He grabbed the bottle out of my hand. Immediately raised it to his lips. Bottoms up! Guzzling the entire contents, his Adam’s apple protruded with each swallow. Tommy was fucking fired up and crazy. He stomped on down the hall screaming, “Where in the fuck is Doc McGhee??????”
I watched him lurch menacingly, disappear into a room, and heard some commotion. Tommy had found Doc, and knocked him on his ass.
Doc came out of the room and up to me. I think he’d been crying. He looked at me and said, “I didn’t have anything to do with the fucking bombs or anything.” He was walking around by himself, obviously upset. It was fucked up. I searched for another bottle of booze since Tommy had inhaled mine. I had one left in the dressing room. Unopened. Let’s continue.
I don’t know whether it was the jet lag or the vodka. Probably the vodka. But the mood after that second show back at the hotel was surly. I walked into the lobby, straight into sheer craziness. It was packed with band members and their families and crew, and everybody was drunk as hell.
Suddenly I heard someone shrieking, “Sebastian—give me the bottle of vodka! Give me that bottle of vodka!” “It’s the last one in the whole hotel!”
I clenched the bottle for dear life. To my chest. Fuck that, it was my bottle of vodka, and after yesterday’s insanity there was no way I was getting cut off again. They took mine away, after all, yesterday. Tommy Lee took a bottle away from me at the gig today. I was sick of people drinking my booze! Nobody was going to get this bottle out of my hands. Not even Bon Jovi’s mother if she asked for it, for God’s sake.
Assessing the situation, I knew I did not want to get into any arguments about anyone taking my bottle of vodka, or me keeping it. So I turned around, got in the elevator, and went up to my room. I could hear the angry mob yelling at me, pissed off as the elevator doors shut. I took a healthy swig and laughed.
On the way to my room, I got sidetracked. To some sort of party, where I got in an argument with Julie Foley, who worked for Doc at the time. We argued about who was a bigger fan of Mötley Crüe. Her or me. She worked for them and obviously had a lot to do with their success. I argued, in my drunken mind, to her that I was the biggest Mötley Crüe fan ever, and I loved them more than her and everybody else put together. It was silly. We were drunk and tired. Looking back, I would like to think we loved Mötley Crüe equally.
Last thing I can remember is being on a bus driving around Moscow at five in the morning, loaded. With Curt Marvis and Wayne Isham. We were on some sort of tour of the city. I commandeered the microphone at the front of the bus, much to the translator’s and driver’s chagrin. I proceed to sing every heavy metal song I know over the speakers. To the delight of some, and no doubt horror of others, who are also on the bus tour.
Flying back to America, Mötley Crüe are nowhere to be found. Mötley Crüe, along with Doc’s soon-to-be ex-partner Doug Thaler, charter their own plane back to the States because they will not fly with Bon Jovi or Doc McGhee. It was shortly after this that Mötley Crüe would end their relationship with Doc. No doubt Bon Jovi getting pyro, when the Crüe did not, cemented this decision. As I suppose Tommy Lee punching Doc in the face may have had something to do with it.
Getting paid in rubles in the year 1989 was completely worthless in the rest of the world, let alone Russia itself. As the story goes, Bon Jovi got paid for their performance in blocks of wood, from Russia, from a cargo ship sent across the ocean. The wood was then sold at an American port, for American money. Or so I heard. Maybe they got paid in vodka.
Playing Russia was an amazing booze-fueled experience. Now it was time to go to Europe for the first time. Supporting our heroes Mötley Crüe on the Dr. Feelgood tour. They were supposed to be sober.
We were supposed to be not.
7
FEELGOOD,
AND THEN FEEL BETTER
1989
Essen, Germany
Mötley Crüe Dr. Feelgood Tour
I lie on the bed. On my back. Motionless. It is quiet.
This is without a doubt the smallest bed I’ve ever been on. I am sandwiched up against the wall. On the other side of the wall is a small commode. To my right is about an eight-inch space, where another bed lies. Exactly like mine. This is for my roommate on the whole tour, Skid Row guitar tech Chris “Lumpy”’ Hofschneider, who is now at the gig. Doing sound check.
