On May 10th, 2024, Sebastian Bach released his album “Child Within The Man.” We recently caught up with Sebastian from the road on a morning following five straight shows. When asked about the album’s title Bas was quick to say that the cliché' that Rock N’ Roll keeps you young has truth to it. He explained that listening to Rock or going to a Rock show gives him the energy that makes him feel like a child within a man. He followed up that comment with a laugh.
His explanation referenced the freedom of youth which certainly ties into the album with tracks like “Freedom” and “Future Of Youth.” Sebastian said that being a vinyl collector really informed what was front and center in his mind while making this album. He went to great lengths to describe how much vinyl he has. Being a collector since he was a kid he now says has “Rooms of vinyl.” He relayed a familiar story to those of us of a similar age about spending a day in a record store going through all the albums deciding what he would spend his hard-earned money on. He talked about his love of albums from the 70′s like Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Kiss, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Rush, and Boston. His goal was to make an album in 2024 that sounded like it came from 1978 because that’s what he collects.
Sebastian shared that the album cover is actually a painting by his father of Bas himself in 1978 when he was 10 years old. We spoke about the heaviness of the album and Sebastian said that the track “(Hold On) To The Dream” is THE heaviest song he’s ever done. He spoke about being inspired by some Dio era Black Sabbath tracks like “Sign Of The Southern Cross” that started out with pretty intros and then “Wallop you over the head and you don’t see it coming.”
After he mentioned Ronnie James Dio, I took the opening to speak about Sebastian’s voice. His voice even took him to do Broadway for the show “Jekyll And Hyde.” I asked how he keeps his voice in shape. He spoke about taking vocal lessons starting with one particular teacher back in 1988. He recorded the lessons back then and he has them digitized these days. Bas said before a show or before singing in the studio he listens to those lessons and runs through the exercises today.
The set list for the tour came up in the conversation. Sebastian said he’s celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Skid Row debut album and of course also playing tracks off the new album as well. He’s still working hard to try and get enough time for the band to rehearse to learn more of the new material to add to the live sets. With the mention of Skid Row, I asked Bas if he really thought a reunion would ever happen. He was very clear that his focus right now is on the new album and tour.
Sebastian is obviously happy these days. He’s psyched to be making music and videos in 2024.He talked about getting his wife to be in a video and how it turned out to be like a scene from the Paul Newman classic film “Cool Hand Luke.” Even though they were thinking about the classic Whitesnake videos of the 80′s.
You can check out our conversation here as well as a couple tracks from the album. If you want to catch Bas on the road, you can see all the tour dates here.
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