During an appearance on the latest episode of “The Candid Mic With Fran Strine” podcast, SKID ROW bassist Rachel Bolan was asked to respond to L.A. GUNS guitarist Tracii Guns’ recent comment that Bolan and his SKID ROW bandmates are leaving “millions of dollars on the table” by refusing to reunite with singer Sebastian Bach. Bolan said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It’s a bummer because I thought Tracii was a bud.”He continued: “[It’s] really funny because everyone thinks that they’re an accountant — they think they’re an accountant, promoters. Everyone thinks that they know how much is coming in.”We approached [a possible reunion with Sebastian] at one point [years ago], and obviously it imploded very quickly.”There’s not millions of dollars out there [being offered for a SKID ROW reunion with Sebastian]. I mean, as SKID ROW, we’re making really good money [right now]. It wasn’t much more [that we would have gotten by getting back together with Sebastian].”But, yeah, I saw [what Tracii said about that] and I’m just, like, ‘Why doesn’t Tracii just stay in his own yard?’ You know what I mean? … It’s funny hearing him — because other people shout out numbers too; they’re, like, ‘They can make this and that and the other thing.’ It’s, like, one, no — we can’t. That’s totally false. And two, quality of life, motherfuckers. You wanna be happy. You wanna be happy doing what you’re doing. And I’m not here to talk shit about anybody. Everyone — there’s that career and there’s my career. Tracii has his own career. He should worry about that and not about SKID ROW.”Guns addressed SKID ROW’s reluctance to reunite with Bach during a recent appearance on “The Chuck Shute Podcast”. He said at the time (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I hate to bring up SKID ROW and Sebastian because I love all those guys. I love the band — I love them together, I love them separate. But the guys in the band, their point of view is that Sebastian, to them, is a shithead. And then Sebastian’s point of view is, like, ‘Well, they wanted a David Lee Roth type of guy.’ And my point of view is don’t ever leave that kind of fucking money on the table. What the fuck is wrong with all of you? Seriously. No joke. I’m not making a joke or a funny ha ha ha . They don’t ever have to even seeSebastian to go and perform live and to make millions of dollars. Not just a million bucks — millions of dollars.”Asked if he really thinks it was that much money that they missed out on by not reuniting with Bach, Tracii said: “Yes. Absolutely, unequivocally, yes. Yes. SKID ROW was a high-impact band. They make pretty decent money now. Even not having a singer, they make pretty decent money. I think the excitement for a good 200 shows over three years — no problem, man. [They would be playing] arenas, for sure.”When host Chuck Shute asked if Tracii thinks the SKID ROW guys don’t like Sebastian that much, that they’re willing to cost themselves millions of dollars, Guns replied: “They think they don’t like Sebastian that much. When you manifest hatred based on an experience or a hundred experiences — like they say, doing the same thing another time and expecting it to be different is the definition of insanity. Well, then do it differently. You know what I mean? It’s, like, then do it differently.”I think Rachel and Snake [SKID ROW guitarist Dave Sabo], in particular, I think it’s so wound up in their head how toxic Sebastian is that they’ve amplified it over and over and over and over and over again, and they come out in the press., ‘No, we don’t like that guy. It’ll never happen.’ Cool, man. Cool. And Sebastian’s point of view — cool, whatever. But at the same time, it’s the music business; it’s not the ‘friends’ business. You’re lucky if everybody’s friends and you’re still doing good business. But you’re really lucky if you’re doing amazing business and you don’t have to be friends. And that’s ego. That’s ego just standing in the way.”Me, I’m a little bit different because I really just wanna play my guitar,” Tracii clarified. “I don’t worry about money. I haven’t ever. And I’ve been broke, I’ve been poor. But that’s not a motivating factor for me. I get excited when we make a lot of money. I don’t expect it. I’m, like, ‘Whoa, we make a lot of fucking money now.’ And it’s great. It’s a bonus.”If L.A. GUNS was as big as SKID ROW, man — fuck, I’d give away two of my kids, and I only have two kids. [Laughs] But I’m not saying anything that nobody knows,” Guns added. “It’s just that I love all those guys, and if THE WHO could do it — come on, man. If THE EAGLES could do it, if GUNS N’ ROSES could do it, why are you too…? You’re not cooler than them.”Like I said, at this point, they are an unbelievable legacy band from a time that — and I don’t care how many snotty people are on the Internet talking shit about all of ’em. People are gonna go see SKID ROW with Sebastian Bach… But my whole ulterior motive for this is if SKID ROW got back together, then L.A. GUNS could go open for SKID ROW. But that’s my whole reason for trying to get SKID ROW back together. [Laughs]”Tracii concluded: “You can’t replace Sebastian Bach [in SKID ROW]. I’m sorry. You can’t replace Axl Rose [in GUNS N’ ROSES]. You can’t replace Phil [Lewis in L.A. GUNS]. You can’t replace Bret Michaels [in POISON]. If you do, you’re just changing the band. And only a couple people have been real successful at it. And it’s, like, obviously AC/DC and VAN HALEN, which is debatable. But THE [ROLLING] STONES certainly could not replace [Mick] Jagger. AEROSMITH [couldn’t replace Steven Tyler] — you can’t do it. And while SKID ROW’s done a pretty good job of it, it ain’t the same.”Last month, Sabo told Scott Michael Nathan of “The Bad Decisions Podcast” about SKID ROW’s refusal to reunite with Bach: “One of the things that we said at the very beginning was that if it’s ever not fun, then either we’ll stop doing it or we’ll fix why it’s not fun… 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 [Hill, SKID ROW guitarist] 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. And 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 previously ruled out a reunion with Bach last May, telling The Hook Rocks podcast: “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.”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.”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,” he explained. “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.”Snake added: “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. 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.”Bach fronted SKID ROW until 1996, when he was fired. Instead of throwing in the towel, the remaining members took a hiatus and went on to play briefly in a band called OZONE MONDAY. In 1999, SKID ROW reformed and, after a bit of shuffling over the years, featured a lineup consisting of bassist Rachel Bolan, guitarists Dave “Snake” Sabo and Scotti Hill, alongside drummer Rob Hammersmith and singer Johnny Solinger. SKID ROW fired Solinger over the phone in April 2015, a few hours before announcing ex-TNT vocalist Tony Harnell as his replacement. Eight months later, Harnell exited the band and was replaced by South African-born, British-based singer ZP Theart, who previously fronted DRAGONFORCE, TANK and I AM I. Theart was fired from SKID ROW in February 2022 and was replaced by Erik Grönwall, who was previously a member of the Swedish hard rock band H.E.A.T.Five years ago, Bolan also confirmed that he and his bandmates “were entertaining the idea” of reuniting with Bach following Harnell’s departure. But Rachel shot down the possibility of a rekindling of his friendship with Sebastian, explaining: “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.” Bolan added that he hadn’t seen Bach “in years.”Six years ago, Bach was asked by Rolling Stone what it would take for SKID ROW to be reunited. He responded: “It would take those guys to realize that I have a lifetime manager. His name is Rick Sales. I’ve been with him since 2006. They don’t want to deal with a guy like that. They want to give some singer who doesn’t have a manager $700 to $800 bucks a week. I’ve got a team that’s worked with me and don’t allow me to get fucked around. I didn’t have that team when I was 19 years old.”In response to Bach’s statements about the earnings of SKID ROW’s singer, Sabo told Rolling Stone in an e-mail: “I guess fact-checking isn’t in his skill set… The five of us go on that stage as a band and we all get paid equally. We’re in this together. There’s no egos.”Sebastian went on to say that SKID ROW was “close to reuniting, but then it didn’t happen. The fact that it didn’t happen obviously makes me somewhat bitter, because life is only getting shorter, as the song says,” he added.”I wouldn’t say ‘came close,'” Bolan told Rolling Stone in an e-mail response to Bach’s account of the reunion talks. “We entertained the idea. Snake and I went as far as talking with agents and promoters about money. But we quickly learned after a few text conversations, why we fired him in the first place. Nothing is worth your happiness and peace of mind.”[embedded content][embedded content]
