18 and Life on Skid Row

by Sebastian Bach

  These are the first memories I have.

  One thing that has been constant throughout my career is that my art has always, without exception, imitated life. Or vice versa. From Youth Gone Wild to Jekyll & Hyde to Jesus Christ Superstar on to Angel Down, Kicking & Screaming, and Give ’Em Hell, I have always been amazed, and more than a little spooked out, about how the lyrics that I sing seem to come true after I sing them.

  Just like dreams.

  I have had all my dreams come true . . . and much, much more.

  I have had nightmares come true, as well.

  My father, in telling this last story to everyone present at my first wedding, explained to us all that he, too, had always wondered why his eldest son’s life experience had been so extreme in nature. Why had all these amazing (and some not so amazing) occurrences and experiences happened around me, because of, or in spite of me? Why is it that my dreams came true, when so many others’ did not? Why so many others dreamed the same impossible dreams, but had to settle for a life less than ordinary? If there is anything you will learn reading this book, it’s that life can be anything but ordinary.

  My dad believed that something supernatural happened that night in the Bahamas. Something that changed the course of my life. He believed that these island women had cast some sort of a spell on me.

  It’s just a theory, of course. Maybe it was just a meaningless game of sorts.

  But maybe, just maybe, they did cast a spell on me that night. A spell on me . . . that would see me cast a spell of my own.

  Upon the whole world.

  2

  GROWING UP SEBASTIAN

  1967–1968

  Freeport, Bahamas

  Dad was an art teacher. Mom was a nurse. The story of how my parents met each other is bizarre and somewhat hilarious.

  As the story goes, Dad was having quite the wild night out the evening he met my mom. His nickname, at the time, was Hondo.

  Hondo and his friends had decided that it would be most prudent to take a car out onto the back roads of Freeport and have a little fun. I don’t know if they were drinking or not. But hey, this is 1967 we’re talking about. So maybe, they were tuning in, or tuning out, as the case may be.

  They were taking turns standing on the roof of the car, while racing down the gravel roads. Some kind of pre-Jackass Bam Margera shit. So you can see where this is going.

  Hondo took his turn “surfing” on the top of the car. He stood on the roof of the speeding vehicle . . . until it slammed on the brakes. Dad went flying off the roof, face-first, into the pebbles, rocks, dirt, and gravel of the road below. Cut to hospital.

  Where my mom was on duty that night.

  My mother met my father that night. On his back, on the hospital gurney. Wincing in pain, as my mother picked the pieces of rock and gravel out of his fucked-up face.

  Ah, the sheer romance of it all!

  A little more than nine months later, I was born.

  Bach in America: Pancratius on Tour

  1800s

  Germany

  America

  My father never knew his father before him. Grandpa left Dad when Dad was a little boy. We were forbidden to ever, never speak of him or his family. Our family. This was my introduction to ghosting. My dad was real good at it. He tried to find his own dad in 1977, only to discover the man had died mere months before the reconciliation was attempted.

  When Dad died in 2002, I researched his family for him. I suppose it was a way of not letting go. With the advent of the Internet, I was able to research our history in no way he would ever have been able to in the 1970s. It gave me great solace to look at the screen and discover names, pictures, stories, of my ancestry that my father never lived to see. He would’ve loved it. I have since reconciled with my father’s side of the family, and y’know what? They love rock ’n’ roll just as much as we do. Guess it’s in the blood.

  We never knew that we were from German descent. My grandma’s family were from Norway. But I don’t think that my father could have ever known that his dad’s family came here from Baden Wurzburg, Germany. I wish my dad could’ve known how his family got here in the first place.

  In the mid-1800s, there was a priest in Germany named Martin Stephan, who told his congregation that America was the promised land. The German government found out about this, they excommunicated Martin Stephan from the clergy. So, he assembled his congregation on separate brigantine boats to go from Baden Wurzburg all the way to America. During their journey, one of the boats capsized, and all aboard perished into the ocean. The other boat made it to the Port of New Orleans, Louisiana. On this boat was the very first member of my family to come to North America. His name was Pancratius Bürk.

  The boat then went from New Orleans up to Perryville, Missouri, where my grandfather’s family first settled. I can hear my detractors out there right now. Dammit!! Wrong boat! Well, as you will learn in this book, we’ve always been a lucky bunch!

  My dad was a wild dude. When people tell me, all the time, “Oh Sebastian, you are so hyper!” I just have to laugh. Dad had more energy, more excitement, more verve and zest for life than anyone I have ever known. He lived for his art, which was painting. This was his most valuable lesson to me. Choose something you love to do with your life, and do it. If you work at something you truly love, you are never really working at all.

  He liked to paint. I like to rock.

  Most of my memories of him are with his shirtsleeves rolled up, with all of his skin from the end of his fingertips all the way up to his elbows, completely covered in layers of multicolored acrylic paint. Years later, he would die from leukemia and bone marrow cancer. I always thought that these lead-based paints from the 1960s and ’70s could not have been too good for his health.

  A lot of his friends, including his very best friend, Dennis Tourbin, were painters who died in their early fifties. Dad left us at the age of fifty-seven. Same age as his father before him. Believe me, if I make it to fifty-eight it will be one hell of a party.

  Lifelong Obsessions

  My mother and father influenced me in so many ways, it’s hard to put into words.

  Dad taught art at Humboldt State University while we lived in Arcata, California. There is still a mural on the wall today at the university, that he did of me as a baby, when he was a professor there. Mike Patton of the band Faith No More attended Humboldt and recalls walking past this painting every day on his way to class. He did not realize that he was, in fact, walking past the first-ever Sebastian Bach poster, as a student on his way to study hall.

  We lived in California after I was born in the Bahamas, and then after we lived in California, we moved back to the Bahamas. Must have been an early ’70s thing. After a brief return to Freeport in 1972 or so, Dad started looking for an actual permanent job with which to support his wife and two children. Mom’s family sent him the classified section from the Toronto Star. In the back pages was an ad for an art teacher at Kenner Collegiate in the town of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. My dad applied for the job and got it. And so, we packed up the car and drove all the way across the country. From Arcata, California, to Peterborough, Canada. To our new life.

  To say that we were “out of the norm” for the city of Peterborough would be an understatement.

  My mom and dad were very much hippies of the day. With long hair, a Volvo station wagon was our family’s mode of transportation. Dad, bespectacled in John Lennon glasses, with Mom in Frye boots by his side. Even our dog, a cute little Scottish terrier, was named Lennon. My sister was named Heather Dylan, after Bob. I was named Sebastian, not after Mr. French on the show Family Affair, like I thought. No, I was not named after the actor Sebastian Cabot, even though I liked to think I was. I loved that show. With Buffy and Jody. Still do. Got the DVD. I was, in fact, named after John Sebastian, singer/songwriter of the band The Lovin’ Spoonful.

  While attending Berkeley College in California in the early 1960s, my father was influenced by the ar
tists, poets, and writers of the day. Michael McClure and Lawrence Ferlinghetti were two of his favorites. Michael McClure taught my father some classes at Berkeley and made a huge impression on him. I still have the book Rebel Lions, autographed by Michael McClure to my father, that remains one of my prized possessions to this day.

  One of Dad’s favorite bands was The Lovin’ Spoonful, fronted by John Sebastian. The two actually got to meet. Dad told me the story like this: John and my dad went up onto a grassy hill overlooking the Berkeley campus. As my father told me, John Sebastian smoked a joint with him, after which Dad told him that he was going to name his first son after him. And here I am, now. Smoking a joint. Writing this book. “Hello, my name is Sebastian. Thank you, John. Please pass to your left!”

  In Peterborough, my parents together created an art gallery, which they named ArtSpace. Some of my earliest memories include hanging out in this gallery. Helping Dad and Mom clean up after exhibition openings. Meeting important artists such as Christo, who came and had dinner with us at our house with his wife. Once, when I was around eleven or twelve, Dad paid me and my friend to sell beer at one of the art openings in his gallery. As the night wore on, people got drunker. An inebriated gentleman ended up hassling me because he didn’t have any more money to buy any more beer and I wouldn’t give him free beer. Even at my young age, I could tell that this was a crazy night. Dad told us we could stop bartending.

  It was a different time.

  1973

  Markham, Ontario, Canada

  I am five years old. We are at my aunt Leslie’s house. My father walks down the stairs, into the basement. I am goofing off with my cousins Kevin and Alyson on the beanbag chairs, listening to Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man.” As Dad enters the basement, I notice something in his hands, behind his back. He has a smile on his face. Like he knows what he is about to put into my hands will change my life forever. Which it does.

  He stretches out his arm, and proceeds to put the first comic book into my hands that I have ever seen.

  It’s a Batman comic. I can see the cover in my brain still to this day. The Dark Knight, and Gotham, the mysterious city, lurking in the shadows behind decrepit buildings and various sundry characters. The vivid imagery made an everlasting impression on me. I held the comic and stared into the cover, and back up into my dad’s beaming visage.

  “What is this?” I ask of my dad, my eyes as bright and full of wonder as his were.

  I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at. I remember being fascinated, even just by the logo itself. Everything just popped right out of my hands at me. I couldn’t wait to get into this book. I didn’t know if it was fantasy or reality I was looking at. Which might explain the blurry line between fantasy and reality that I have indeed carried with me into my adult life. I have always been very good at making big dreams come true. For myself. For others. Yet some of life’s more mundane realities remain a challenge for me. I truly believe that the parables of right and wrong, learned in comic books at an early age, have something to do with turning fantasies into reality, over and over again, throughout my life and career. When I entered adulthood, Dad and I would get into this discussion over a couple of cold Canadian brewskis. I would ask, “How do you think this all happened, Dad?”

  Hondo would just look at me and smile. “Sebastian. It’s because you believe.”

  I look up at my dad and smile. He smiles down back at me.

  I run into the next room and jump into the beanbag chair, where I devour every nuance, every iota, of that Batman comic. This starts a lifelong love obsession I will come back to, over and over again. Time after time. With comic books. With superheroes. With Pop. With Art.

  With reading.

  My days as a diligent comic collector began when I was a boy. Joining book clubs, racing down to the local variety store with a handful of quarters. There every Tuesday to pick up the latest issues of The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Inhumans, Ghost Rider, anything Jack Kirby, Neil Adams, Mike Ploog, Herb Trimpe. We had a fort in our garage where we started our own comic club, with hundreds, if not thousands, of comics between us. My friend Andrew Springer lived across the street. We would go through the comics and alphabetize, categorize each book. Discuss the artists, writers, and stories. Even the story arcs themselves.

  I try to explain to my children today how, back then, all we had was our imagination. With no Internet, cable TV, video games, IMAX, or other virtual bullshit, we had nothing but still images and our own minds to do the rest. Same goes for rock ’n’ roll. All we had in those days were magazines, pictures, and posters to look at while we listened to the records. This is why the album cover imagery then played such an important role, and conversely in the gray and bland days of iTunes, that album cover art seems like a quaint thing of the past. What a true fucking shame that is.

  The world of Marvel Comics, and DC Comics as well, became a real cornerstone of my imagination. Living in Cavan, Ontario, in our house we got only three black-and-white TV channels through the bunny ears. A lot of the Canadian TV programming seemed to be shows on curling, lawn bowling, field hockey, maybe even an exciting afternoon special on ice fishing. Not exactly captivating television for an active child’s mind. The Marvel Universe was infinitely more interesting to me than television was. I could read about the Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man, and really believe the stories that I was getting into. They all had a basic premise. Good over evil. In my adult life, I have made enemies as well as friends from this black-and-white way of thinking. In my mind, I am always trying to do the right thing. I may fail in that task. I may, at times, be misguided. But that is always my intention.

  With great power

  comes great responsibility

  and

  Don’t make me angry

  you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry

  When I was in the second grade, the principal of my school and my teacher called in my mom and dad for a parent-teacher conference about me. They told my mom and dad that “we don’t know what’s wrong with Sebastian. Whenever he gets even just one thing wrong on a test, he beats himself up to the point of misery. We’ve never seen any kid like this.” They explained to my mom and dad that I could not handle making a mistake. If I got one thing wrong on the test, I would punish myself.

  I think this goes back to the time when my dad threw me out of the van and made me walk home in the Cavan swamp. In the dark. Because I got a B on a test.

  Summer 1975

  Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

  I am holding my dad’s hand.

  We are walking along the boardwalk from the Giant Dipper on down the amusement park row. It is hot. I am eating cotton candy. I am seven.

  It is a magical place. Today, I rode a roller coaster for the first time! We went on the Giant Dipper. I cried and threw up my hot dog all over my aunt, who was downwind in the car behind us. Oooops!

  My dad and I walk toward the promenade far in the distance. There is a glass enclosure running vertically from the ground to the sky, featuring items that you could win in the arcade located below in the promenade.

  Something at the very top of the display catches my seven-year-old eyes. From a far distance my gaze is fixed upon an image that I do not know how to process in my young mind.

  I clutch my father’s hand as we approach the promenade display. We get closer. To what, I am not sure of.

  The noise of the amusement park boardwalk rides and laughter of the children enjoying the summer with their families recedes in my mind. My eyes are fixated upon this image in the display promenade, which is getting closer with each step.

  For the first time in my life, I feel a sensation of excitement and fright at the same time. It is confusing to me. I am completely fascinated by these figures that look scary but I cannot turn away from them, either.

  “Dad? What is that?” I clearly remember looking up at my father for protection and some sort of explanation of what I was seeing.

  “That, son . .
.” my father said to me with a bemused look on his grinning face, “. . . is KISS.”

  “Gloria In Excelsis Deo”: I Fell in Love with Singing at an Early Age

  1976

  Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

  Age eight, to be exact.

  Before the moment when I joined the All Saints’ Anglican Church Choir, my earliest memories of singing always have to do with my mom, Kathleen. Her love of singing, and more specifically vocal harmonies, affected me from an early age. My mom, along with her sister Leslie, would harmonize all day around the house, singing the Everly Brothers, and other songs of their day such as this one by The Bird and the Bee:

  I know, I know

  that Tonight

  You belong to me

  They sang in perfect harmony, along to Linda Ronstadt, Elton John, Neil Young, The Beatles, Valdy, Murray McLaughlan, Rough Trade, Bob Marley, Joan Armatrading. We listened to the incredible Phoebe Snow on the family stereo, all the time. One of the most talented, and perhaps underrated singers, ever. Later on in life I would meet Phoebe Snow on the set of a VH1 show that I did. She was so nice to me. We vocalized backstage on set.

  “Hi Phoebe! I’m Sebastian! I love your voice! Hey, do you think you can sing as high as I can?”

  “Hi Sebastian! I’m Phoebe! Do you think you can sing as high as I can?” was how our discussion started. Phoebe and I would even talk on the phone about hanging out and having dinner. I was drinking heavily at this time, and it still haunts me to this day that I took my friendship with Phoebe Snow for granted. She died a year or so after I met her, and we never did get to have that dinner like we talked about. I still listen to “Poetry Man” and her other songs, especially on airplanes, on the road. Her voice soothes me. Whenever I listen to her sing now, I regret not taking her up on her invitation.