I wake up alone in the room. Can’t remember going to sleep. Must’ve been drunk. Waking up for the first time in a European hotel room is something I’m not used to. I turn to my right. In absolute silence, I look out the window. All I see are gigantic pine trees, giants, reaching up into the German sky above. Everything in this room is so foreign to me. How do I turn on the lights? Why does that shower door only go halfway across? Why can’t I get a burger from room service at 4:00 p.m.? These are the problems of the late ’80s rock star on the road.
This was our first time ever on European soil. European proper, that is, depending on whether or not you count Russia. Since Russia wouldn’t stamp our passports, I guess they didn’t count us, so I don’t know whether to count them or not.
Although we were becoming huge in North America at this time, we were still pretty much unknown in many parts of Europe. Germany was one of them. I shared a room with Skid Row’s guitar tech for the majority of the first Skid Row tour. None of the actual band members ever once roomed with me.
The bed I had in Germany was right next to his, as was the case in all of the European hotel rooms on this tour. As my long legs draped off the frame of the bed, the quiet of the room was remarkable to me after the mayhem and craziness of the North American touring we had done up to that point. I thought about how far my life had come. Tonight I was opening for my heroes. Mötley Crüe. In Germany. Their new album Dr. Feelgood had just come out, and it was a mind-blowing record. The video for that song remains one of my favorites to watch, and to listen to, to this day. The production of the title track, by Bob Rock, has often been imitated, but never duplicated. I speak from personal experience.
The Crüe were one of my biggest influences. As a kid, I remember getting their first record, in the import section, at Moondance Records and Tapes in Peterborough, Ontario. I had heard the song “Live Wire” on the Friday night Rock Show on Q107 FM, along with Accept’s “Fast as a Shark,” Metallica’s “Seek & Destroy,” etcetera. The day that I got Too Fast for Love, I turned over the album cover and looked at the back. I loved the pictures of the band. I loved the sound of the band. The album credits read:
Managed by Doc McGhee
Produced by Michael Wagener
I was twelve or thirteen years old. I laughed to myself right then and there, and promised to myself, and to the world, exactly this:
“Michael Wagener is going to produce my first record. Doc McGhee is going to manage me.”
I felt that I knew that would happen. I chuckled to myself. I didn’t just feel it. I knew it. With all of my heart. It wasn’t a matter of if it would happen. It was a matter of when. And I had done both of those things. The back of my first record?
Managed by Doc McGhee
Produced by Michael Wagener
Not only that, but here we were, now opening the full European Mötley Crüe tour. Dreams can come true.
It can happen to you.
I had always fantasized of touring with Mötley Crüe. But this was the Crüe’s first-ever sober tour. I had been looking forward to touring with the fucked-up Mötley Crüe. Like we were. But this would never happen.
This time out, they were setting a brand-new precedent for me and the rest of the Crüe-tons around the world. Their new trip on 1989 was, you don’t have to be fucked up all the time. That was a fresh concept to fans of the band. One that I wouldn’t realize myself for maybe twenty-five more years or so.
No Milk and Cookie Jokes
We were touring in the winter. In Europe. It’s freezing cold. We are on the bus. At an ice-cold backstage catering room, in Oslo, Norway.
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br /> Talking to a journalist at one of the lunch tables, across the room, Vince Neil is also doing an interview. I am very new to talking to European journalists. I look over at Vince, to check out how to handle all of this. Like a pro.
“Mr. Vince Neil, what do you think of the brand-new group Guns N’ Roses? What do you think of that?”
“I don’t fucking know, why don’t you go interview Guns and fucking Roses? Why don’t you go and fucking ask them?”
I was twenty-one or twenty-two at the time. I laughed so hard at the responses he was giving the journalist. It reminded me of when I was twelve, the very first interview/article I ever read, on Mötley Crüe. CREEM magazine, circa 1981. I had never read a music article like this. In this very first piece of press I had ever read on the band, Vince Neil described, in specific detail, how to make a pipe out of a Bic pen, so you could smoke Angel Dust at the back of the school classroom. I was fascinated that this would be part of the interview. Vince has never given a fuck. It’s always been hilarious.
