SEBASTIAN BACH: 'It's A Complete Honor' To Win 'Gone Country 2'

Host John Rich tapped rocker Sebastian Bach as the winner of the second season of CMT's hit series, "Gone Country", in last Friday night's (September 26) season finale. Bach is set to immediately release "Battle With The Bottle" to radio, the song he penned with Nashville songwriters Jeffrey Steele and Vicky McGehee while taping the series. The song is produced by John Rich. The accompanying video, directed by Wayne Isham, is currently available on CMT.com and will debut on CMT on Saturday, September 27.

Bach, who edged out tough competition from fellow "Gone Country" contestants Mikalah Gordon, Jermaine Jackson, Chris Kirkpatrick, Lorenzo Lamas and Sean Young, performed his song before a live audience at Nashville's Wildhorse Saloon in the show's finale. In the end, Rich dubbed Bach the winner because of his ability to connect to his audience and his lyrics, something that is essential in country music.

Sebastian will premier "Battle With The Bottle" and take part in a live interview on the following radio stations tomorrow morning (Tuesday, September 30):

08:00 - Dave Kelly & Susan Brown KNTY Sacramento, CA
08:10 - Scooter & Myla WBVR Bowling Green, KY
08:20 - KC WCOY Quincy, IL
08:30 - Tim Leary & the Morning Showgram WCTK Providence, RI
08:40 - Dutch Dooley, Nancy Lynn WJCL Savannah, GA
08:50 - Lee, Alana, Jim E, & Earthquake Jake KUPL Portland, OR
09:00 - Mike Patrick & Kate Sullivan WFFG Albany, NY
09:10 - Tim Leary and the Morning Showgram WCTK Providence, RI
09:20 - Dawson & Kristina KRST Albuquerque, NM
09:30 - Joe & Ronni WOWF Crossville, TN
09:40 - Bob & Mark KWAY Waverly, IA
09:50 - Thane & Tom KDBL Yakima/Spokane, WA
10:00 - The Morning Jumpstart WFGS Paducah, KY

Commented Bach in a posting on his web site: "My mom is a huge country fan, and she raised me on Willie Nelson. My dad loves Neil Young, who's not maybe a 'country' artist but has a lot of country songs. But mainly Willie Nelson, that's the main country influence for me. I met Willie, I love his music, I've been on the 'Honeysuckle Rose' before, and a lot of the reason I took this show is just to blow my mom's mind! I just loved calling her and saying, 'Mom! I'm in Barbara Mandrell's house!' Just that alone blows my mom's mind, she can't believe that!
"When I first said I'm doing a show with John Rich of BIG & RICH, my mom goes, 'Oh honey, you've got to be careful with those guys, they're wild! Those are some wild boys, BIG & RICH!' And I didn't really know. But now I know! They're wild boys and I've had a great time with John Rich. I've been to his house, I've had barbecue with him, shot guns with him, gone fishing with him, he's a great guy. But he's really intense, too.

"It's a complete honor to win and I really have to thank John Rich. He's an extremely gracious man. I mean, you should have heard that call to my mom! It was like, 'I won!' And there was nothing but crying and sobbing for ten minutes.

"Chris Kirkpatrick ended up helping me a lot. Because part of my process as a songwriter and a singer is I am always recording my demos — like when I write a song, I immediately make a very crude mp3 of it to play in my iPod just so I can listen back and see if I like it or not. But I just got a new laptop and I didn't have my recording software in there, so Chris Kirkpatrick, I asked if I could borrow his laptop, and it actually helped me a lot. And he didn't have to do that. I have to thank Chris for lending me his laptop!

"Lorenzo Lamas is a really straight-up professional actor guy, who is very nice and I really thought his song he made was killer.

"Jermaine Jackson is a class act. That's the word that I think of when I think of Jermaine, he's very classy. He adds another level of professionalism to the room. When he's in the room you don't really swear or cuss in front of him, I don't know why; he just has that air about him. He's very proper and reserved, and I'm not! He's very soft-spoken, but he has very heavy, meaningful things to say. He's a very sensible, classy dude, and I've made a new friend in Jermaine Jackson.

"Sean Young is wild. Those of you who have seen my other TV shows, mainly 'SuperGroup' with Ted Nugent, if you like that show, it contained a lot of drunken mayhem and craziness and fights and drama and crying and mayhem, and 'Gone Country 2' had all those things, just not from ME this time!

"Mikalah Gordon is 20 years old, and she is a true 20-year-old. You know, I don't ever think I'm old or I'm my age. I am 40 years old now. Hanging out with Mikalah Gordon reminds me that yes, I AM 40! She's just a wild spitfire. She's funny, she's got so much energy, and just youth personified. She comes from the 'American Idol' world and I come from SKID ROW — it's two different worlds.

"I did like Irene Cara. She was only there the first day. She split, and I liked her. I did 'Jesus Christ Superstar' across the country, the national touring production, and she played Mary Magdalene on a touring production, too, so we talked about theater the whole time. I thought she was going to stick around, but she split and I wish she had stayed. But that was her decision to make.

"A lot of this show has to do with me trying to quit drinking, and I'm struggling with that as a lot of people do in this world. And they say that one thing that comes when you stop drinking is you're not ready for the great things that will happen to you. And I think 'Gone Country 2' was the ultimate example of that. I wrote two songs. One was about drinking, and one was about not drinking. One's called 'Jumping Off The Wagon' and one's called 'Battle With The Bottle'. So that's what I was thinking about during the show.

"I am just so happy that I get to make music with John Rich. We've already cut the two songs in Nashville. They sound incredible. I'm so happy with them and I know my fans will like them. That's always important to me. I wrote the songs with Jeff Steele from 'Nashville Star' and Vicky McGehee who was BMI songwriter of the year, and I'll never ever express my gratitude for CMT and John Rich for putting me with the two best songwriters in Nashville. Making great music is what I'm alive for, and the great music that we made on 'Gone Country 2' will last a lot longer than me or the TV show. This is a part of my catalog and anything I put my name on I'm extremely proud of.

"Everybody knows I can go crazy and scream at the top of my lungs and go nuts, but people don't know — can I sing this like a country music singer? That was in my head. And that was why I sang that song at the Wildhorse Saloon. And they told me later they couldn't believe that I went against them on it. They all told me, if you do the uptempo one, that's going to be better for you, you're going to win probably. But I went the other way. And they said that's what real country music's about. If you've got something to say, say it, and that's really what I had to say.

"CMT flew in my 20-year-old son, and he's seen me wild as wild can be. I was trying not to drink, and try to set this example for him. And I said I'm not going to sing 'Tonight I'm Jumping Off The Wagon'. My son was right in the front of the audience staring at me. And that was a message to him, and that was from a father to his son, and that's good enough for me. And everybody else in the room was watching that, but I was really singing to my son. I always have to find emotion in my music, and you can't get more emotional than a relationship between a father and a son. And when you guys flew him down there, then I knew I had to sing that song.

"It was a lot of fun doing to the show. John Rich is so hospitable, and Mark Oswald, his manager — I would like to thank all of them, and John Rich's granny who came over and cooked for us. She treated us to some southern hospitality. I'd like to thank Granny Rich, and the musicians that John hired were all of the ultimate caliber.

"I made a lot of great friends on 'Gone Country'.

"Thanks to the fans for watching it, and get ready for some great music!"

"Gone Country 2" preview:

Fan-filmed video footage of Bach singing "One More Battle With The Bottle" during the show's finale:

Bach singing one of his country songs during a "Gone Country 2" rehearsal: