Skid Row Got Free Amps and Mouth Kisses on Van Halen Tour
· Ultimate Classic RockSkid Row guitarist Dave "The Snake" Sabo fondly recalled the V.I.P. treatment his band received when opening for Van Halen in 1995 — including a particularly affectionate and generous Eddie Van Halen.
"They treated us so great," Sabo recently told radio host Trevor Joe Lennon. "I would see Eddie every day. I made sure — I wanted to see the sound check every day, 'cause I'm just such a fanboy. And I wanted to be around him and his playing as much as I could while we were out on the road. And I used to walk onstage right before his sound check, and he'd walk over to me and we'd hug each other, and he'd give me a kiss on the lips and ask me how I'm doing. And he was just such a sweetheart."
Sabo said he and fellow Skid Row guitarist Scotti Hill also received incredible gifts from Van Halen on that tour. "We were talking about his amps, and at the time he was working with Peavey and doing the 5150 amplifiers through Peavey and doing the Wolfgang guitars through Peavey as well," he explained. "And I'm like, 'Those amps are just incredible.' He's like, 'Oh, really? OK, cool.'
"Well, cut to a couple of days later, we're playing in Camden, New Jersey at an amphitheater, and we were all still living in Jersey at this time," he continued. "And so we drove our own cars down there. It was just really cool to be able to pull up in our own vehicles, and a bunch of family and friends were there. And so we're coming in the back area and he sees Scotti and me. He goes, 'Hey, hey, guys, come here. I got something for you. And he had two of the 5150 combos there waiting for us as gifts. And I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me, man. Eddie Van Halen is giving us his signature amplifier. It's just crazy.' And so my heart will always have a special place [for Eddie]."
While Sabo said he also "spent some time" with Sammy Hagar and Alex Van Halen, he especially hit it off with Michael Anthony. "Behind his amp line, he would have a bar set up back there called Mad Anthony's Cafe," he recalled. "And we would go back there and do shots with him during the show, of Jack Daniel's and stuff. And it was just a lot of fun. And I would go golfing with him once in a while. To this day, again, he's just down to earth and humble and just a sweetheart of a guy. So, my memories are nothing but filled with admiration and respect and gratitude."
READ MORE: Skid Row Guitarist Says Sebastian Bach Reunion Could Be 'Toxic'
Skid Row Releases Live Album Amid Search for New Singer
Skid Row recently released their first official live album and concert film, Live in London. Filmed at the O2 Forum Kentish Town on Oct. 24, 2022, Live in London captures Skid Row on the heels of their latest studio album, The Gang's All Here, which came out earlier that month. The album features singer Erik Gronwall, who sang on The Gang's All Here and amicably left the group earlier this year.
Since then, Skid Row has played a handful of shows with Halestorm's Lzzy Hale on lead vocals and is still searching for a proper replacement. "We are looking at some people. We've got a nice list of people that we're gonna sit down with," Hill recently said. "A lot of people are getting in touch with us and some of them are really good. Some of them are not really good. But with YouTube and Instagram and such, you can go out and find people quite easily. It wasn't like the old days where you had to put an ad in every music paper in the country and word of mouth and all that stuff, pre-internet. It's much easier now."
Matt Fallon (1986-1987)
Skid Row’s little-known first singer Matt Fallon was an active presence in the New York Tri-state hard rock and metal scene, briefly fronting Anthrax while the band was writing Spreading the Disease before moving on to Skid Row in 1986. (He claims writing credits on both Spreading the Disease and Skid Row.) Together, Fallon and Skid Row opened a couple dates for Bon Jovi before parting ways in 1987. Fallon continued to play in local bands over the next several years, forming the titular Fallon and releasing one self-titled album in 1991 before disbanding. Fallon was finally released in 2015, though its leader has been inactive in the music world for the past several decades.
