18 and Life on Skid Row

by Sebastian Bach

  Carl was very much like a father figure to me thoughout the time we were doing the play. Incredibly, he was fifty-six years old when we met. My dad passed away at the age of fifty-seven. There were so many weird incidences where I felt like Dad was speaking through Carl. My father had a hilarious way of mispronouncing names. “Sebastian,” he would say. “You must check out some of these new artists that are far more important than the heavy metal bullshit you like.” “Who are you talking about, Dad?” “I’m talking about important artists. Music of the people. Songs that speak for the man in the street. Around the world.” “Who is that, Dad?” “I’m talking about people like Bruce Springfield.”

  He would always mess up names like this. It was completely hilarious. “Sebastian, I’m so excited. I’m taking you to a concert. By one of my favorite artists.”

  “Who is that?”

  “I’m talking about David Buoy.” He pronounced Bowie like a water buoy. Not “Bowie” like “Zowie.” What a goof!

  One day, Carl and I took the escalator up to the departure terminal in the Detroit Metro Airport. Or maybe it was Minneapolis. He turned to me. With a distant look in his eye.

  “Hey Sebastian. Do you like David Buoy?” Like the water bouy. I froze in my tracks.

  This was only the second person I had met in my life that pronounced David Bowie completely wrong, and silly. Just like my dad. This must be a sign.

  The tour wore on. It was during Jesus Christ Superstar that I developed my formidable taste for red wine. Carl was the man who introduced me to the infinite pleasures of the red grape. I had to do something.

  You see, I appeared in much of JCS onstage in nothing more than a diaper. Bare feet, bare torso, with a white cloth nappy, I was out on the stage in my swaddling clothes. I remember looking down at what I was wearing, which was certainly not much, and saying to myself, “I cannot believe I’m going onstage like this.” Now, this was acting.

  The production of Jesus Christ Superstar was rife with tension from the start. The company that did the play was run by a man named Tom McCoy, who owned the rights to the touring production for the play. He had not been able to take the show on the road due to the lack of a “suitable” Jesus. Then I came along. SFX Theatrical Group had success with me in Jekyll & Hyde, so they thought I would be a great fit for Jesus Christ Superstar. But I learned one thing for sure. Like they say: it’s far easier to play the bad guy than the good guy.

  I had the feeling that Tom McCoy did not like me from the very start. Maybe he resented the fact that the powers that be forced me upon him as the lead in his play. But nobody could argue with the success of the play. We took Jesus Christ Superstar on the road in October 2002, mere weeks after my dad’s passing. We sold out most performances across the country. Records show in Variety that we were making more than $1 million a week in ticket sales and our only competition on the road at the time was the play The Producers. But Jesus Christ Superstar did have its hilarious moments. In Act 2, there is a long extended scene where Jesus is stripped down, placed on his knees, in a diaper, and tied to the wall. The storm troopers then proceed to whip Jesus, to the soundtrack of the score, as I rise and thrash about the stage, naked and whipped under the lights to the beat of the song. When we played in San Diego, to eight sold-out shows, the Skid Row fans really got into the scene. With each crack of the whip across my back, the girls would squeal out into the night, “Get him!!! Get him!!” and then giggle.

  The producers on the side of the stage were not amused. I didn’t understand this. The businessmen were happy to take the rock ’n’ roll fans’ money, but they did not like the way the rock fans were watching the show. All I knew was that the chemistry and cast of Jesus Christ Superstar was nothing like the experience I had in Jekyll & Hyde. It really goes to show that an ensemble is more than the sum of its parts. Chemistry, and the relationship between performers onstage, and the band and crew, are really the deciding factors in the success of any stage performance.

  Road Warp

  As the months wore on, the inevitable road warp set in. The first couple of months were a lot of fun. We all worked very, very hard at making the show the best it could be. Around the fourth month, things started to get weird, as the road tends to do. I had my usual gaggle of rock ’n’ roll fans waiting for me after every show to sign posters, but it was almost as if Carl expected the favored nations contract to guarantee he had as many fans as I did. It doesn’t work like that.

