SEBASTIAN BACH: 'Music Makes You Feel More Than Anything Else In The World'

Carla Gillis of Toronto's Now magazine recently conducted an interview with former SKID ROW frontman Sebastian Bach. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On his new solo album, "Kicking & Screaming":

"I made the album while running. I love putting on my iPod and getting into that runner's high. I started listening to demos about two years ago, and I'd run and listen to them, thinking of ways to make them better. When we started making the album in February, I listened to it everyday when running. If I can get into it then, to me that's the sign of a good album. It gives you energy. Especially during the last part of a run when you don't think you can go any more. You'll hear some music and go, 'Fuck this, man!' I know I'm done when I want to shake you by the collar and go, 'You gotta hear this. I love it. I'm so into it.'"

On his father, the late David Bierk, the Canadian landscape painter who founded the successful non-profit gallery Artspace:

"My dad was the ultimate example. He picked something that he loved to do and did it. He loved to paint so he just painted. I saw that in him innately. It was all he ever talked about painting pictures. He would come home and his arms were always caked with paint. I think that's what killed him. Those acrylics in the '70s. He was always covered in paint. That's all he talked about. I remember one night at dinner I went, "Dad, can we please talk about something other than art? Please?"

On his childhood:

"Before I was a singer. I was the class clown. I would make everybody laugh. But I was a weirdo because I was into heavy metal. In the '70s in Peterborough, you were one of the weird kids if you liked KISS and stuff. It was so much fun jumping around your bedroom with a tennis racket, playing air guitar. When you hear a song that you liked as a kid, [like CHICAGO's 'Saturday In The Park'] that just makes me feel like a little boy playing Frisbee in the sun. That doesn't happen when I watch a movie from the '70s. Music makes you feel more than anything else in the world. And it gave me so much strength."

On trying to make it while living in Canada:

"For a long time I was bitter that I couldn't get signed in Canada because I was from Canada. I had to move to the States to get signed and I didn't understand why. But I learned later in life that Canadian major labels don't really sign a lot of bands. They're more like outposts of the American company. It wasn't anything personal. Still, I could never understand why HAYWIRE had a record deal."

On whether he still feels like he's fighting to make his dreams come true:

"There is one real dream that I have and that's to go on tour as a solo artist the way I could with SKID ROW. Everyone is asking me when I'm playing here and I say, 'I'll fucking play here anytime.' But a lot of the promoters are so into this reunion tour stuff. They'd rather have a band with the name even if it doesn't include the original members. And everyone just goes and waves their beer in the air. That's just not me. Not me at all. I'm more into the content of what I'm doing than the form of it.

"I'm always dangled this carrot, like, 'If you get back with the old band, we'll give you this.' And it's like, I'm not getting back with the fucking old band. Maybe I will someday but it's not happening now.' Ozzy was able to become Ozzy after he left BLACK SABBATH. I can still tour, but the promoters are just so into this fucking reunion thing. So I fight against that all the time."

Read more from Now magazine.