Skid Row: Still Humble and Hungry
Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at 12:01AM I'm a freelance music writer for the Dayton City Paper now. Yesterday, my first piece was published. I wrote about Skid Row coming to Dayton and our famous rock club called McGuffy's House of Rock. Here's some of the piece, which I think you'll like, and then you can jump over to the DCP site to finish up the article! Be sure to let me know what you think!
“Music keeps you young. I’ve always believed that. It gives you energy that doesn’t exist in other arenas in life,” Skid Row guitarist Dave “Snake” Sabo told Dayton City Paper. “The essence of me is a 16-year-old kid standing in front of mirror with a guitar, pretending to be Ace Frehley [of KISS] or Joe Perry [of Aerosmith] or Eddie Van Halen [of Van Halen]. Everything else has sprouted from that. When you get to my core, that’s who I am. That essence hasn’t been jaded.”
Skid Row is coming to Dayton next month, stopping at McGuffy’s House of Rock on Friday, July 12. It’s been a wild ride for the band over the past 27 years and for fans that have lost touch with the band since its late ‘80s and early ‘90s heyday may be surprised at the lineup: larger than life sex-god Sebastian Bach is gone. Country-boy-cum-rocker Johnny Solinger is in. Solinger, who packs an amazing range and can hit all the famous high notes, has been with the Skids for 14 years now, meaning the band has had plenty of time to gel as a new unit. There will always be those die-hards screaming for a classic Skid Row reunion with Bach, but that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon – if ever. And it isn’t as if the guys in the band are worrying about it.
Instead, Skid Row is pushing full steam ahead with writing, recording and touring. Skid Row will hit the cobblestones in Europe in the fall, touring with Ugly Kid Joe, another early ‘90s metal favorite. It will be the first time the two bands have traveled together and Sabo is looking forward to it. But for now, it is summer and that means touring America on the back of the newest Skid Row release, United World Rebellion: Chapter One. Skid Row released the mini-album back in April via Megaforce and will release two more mini-albums over the course of the next 18 months or so. For Sabo, the change in the way music is released is both straight business and amazingly creative: constant writing is good for the chops and having new albums to promote means booking a lot of gigs.
