Skid Row Guitarist Says Reunion Could End Like Jane’s Addiction
· Ultimate Classic RockSkid Row guitarist Scotti Hill said the long-discussed and often-dismissed prospect of a reunion with Sebastian Bach might end up like the recent Jane’s Addiction fiasco.
Perry Farrell’s onstage assault of Dave Navarro forced Jane’s Addiction off the road on Sept. 13 after a handful of original line-up shows, with the guitarist’s most recent comments hinting that the recently-reunited original lineup won’t return.
And while Skid Row have frequently discussed their determination to not bring back original singer Bach after firing him in 1996, Hill took the opportunity of the Jane’s Addiction implosion to make his point in a new way.
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“I understand why people want that, but it wouldn’t be how they remembered it – it wouldn’t be what they expected,” he told Hear 2 Zen in a recent interview (video below). “They would be disappointed; we would be unhappy.”
He continued: “We just saw what happens when you try to do something like that… talking about Jane’s Addiction. And it's terrible what happened to those guys – I feel terrible for them. But some reunions maybe shouldn't happen.”
Hill argued there was “a lot on the line” when a band tours, arguing: “Their whole crew… boom, just like that, ‘Okay, you're out of work.’ That’s affecting a good amount of people and affecting their families. It affects [all] the people that put tours together.
“The average fan doesn’t understand how many parts there are to make this thing happen. It sucks what happened with that whole thing – but I hope everybody comes through it healthy and back on their feet.”
He added: “When I saw that go down, I could relate to it on many different ways – many ways. I’ve been on both sides of that coin.”
Skid Row Have List of Potential Guest Singers
Skid Row recently delivered a series of shows with Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale at the front, following the departure of most recent full-time singer Eric Gronwall. In the same interview Hill confirmed the band were planning to continue gigging without a permanent vocalist – but refused to name any of those on the shortlist.
“Some of them aren’t realistic, and we’ve [picked] some people that would probably love to do it, but can’t do it because their style,” he said. “It just doesn’t match, or maybe they don’t have the range. … [T]he range of those vocals, they’re very hard to sing.”
He said it was possible to adapt their tuning for the right singer, but that he’d rather not. “When Johnny [Solinger] was in the band, we tuned down a half step,” he explained. “I wouldn’t tune down any more than a half step, 'cause then you can hear it. … I don’t not like it; I don’t disagree with it – but I can hear it. So, yeah, I think [it needs to] sound as close to original as it can, as far as tempos and pitch.”
Watch Scotti Hill’s Interview
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.