  He started to resent the fans that I had, and any extra attention that I got. It was a scenario I was unfortunately used to. Carl and I were great friends. It hurt me very deeply when resentment got in the way of a friendship that I held dear to my heart.

  This fact is, the devil always gets all of the cool songs. The best songs of Jesus Christ Superstar are not sung by Jesus. Judas gets the best songs. Without a doubt, the song that I should’ve been singing in that play was “Heaven on Their Minds.” The opening of the show, which is as close to a heavy metal epic as you can get on a Broadway stage. A great piece of music. I ended up having to stand at the top of the stage with my arms outstretched, motionless, while Carl sang the song. He did an incredible job. But a lot of the fans coming to see me sing felt ripped off that for over $100 a ticket I didn’t really sing that much in the play.

  The ending of the show, the curtain call, became the straw that broke Jesus’s camel’s back. The cast members would come out to the refrain, the coda of the song “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and naturally Judas would be the second last on stage, and then Jesus would come out last. Night after night, the crowd would save their biggest response for when Jesus came on the stage. Which was kind of appropriate, being that the name of the play was Jesus Christ Superstar. Not Judas Priest Superstar.

  One day, on the way to the show in Indianapolis, Carl and I were following each other to the theater for the matinee performance. It was a crisp, bright winter day. Being that we were favored nations, Carl and I drove our rental cars in tandem to the venue. All of a sudden, I looked in my rearview mirror and Carl was no longer following me. “That’s weird,” I thought. My cell phone rang. It was Carl.

  “Sebastian!! I just got in a fender bender!! I’m not going to be able to do the show!!!” This was the very first time that Carl didn’t play the role of Judas, and an understudy would be onstage that day with me.

  As I drove on, I actually passed Carl somehow. He must have passed before without me realizing it. I looked to my left, and there was Carl on the side of the road. Regaling the police and other people in the area where the accident was, various passersby. I can see it clearly now. That was his personality. He was a very big presence. Spiritually, vocally, physically. I smiled to myself as I looked at him. Entertaining everybody around him, even at the scene of a car accident. He couldn’t help it. To be entertaining simply was the man’s nature.

  Carl had a birthday coming up. Natalie Toro, who played Mary Magdalene in the show, suggested to me that we have a surprise birthday party for Carl, in my hotel suite. I was totally excited and into the idea to throw a birthday party for my friend. Little did any of us realize this would be the last birthday Carl Anderson would ever have.

  Cleveland, Ohio

  February 27, 2003

  The suite was packed with party guests. Cast and crew members from the show, friends, family, local theater enthusiasts from the Cleveland area. I had a two-story suite with a circular staircase that was perfect for entertaining. This was Carl’s birthday, and Jesus was going to give Judas a great time tonight. The wine flowed and we were all laughing. It was a very fun party in honor of Carl’s birthday. I really loved the guy. We all did.

  By this time, after six months on the road, the tension was undeniable. Carl and the “legit” theater crowd had come to resent the rock ’n’ roll fans that I brought to the show. But nobody resented the attendance figures, or the box office receipts. Of course, I began to resent them for resenting this.

  It became mind-numbingly d
epressing and repetitive to do the role eight times a week. I myself ended up doing the show for exactly six months. Eight performances a week. And I never missed the show. No matter what the drama or backstage tension was, and there was a lot.

  We hit Columbus, Ohio, around the first week of April. My birthday. A meeting was called for the full cast and crew. We were to have an afternoon “rehearsal” on one of the days of the show. Are you kidding me? we all thought. We had been doing the show for six months now. We were completely “rehearsed” beyond belief. There was no reason to do this. There had to be ulterior motives of some kind. The whole tour was sold out across America. You couldn’t even get a ticket. We knew what we were doing.

  As it turned out, when it came time for the rehearsal, I couldn’t believe what we were there to accomplish. At the end of the show, I would come out last and get the crowd going. Get everyone clapping to the beat of the theme song. After being on the cross and dying, with everyone in the venue crying, it felt good to have people wipe the tears from their eyes and smile. Laugh. Feel good as they exited the show. Every night, the object of that performance was to have the cast, crew, and audience in tears at the end of the piece. It became quite a lot to bear, month after month after month. If we didn’t feel that everybody was crying at the end of the show, we felt like we had not done a good job that night. “Hey man, we kicked ass tonight.” The big road crew dudes would high-five me coming off the cross. “Yeah man, that was really kick-ass.” We would blubber to each other with tears running down our faces.

