I wouldn’t say we were friends [when we were in a band together]. We were bandmates. You know what I mean? We’re two very different people.”
He added: “I hadn’t seen Sebastian in years.”
As it stands, both sides remain firm in their positions: Bach open to reconciliation, and the rest of Skid Row content to move forward without revisiting the past.
