Sebastian Bach, ‘Give ‘Em Hell’ – Exclusive Album Preview

We are pleased to premiere exclusive footage of former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach talking about his new solo album ‘Give ‘Em Hell,’ which is set for release April 22 on Frontiers Records.

In a recent interview, Bach told Ultimate Classic Rock that his inspirations for the new album were deeply rooted in classic rock.

“As I get older, I find myself listening mostly on my iPhone to ‘70s music, mostly because of the vocals and the harmonies. This is before Pro Tools and it’s from a time when singers had to actually make the sound come out of their mouths. So for me as a singer, this is what I find myself always listening to, even more than metal, just purely because of the vocals -- and that’s what I do for a living. It interests me and the human voice hits me really hard and singing hits me really hard.”

Our sister site Loudwire recently unveiled the video for ‘Temptation,’ the first single from ‘Give ‘Em Hell,’ and Bach shared his thoughts behind the track during our conversation.

“The chorus harmonies that I’m doing with myself remind me of the Eagles. I listen to it and it gives me the same kind of chills on my arms and the back of my spine as some of the good singing that I hear from the ‘70s records that I really like. John 5 from Rob Zombie’s band plays the guitar on that song and Duff McKagan plays the bass and we were lucky enough to get Duff in the video, which is incredible, [having] me and Duff McKagan in the ‘Temptation’ video. Then he [also] plays guitar in the ‘All My Friends Are Dead’ video. So that’s really cool for the fans of Skid Row and Guns ‘N’ Roses to have me and Duff collaborating in 2014. We share a lot of the same fans. It’s exciting for me too, because I’m a fan of Duff McKagan. I’m a huge fan of John 5. I’m a huge fan of Steve Stevens [who plays additional guitars on 'Give 'Em Hell']. So I’m a big fan of my own record. [Laughs]”

‘Give ‘Em Hell’ finds Bach moving in a more melodic direction, while still keeping things heavy -- and according to the veteran vocalist, that’s by design.

“For me, getting older, I have to approach the stage differently and I have to kind of ask myself what do I appreciate about stage performance. When you look at the Eagles sing those perfect harmonies, they are not running around the stage like David Lee Roth, jumping off of the drum riser and doing spread eagle kicks in the air and being cheerleaders like a lot of heavy metal frontmen do because the audience expects that. For me, when I’m in the studio singing, I’m standing there. [Laughs] I’m not running as fast as I can across the stage the size of a football field.

"Now everything we do is filmed for YouTube by all of the fans and you know when I first came out, I would always read that 'Sebastian Bach is like a combination of David Lee Roth and Rob Halford.' But I have to laugh when I think of what it would be like if we would have had YouTube in the early days of Van Halen. Because I have Van Halen bootlegs where David Lee Roth just walks out there and goes 'I forgot the f--king words!' And the whole place goes 'YEAAAAAAAH!' These days it would be like 'David Lee Roth doesn’t sing like the record -- this is bulls--t -- it doesn’t sound the same as my phone and the record.'"

"It’s like, rock and roll live is not meant to be perfect like the record, every f--king thing exactly perfect. When I was a kid, it was like a celebration of rock to go see Van Halen. It wasn’t about filming it on your phone and then critiquing every note under the comments section. It’s so ridiculous.”

Bach of course had plenty of other colorful thoughts regarding the new ‘Give ‘Em Hell’ album and you can watch those in the video above. We’ll share more of our conversation with Sebastian very soon!