In 1989 we did not know any other way to live, other than being drunk and/or high pretty much all of the time. The only thing we lived to do was rock ’n’ roll, and fuck. That’s all we did. In every city around the globe. We went to Amsterdam, Holland. Before we went there, Doug Thaler, Mötley Crüe’s manager, sent a detailed letter to our manager, Scott McGhee, about what a rotten influence Skid Row were on Mötley Crüe. The irony is palpable. Mötley Crüe were the baddest of the bad, and here was their manager sending our manager a letter telling us to stay away from the Crüe. It was understandable, because they were sober for the first time. However, I did not understand it at all.
We wanted to party with them so bad. One night we were driving through the Swiss Alps. Austria. Mountains on either side of the bus, reaching straight into the sky. We were following Mötley Crüe’s bus. At a truck stop, outside Vienna, Nikki and Tommy ran onto our bus.
“Hey motherfuckers!!! What are you doing?”
We were completely destroyed, as usual. Rob Affuso, our drummer, made a lame attempt at humor.
“Hey Mötley Crüe! Can we get you guys something? Do you guys want some milk?? How’s about some cookies?”
He was trying to be funny, but Nikki and Tommy were completely pissed. Their reputations were built on partying, as much as music, after all. They turned around and walked off the bus as quick as they walked on. The next day we were told to not make any more “milk and cookie” jokes at the expense of Mötley Crüe.
One day, Tommy came into our dressing room. I think it was in Finland. He had been to Amsterdam the day before and brought back the most outlandish porn we had ever seen. He showed us bestiality magazines, fat porn, pee, stuff that I did not know existed. I made a mental note to go check that shit out myself as soon as I could.
Even in Rock Circles, Considered Crude and Disgusting
Christina Applegate met up with the tour in Paris. She had the trip all planned and organized. Her mother, as well as her aunt, also made the trip with her to Paris to meet me on the Mötley Crüe tour. Even though we had not yet been intimate, she was serious about our relationship. I really liked her too.
The press had caught wind of our relationship. Driving down the interstate in the tour bus, in America, my bus driver Kenny Barnes said to me, “Sebastian, have you seen this?” He pulled out the National Enquirer. Inside was the headline “Christina Applegate Falls for Wild Rocker,” or something along those lines.
“Pretty Hollywood actress, innocent little Christina Applegate, has fallen for wild man Skid Row rocker Sebastian Bach.” The article went on. I will never forget the words underneath my picture.
“Sebastian Bach: Even in rock ’n’ roll circles, he is considered to be crude and disgusting,” read the caption.
Crude? Disgusting?
Even in rock ’n’ roll circles? How dastardly!
Wow, I must be doing something right.
We stood on the side of the stage at Le Zénith, together in Paris. Watched Mötley Crüe do their show, after Christina had watched us rock the sold-out arena before the Crüe did. I wore a new vest, and new blue felt pants, made by my friend Michael Schmidt. I asked her how they looked, and she said they were awesome. I really felt like she was my girlfriend that night.
We were having a great time rocking out to the Crüe. It came time for Tommy Lee to do his drum solo in his “360 degrees in the air” revolving drum kit. Outlandish to witness. Christina and I stood a couple of feet behind T-bone’s kit. It started whirling around in the black light of the arena.
All of a sudden it stopped.
Tommy was hung upside down, dangling like he was on a roller coaster at Six Flags during a power outage.
I freaked out and held Christina tight to me.
“Oh my God, let’s get the fuck out of here!”
I thought that somehow, we had unplugged Tommy’s drum kit. That we were not watching where we were going, and in the midst of making out behind the stage, had kicked loose the power plug that kept Tommy and his drum kit spinning around like a heavy metal whirlybird on the stage. We froze, and then scrammed. They got Tommy down, and I eventually found out it wasn’t our fault.
We split and went back to the hotel, not wanting to be with anybody except each other.
