SEBASTIAN BACH Says 'Angel Down' Has Sold 100,000 Copies Worldwide With No Touring

Blogs N' Roses recently conducted an interview with Sebastian Bach. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow.

Blogs N' Roses: I wanted to talk a little about the "Angel Down" record. I personally loved it. I thought the record had something for everyone. It had a bit of hard rock, southern sludge, punk. What was your main inspiration when writing and recording the album?

Bach: I just wanted to make a CD that would go in your iPod and make sense next to the "Slave to the Grind" and the first SKID ROW album. That's basically it and to have Axl [Rose] sing on it is insane. No one could have ever predicted that, especially me. That's amazing. To put out a CD with him and me on it. We sold about 100,000 copies worldwide with no touring. Well, we did a month of touring. But the U.S. tour starts in July 8 in Nashville. We are re-releasing the cd with a DVD called "Roadrage", which encompasses the making of the CD and also five live songs from the GUNS N' ROSES tour. It is like pro-shot video and audio. That comes from Axl. He let us use his equipment. That is incredible. I am very happy to share some of that footage with the fans finally. It's going to be great. Also, we are putting out a vinyl picture disc with double-gatefold sleeves. And I love that shit. I love packaging and picture discs and shit like that. So I am pretty happy. We are doing about 40 or 47 shows with POISON across America. So we are playing pretty much everywhere except for Texas. I don't know why. Sorry, Texas. But we are definitely hitting the United States and that is going to be great.

Blogs N' Roses: I also love the cover of "Back in the Saddle" with you and Axl.

Bach: Well, that's cool. That's crazy. That song is so great that every time I hear it I laugh because it is so good. [laughs]. I do. I am like, "Listen to this shit." And that is real rock magic on there. I have a rule that I never drink alcohol before a show or before I sing ever, except to that song, dude. What happened was that I sang two songs in the studio that day. I can't remember which two. I did the lead vocal and I was done. Then Roy Z, the producer, said to the band, "Hey, first song tomorrow, let's do 'Back in the Saddle'." I thought I was done for the day and he said let's practice it right now. We taped it. The first time they played is what you hear on the record. I was sitting back there listening to it start and I couldn't believe it. I just ran out there with a couple of Model Especials in me. I grabbed the mic and I wailed it. And that is pretty much 90% of what made the record. There are so many lyrics in that song that I went back and made sure I had totally perfect. There's a lot of words in there. And Axl said he would sing on the record and he came down and picked which songs he wanted to sing on. Singers love "Back in the Saddle" because Steve Tyler is the ultimate screamer especially on that song. It's incredible. The first time I played that song for Axl, [he] goes, "Oh my god, the guitars." He just loved the guitars. It was kind of a challenge on who would get what part of the song between me and him. Because I didn't want to cut any of him and he didn't want to cut any of me. So we tried a few different versions and none of them were perfect. And then I said, "Let's just go by the words." And then it all became crystal clear. "I'm calling all the shots tonight, I'm like a loaded gun." That's GUNS N' ROSES. And we went like that down the line to see who lyrically fit. Then we put it together. It's rock magic. That's what it sounds like to me.

Blogs N' Roses: How did you convince Axl to sing on "Angel Down"?

Bach: There was no convincing at all. It was this simple. I was standing at baggage claim at LAX about to master my record. I had just sung on "Chinese Democracy", a song called "Sorry". And sorry, I don't know when it is coming out. When I was coming to L.A., I just texted him from the airport and said, "Dude, when are you going to sing on my record?" I was just joking. He goes, "Where? What time?" I couldn't believe it. It was that simple. And he drove down in his Testarosa or whatever it is. And you can hear what he did. He's incredible. That's it. It is mind-blowing that I can say that. But I love saying that because you have this guy from England painting this weird picture of him [Axl] on the Internet or whatever. Writing books when they don't even know the guy. I do know him and he's a rocker. He loves rock n' roll. He's obsessed with making great rock n' roll. And that is who is he is.

Read the entire interview at Blogs N' Roses.