Sebastian Bach (1987-1996)
With Sebastian Bach at the helm, Skid Row catapulted to stardom. The singer, born Sebastian Bierk, sang on the band's first three albums — 1989's Skid Row, 1991's Slave to the Grind and 1995's Subhuman Race — the first two of which went multi-platinum. Skid Row fired Bach in 1996 after Bach left a profanity-laden tirade on guitarist Dave Sabo's answering machine following disagreements over opening for Kiss on their reunion tour. The singer has since released five solo albums, most recently 2024's Child Within the Man, and appeared on TV shows such as Gilmore Girls, Trailer Park Boys and The Masked Singer. Still, he holds out hope for a Skid Row reunion. "The only thing standing in our way is the business side of this," Bach said in 2024. "I can't give you all the details, but it’s not about us not getting along. It's about us figuring out how to make this work on the business side. And hopefully, we can figure it out. I'm ready to figure it out, but the whole narrative of, 'Oh, they don’t like him and he’s too crazy,' that's not even true."
Johnny Solinger (1999-2015)
When Dave Sabo, Rachel Bolan and Scotti Hill rebooted Skid Row in 1999, they did so with singer Johnny Solinger and drummer Charlie Mills. Solinger became their longest-tenured singer, appearing on two full-length albums — 2003's Thickskin and 2006's Revolutions per Minute — and a pair of United World Rebellion EPs, released in 2013 and 2014, respectively. He left the band in 2015, and he died in 2021 at the age of 55 due to liver failure. "We are saddened to hear the news of our brother Johnny Solinger," Skid Row wrote shortly after Solinger's death. "Our thoughts are with his family, friends and fans. Godspeed Singo. Say hello to Scrappy for us."
Tony Harnell (2015)
Hours after announcing Solinger's departure, Skid Row revealed TNT frontman Tony Harnell would replace him. The band recorded an updated version of its hit single "18 and Life" with Harnell, but the union proved short-lived. Harnell announced his departure from Skid Row in December 2015, roughly eight months after joining the band. "Being ignored and disrespected isn't my thing," he said. "I had a great time performing with the band and singing so many great songs. I don't regret a thing!" Harnell has since rejoined (and re-quit, and rejoined) TNT and lent his vocals to a pair of 2019 albums: Lovekillers' self-titled LP and Starbreaker's Dysphoria.
ZP Theart (2016-2022)
ZP Theart, former singer of British power metal band Dragonforce, joined Skid Row in 2016 following Harnell's exit. He toured rigorously with the band, though he had no recorded work to show for his tenure by the time he departed in March 2022. The most recent entry in Theart's discography is Valley of Tears, the 2015 album by British heavy metal stalwarts Tank.
Erik Gronwall (2022-2024)
Immediately after announcing Theart's departure, Skid Row revealed their new singer was Erik Gronwall, former Swedish Idol winner and frontman of Swedish hard rock band H.E.A.T. Gronwall's Skid Row tenure was trial by fire, as he immediately began performing with the band on Scorpions' Sin City Nights residency in Las Vegas. He also sang on 2022's The Gang's All Here, the first full-length Skid Row album since 2006. Gronwall announced his amicable departure from the band in March 2024, explaining that he needed to continue focusing on his health in the wake of his leukemia treatment, which he underwent just six months before joining Skid Row.
Lzzy Hale (2024)
At the same time as Gronwall's departure, Skid Row announced that Halestorm frontwoman Lzzy Hale would fill in with them for four dates in mid-2024. Hale was more than prepared for the gig, having covered "Slave to the Grind" on Halestorm's 2011 release Reanimate: The Covers EP. Hale called the short-term gig a "full-circle moment," telling Loudwire that Skid Row "bridged the gap" between her love of '80s metal and '90s and 2000s nu-metal and alt-metal: "They had the big choruses and everything, but then they had those later albums that were very present with the times and the weird, seedy underbelly that was the '90s." Hale also remains as busy as ever with Halestorm, touring rigorously and releasing albums at a steady pace.