Sebastian Bach's country song and video "Battle with the Bottle" (above) got me thinking about when I hung out with the king of hair metal back in the '90s as music editor of High Times.
It's hard to take the song seriously, unless in fact Bach is sober and no longer drinks. But I'm wondering if he still smokes pot. Because the Sebastian Bach ("Bas" to friends) I knew was a raging stoner.
Bach's friend Brijitte West brought the lanky rocker up to the High Times office one day in 1993. His band Skid Row were on hiatus after two hit albums. Bach, we heard, wanted to show off his pipe and bong collection. The highlight of the visit was burning with Bach and his gas-mark pipe.
We decided to do a cover story. Bach brought goth silversmith Axel with him. Axel provided the crown of thorns with the eyeball that was placed atop Bas' head as he cupped a handful of furry buds. It took several shoots by Michael Benabib - and lots of pot - to nail the right image.
At the time, rockers and hip-hoppers were lining up at High Times' door to appear on the cover. Cypress Hill came first, followed Black Crowes, Redman and Sebastian Bach.
I wasn't a big Skid Row fan at the time, but their music grew on me as I got to know "Bas" better. He stepped to the plate and put together a metal super-group called Rock Budz to play the Rock 4 Pot NORML benefit at the Limelight in New York, which coincided with the release of the July 1993 issue featuring Bach and the headline "King of the Kind." (That was a replacement headline. The original, based on the title of Skid Row's Slave to the Grind album, was deemed offensive and nixed by the art director.)
Bach asked Skid Row guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo and Pantera's Dimebag Darrell and Rex Brown, and drummer Mark "Bam Bam" McConnell to join him for the gig. They did eight songs - Skid Row and Pantera tunes, and two cannabis-themed covers, "Sweet Leaf" and "I Wanna Take You Higher." Bad Brains (without H.R.) and Animal Bag opened the show. The place was packed, and the event raised $10,000 for NORML. Probably most of all, I'll always remember meeting and smoking out backstage with Dimebag Darrell, who was senselessly murdered by a fan in 2004.
Bas and I became good friends. He even invited me for an overnight at his house in Red Bank, New Jersey, where I got to know his wife Maria and first son Paris (they have two boys now; London is the youngest). Mostly we sat around and puffed, tossed the frisbee and had a nice, relaxing dinner and evening.
The next day, Bas, Maria and I headed over to the Ben & Jerry's concert in Central Park. Born and raised in Toronto, Bach went specifically to see fellow Canadian and true rock & roll legend Ronnie Hawkins and his daughter Leah. We also met Rick Danko that day.
The following spring, Bas and I went to Canadian Music Week in Toronto to appear on a "pot panel," which I was asked to moderate. As the panel went on, the audience called out for us to light one up. When Bas sparked a joint and passed it around the panel, organizers shut it down. Our pot panel literally went up in smoke.
Bas definitely had a big-league temper to go along with his frontman ego. One night after a Skid Row show, I was in a cab with Bas as he repeatedly yelled and pounded the glass divider, incensed at the driver for no particular reason. That probably was the alcohol barking, which brings me back to the original premise of this story.
In 1989, just as Skid Row were breaking big with their debut album, Bas got into an altercation with fans during a Springfield, Massachusetts show. When someone bonked him with a bottle in the side of the head, he threw it back and dove into the crowd. He blamed his bad behavior, which led to an arrest, on alcohol.
In his High Times interview, Bach told Brijitte West:
"There's a sick side of some people when they get on hard-core booze. I've done some things on alcohol and woke up the next morning and couldn't believe that that person came out of me."
About marijuana, he said:
"It's just a different trip than the idiot most people make of themselves on booze. When I smoke pot, I kiss my wife, have some pasta, watch Batman and go to bed. I don't go out and kick people in the head and all this bullshit alcohol makes you do."
Bach had another highly publicized bout with booze in 2002 when he was arrested in Middletown, New Jersey after a bar fight during which he reportedly screamed at police, "Fuck you, you're all a bunch of fucking idiots." Charged with marijuana possession, paraphernalia possession, assault and disorderly conduct, he pled down to a conditional discharge for pot.
It took four more years for Bach to face the music about his alcohol habit. While fronting the all-star band on MTV's Supergroup in 2006, Ted Nugent and Evan Seinfeld both urged him to sober up, and apparently he has.
Still, "Battle with the Bottle" is a hoot. There's Bas all contrite in a cowboy hat, drinking water at a bar and performing the song in basso voce. "That's the battle I can't win," he confesses, as the guitars twang and a fiddle soars.
On Gone County 2, Bach told the host, using a triple negative: "I don't think there's enough songs that say to the person it's OK not to drink if you don't wanna drink."
Thanks for the advice, Bill W... er, Sebastian B.
Blog by Steve Bloom •
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