Skid Row is a band that, as you all know, I’m a huge fan of. Ever since hearing them in 1988 I’ve been a fan through thick and thin. Last year Skid Row made quite a triumphant comeback with United World Rebellion Chapter I. It was their first new collection of music in nearly six years and saw them returning to form and channeling their roots to put out a spectacular release.
Skid Row is back again and they have another new release to be proud about. Part II of their three part United World Rebellion trilogy “Rise of the Damnation Army” will be released on August 5 and I recently had the chance to talk to founding member/bassist/songwriter Rachel Bolan while on a tour stop. It was great to reconnect with him and talk about the new album and all kinds of other random bullshit. I love talking to this guy and I hope you’ll enjoy this one! Enjoy!
Rachel, thanks for taking the time out to talk to me dude.
No worries, Don. How are you man?
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I’m great. Just being awesome. How about you?
[laughs] The same. [laughs]
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So where are ya calling from this afternoon?
We are in Wisconsin today. The bus just pulled in.
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You guys have been really hitting it hard this last year and half.
Yeah man. Right now were at 103 shows for the year. This is probably been our busiest year in a long time. We started in April and in 8 months we will have played 103 shows and there’s a few more that we haven’t confirmed yet. It’s pretty hardcore man.
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It couldn’t happen to a better band. I’m just so glad you guys are still out there doing it and doing it well.
Thanks, Don. Yeah, it’s pretty amazing that 25 years into our career we can still do this and people still want to come see us [laughs]. It’s pretty cool.
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It’s crazy to think that Skid Row has been at this for over 25 years. I mean, in reality, you are my generation’s classic rock. Is it kind of a heavy thought to realize that you’re music eventually became the sound track to many young people’s lives much like the music of your heroes were for you?
Yeah, how crazy is that? [laughs]. When Skid Row came out I didn’t know how long this was going to last. I noticed that something was really special about the band to people when the band and broke up. We all got inundated with emails from fans. I mean, we thought that grunge music had put us out of business for good but when we got back together, now over 14 years ago when Johnny joined the band, I really didn’t see Skid Row as being that band that would have this kind of staying power and it’s a really good feeling. Like when you talk about it and other people talk about what an impact we had on them it freaks me out sometimes [laughs]. I just can’t believe how long people have stuck with us and it’s awesome and it really makes you feel really good. It makes you feel that no matter how much money you make at it, your band is successful because you touched so many people over the years.
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I think it’s cool that you’ve been able to gauge Skid Row’s success that way but I also think it’s cool that instead of just becoming a straight up nostalgia act, Skid Row is still putting out some really great music.
Thanks, man. That’s the whole thing with us. The nostalgia part is great and that’s all well and good but I personally would go crazy if we didn’t create new music and do more than rely on our past success. I would go nuts. It’s just really cool to get in a small room and write some songs and just our chops going again.
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You guys are about to release United World Rebellion Part II.
Have you heard it yet?
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Yeah, and I fucking love it man. It totally exceeded my expectations especially coming off the heals of Part I which was fucking killer. I’ll be honest, I’m always a little shaky when I hear an old favorite band is putting out new music but you guys nailed it once again.
[laughs] Thanks man. I hear ya. You always want to love it when a band puts out new music but sometimes, you just don’t love it [laughs]. We’re really proud of this one. It was such a cool process and being the 2nd out the three EPs we feel like we’re getting our legs back so to speak. With Part I we were just regrouping and trying to figure out who the guys were who wrote the first 2 or 3 records. Retracing the steps to your roots is not as easy as it sounds. It took a while and then the flood gates just opened. Everything just feel into place really quick.
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This has been Skid Row’s most solid line up in years. I’m so glad that you found a drummer (Rob Hammersmith) who wouldn’t spontaneously combust or die and a tragic gardening accident.
[laughs] Yeah, without a doubt. I’ve known Rob for years and I produced Rockets To Ruin (Rob’s former band) and I just knew he was a really solid drummer. When he came in he was incredibly prepared and it just felt right. He’s a creative guy and a rock solid drummer who comes up with great parts. It just made things flow so much easier having him in the band. Everything just got better and you know him, he’s a great, friendly guy and it’s just been great.