The next day Christina and I spent sightseeing in Paris. We went to the Eiffel Tower and took the elevator to the top. It was here where we talked about our fledgling relationship. Christina explained to me that she wanted to get married, and get a place in Middle America, Wisconsin, or Iowa, or thereabouts. She wanted us to have a farm, raise animals and stuff. I did not want this. I was busy on the road. I had Maria and Paris back in Toronto. The more I hung out with Christina, the more guilty I started to feel.
That night, Christina’s mom and aunt organized a huge dinner in France for us at a beautiful restaurant. We had such a fun time. I sat there and had dinner and drinks with the three Applegate women and felt very much a part of them that night. I could have easily settled down with Christina. But that would have required me to actually settle down.
We went back to our Parisian suite. I remember it was raining. We flipped on the TV. It was time to get it on.
Only there was one problem. I couldn’t do it.
Sex, to me, has most often been a largely subconscious act. If I know you are mine, and I am yours, I am the most sexual person you can ever imagine to be around. I want it all the time. Every day. Many times a day. That is how I naturally feel. But, if I get an inkling that you are not mine? Or that I am not yours? I shut down. My subconscious dictates how I feel sexually.
No matter how hard I tried, I could not get Maria and Paris out of my head on this night. It made for an extremely awkward night. I lay on the bed, listening to the rain on the rooftop above. I tried to talk myself into the situation. For the good of the band, I told myself. Plus, I really did like her.
But the heart wants . . . what the heart wants.
Christina went back home. I went back on the road. We drifted apart after that. The last contact I can remember with her is being extremely drunk in the lobby of the Riot House on Sunset Boulevard. It had been months since we had seen each other. I was drunk and vulgar on the phone to her. She was extremely disgusted by me, and let me know on the phone.
“How could you do this?”
“What? Huh? Whaddya mean? Hey, let’s get together! Let’s just parrrrtyyyyy,” I slurred on the other end of the phone.
“Wow, thanks. I really don’t think so.”
That was that. I feel guilty to this day about how I treated her, at our very young age. I think about her and how my life might have possibly been if I would have been more serious about her. She has gone on to a great career, and I wish her all the best life has to offer. She certainly deserves that.
We didn’t hang out quite as much with Mötley Crüe as we did Bon Jovi, due to the Crüe being more or less sober. But there was one night with Nikki Sixx. In his hotel room.
>
He invited me and Snake up to the room. I was completely obliterated. Nikki and I were good friends at this time. He would call me at home occasionally, and we would talk. I had always looked up to him at this point and was blown away that I was now on tour with him, getting drunk in his hotel suite.
I can’t imagine what kind of torture it must’ve been for Nikki to sit with me, as hammered as I was, and as sober as he was. As he talked to us, without any thought, I balled up my fist and smashed a wall-sized painting that was behind the couch we were sitting on, shattering the frame and sending shards of broken glass everywhere in sight.
I thought that’s what we should do. Be wild rock stars, drunk and stupid. Nikki went, “Wow, that was wild.” Nonplussed. Not impressed.
We called up the maids and got them to pick up the busted shards of glass, which covered the room. The sun was coming up.
Me and Snake kept drinking. In another foolish example of behavior on my part, I crawled out of Nikki’s hotel room window onto the ledge surrounding the hotel. I was drunk and could have easily fallen to my death below.
I crept around the outer circumference of the hotel, until I was on the other side of Nikki’s room, looking in the opposite window. He was on the phone to our management.
“Hey, your boy’s out on the ledge. He smashed the painting on the wall behind my couch. He’s gotta pay for that. You better come get him.”
Todd Mackler came to the room and somehow got me down. I can’t remember exactly how.
What I definitely do remember is the next morning. Being awoken with the bill. For about $15,000. For smashing the painting on Nikki’s wall. What had seemed like a really good idea at the time turned out to be an idiotic move that cost me easily what I would have made personally on the whole European Mötley Crüe tour. But it also taught me a lesson.
Smashing up hotel rooms is a lot better in theory than in practice. Or:
18 and Life on Skid Row Page 12