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Was having Rob Hammersmith complete this lineup what made you feel comfortable enough to create again?
Yeah. When you know someone’s feel and style really well, while creating we would be like, “Ok, Rob could do that thing here, that special thing” and we’d know what Scotty might do and what Johnny would do. I always tell people that even though Snake and I write the bulk of the songs, it’s never truly a Skid Row song until we get into rehearsal. Sometimes Snake and I will write something that we think is the next “Stairway to Heaven” and we’ll get to rehearsal and everyone will just shrug their shoulders and say, “meh” [laughs]. We’ll all work on it until either it becomes great or it’s just beating a dead horse so we’ll put it away for a while.
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Not all songwriters are generally that open to putting their songs out there to their band like that. How important is it to Skid Row to have that kind of openness with the rest of the band?
It’s important. There are five guys in this band and it’s not a dictatorship. There’s nothing worse than going up and playing a song that you don’t like playing. There’s songs that we have from our past that I don’t even like people saying the name of the song yet alone having to play it [laughs]. If five guys aren’t completely into it, you’re gonna have someone not putting their all into it so you just rewrite it, you re-approach it, you throw new ideas at it. That’s how we work together.
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With Thickskin and RPM, it seemed like Skid Row someone gravitated away from its old formula of writing and playing but with these new releases you guys just re-connected with that sound that became your own imprint of sorts. Was returning to this formula a conscious thing?
Yeah, that’s what I was saying about retracing our steps. With Chapter 1, for about a year before making that one we realized it had been about six years since our last album. I personally didn’t listen to any commercial radio and I purposely only listened to the older stuff that influenced me. I was trying to get back to that mindset. When Thickskin came out we were worried too much about sounding too much like how we used to sound. When Revolutions Per Minute came out, that was just totally experimental. We just threw anything up in the air and said, “Everybody’s got to make one of these records in their career.” When it came time to record United World Rebellion Part I we made a conscious effort to get back those guys that used to write riffs that we used to write. Once those floodgates opened it came really easy. Being in that same mindset for the next 8-9 months, writing the Part II came a lot easier and I hope it’ll carry over to Part III as well.
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Last time we talked we talked about Revolutions Per Minute and how it was a really misunderstood album. Is it safe to say that Revolutions Per Minute is Skid Row’s “Music From the Elder?”
[laughs] It could be. It very well could be. That’s an awesome analogy [laughs]. You know, it was just something where we said, “Let’s just do whatever we want. Let’s just not do a ballad.” So we did and you know, people either dug it or they didn’t. Sometimes there are people who see things for what they are. They’re experimenting. Like on “The Elder”, I thought, “Ok, they’re experimenting.” There are a few great songs on The Elder. As for Revolutions Per Minute, I like each song but I don’t love those songs. I’m glad we did that album because I think we inadvertently were helping our process of clearing out heads and just blowing out all the cobwebs and all the distractions. I think in a weird way it kind of helped us to get to that point to be able to write United World Rebellion.
Well, I think Slave to the Grind is one but it’s really hard to say. Those first two records put us on the map but it’s really hard to pick one. If I had to pick three, I would pick the debut, Thickskin, and Rise of the Damnation Army. The first one because we were kids and we didn’t know what was going to happen and it blew up. Thickskin we were coming back from a long hiatus and with new members. Those songs we worked hard on and wrote hard. With Rise of the Damnation Army I’m just so damn proud of those songs that I actually listen to it and I think it sounds great. I think we really stepped it up.
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How hard is it to make a set list these days?
Oh it’s hard man. Right now, we play about an hour and a half a night and on festivals sometimes shorter and we’re trying to cram 25 years into 90 minutes.
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Skid Row toured with Ugly Kid Joe overseas. That’s a band, much like Skid Row, who has proven that they can still make some great fucking music. How fun was that tour?
We had never met them before or done shows together so we didn’t know what to expect. When you go into a situation like that it can be either really good or really, really bad [laughs]. We ended up hitting it off great and that whole tour was just awesome. Each night just got better and we hung out all the time. It was really cool.
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What is one Skid Row song that you look back on and say, “Man, I wish I could UN WRITE that one”?
I have two right off the top of my head [laughs]. One is “Here I Am” and 2 is “Wasted Time” which I like to call “Waste of Time” [laughs].
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Whoa! I would’ve never thought “Wasted Time.” Why the hate for that one?
I just don’t like it. I don’t like the melody in the verse, I don’t like the title, blech. I just never liked it [laughs]. I know I’m going to get a lot of shit for that because people are always asking us to play that one and I just don’t like that song [laughs].
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I heard a rumor years ago that “Wasted Time” was about Steven Adler. Is that true?
You know what? That’s what I’ve been told too [laughs]. The lyrics that I wrote weren’t about him. I was just trying to get poetic but man, [laughs].
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Why did you guys ignore “Midnight”? That song kicks fucking ass.
[laughs] You know, on our very first tour we used to open up with that a lot and then we used to do “Tornado” as an intro to “Mudkicker” on the Slave to the Grind tour. “Midnight”, man, that’s another song I don’t miss playing [laughs].
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These days bands really connect directly with their fans via social media. Did social media kill the rock star persona?
Absolutely. I think it totally did. It’s something that I’ve grown used to. I still try to keep my personal life as private as I possibly can. I used to love waiting around for the next month’s Circus magazine to come out because they were doing a 4 part KISS story or something. It was the anticipation of having to wait another month and I’d go to 7-11 every day just to see if was there and then I’d get and I’d read it over and over again. I miss that. They were like super heroes but nowadays everything is so instant and it kind of takes the fun out of it to be honest.
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So Motley Crue footage has been surfacing from this tour and they’re using backing tracks to sing and play to. What is your thought on this practice?
I feel ripped off. I mean, if you want to do something, just do it. If you can’t do it like you did on the record, just leave it out. A band like Queen, whey they did “Bohemian Rhapsody”, they used tapes for that “Galileo” part and they would just leave they stage and let it be known they were running tape. I respect that but bands that are running all kinds of tracks, I’ve seen bands that I really like do that and I feel kind of ripped off. Every note that comes off of a Skid Row stage is coming from those five guys you see up there. There’s no tracks and be it good or bad it’s us doing it [laughs]. I’ll take full responsibility for any fucking bad note you hear [laughs]. I mean, when did it get to that point that a band got that bored with what you’re doing that you just start running tracks all the time?
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If you could go back in time and give a younger Rachel Bolan some advice what would it be?
To ask more questions and make sure you can trust everyone around you. That’s a big one.
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Ok. Get the Fuck Out vs. Beggars Day. GO!
Oh “Get the Fuck Out” without a doubt. I like that song. It’s really fun. “Beggars Day” is cool too. There was a lot of aruguing over that song of course. Snake and I wrote “Get the Fuck Out” on an airplane on the way to Australia and it became just about every rock bar’s closing song at the end of the night when the lights came on [laughs].
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What is one metal album that nobody should go throughout life without hearing?
Oh man. EZO Fire Fire. That has to be one of my favorite metal records that’s out there.
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What song makes you say, “I wish I wrote that song” every time you hear it?
“Breakdown” by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. That’s such a great song.
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Will you ever learn another Ramones song besides Psycho Therapy?
[laughs] Man, I know just about every one of them but that one was on one of our records so that one gets played [laughs]
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Is there a song that hasn’t made your setlist yet or made it in a while that you’d love to see get played?
I really like playing “Quicksand Jesus” and I feel like we do that one really well. Johnny (Solinger; singer) just tears it up on that song. We have a lot of slow songs so it’s a delicate balance. Sometimes we’ll do that one or “In A Darkened Room” but that’s my absolute favorite song to play.
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If Hollywood was to make a movie about your life who would play you?
[laughs] Johnny Depp. He’s cool as hell.
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If you could play bass for any band for just one night who would it be?
You don’t even have to ask. The Ramones without a doubt.
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Finish this sentence: If I wasn’t a musician I would be _________.
Trying to be a musician [laughs].
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Rachel thanks so much for taking the time out to do yet another interview with me.
Don, thanks so much brother. I really appreciate it, man. See you soon!
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