  God, I wanted to rock. That’s all I could think about. I want to have fun onstage again.

  The director of the play, a pasty-faced short little white New Yorker dude, was certainly no Robin Phillips, in any way whatsoever. The purpose of the rehearsal in Columbus was to eliminate me from clapping at the end of the curtain call. It had nothing to do with the show itself. The producers had grown tired of the audience response that I was receiving at the end of the show. So, in front of the whole cast and crew, I was told to simply walk on the stage and not clap. “Jesus wouldn’t do that.”

  How would you know? Were you there?

  Starting now, Jesus would come out before Judas. Judas would come out at the very end of the curtain call, from this day forward. I was being demoted for no reason whatsoever other than I was getting the crowd too excited, and that didn’t fit into the favored nations contract, I guess. So their only choice was to have Jesus not come out last, in Jesus’s play. And to not let Jesus clap at the end of the show.

  I couldn’t believe this. Natalie Toro, and other cast members, came up to me in the rehearsal and were high-fiving me with a look in their eyes that said, “Wow. I’m sorry, dude. This really sucks.” I had had enough. I marched up to my dressing room. Took my ghetto blaster and my KISS posters off the wall. I called Jo Jo, one of the roadies I had in Madam X back in 1985. He came down to the theater to help me pack my shit. Fuck this. I’m out.

  Carl Anderson met me in the stairwell on the way down in the street. He wanted to fight. Judas versus Jesus. For real.

  “You really piss me off.”

  “Oh well. I’m sorry, Carl. I don’t mean to piss you off. Look. We all know. You guys just got the wrong Jesus.”

  This remark only incensed him more. We squared off in the stairwell. There was no way I was going to physically fight this man that I loved. He was mad as hell. I wasn’t going to take it anymore.

  Ladies and gentlemen . . . Jesus has left the building.

  The last place I want to be is somewhere I am not wanted to be. My Madam X roadie drove me to the airport to get a Hertz rental car. I put my stuff in the back of the car and aimed it towards New Jersey. Towards home. A place I had not been in six months now. I missed my children. I missed having fun. I guess it was true what the placard said. Jesus is not a rock star. At least not this one.

  I drove through the snow for a day or two. When I got home, I was incredibly sad. All I really needed was a couple of days off. Pretty much every person in the cast had missed a show, or partaken in a day or two off. I had taken no shows off. After six straight months, I needed a rest. I got home, and people were very mad that I did not return to the play. They sent me my last paycheck on April 3, 2003, my thirty-fifth birthday. I had spent my thirty-fourth year as Jesus.

  A couple of weeks later, I received incredibly shocking news. Natalie Toro called me. “Sebastian. You’re not going to believe this. Carl Anderson has leukemia.”

  It turned out that when Carl got in the fender bender, on our way to the performance in Indianapolis, he had experienced pain in his knee when he hit the dashboard upon contact with the other vehicle. He went to the doctor about his knee, only to receive the following news.

  “Carl, I hate to inform you of this. But you have leukemia.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This man? So strong, so vibrant, so alive? With as much energy, talent, and presence than anyone I had ever been on the stage with before? How could this guy be sick? How could this guy have the same disease as my dad? At the same exact age? Made no logical sense whatsoever.

  Fuck you, cancer.

  I had spent Thanksgiving with Carl Anderson. With his beautiful wife, Veronica, his stepdaughter Laila Ali, and her husband at their house in Las Vegas. Laila Ali lived in the same development as Vince Neil. We spent half the day at Vince’s house, looking at Mötley Crüe memorabilia. Vince then drove us over to Laila’s house, where we spent Thanksgiving dinner. I had remarked to Veronica Ali, Muhammad Ali’s ex-wife who was also Carl’s ex-wife, “Wow, these colored greens sure are delicious!” The house erupted into laughter. “Colored greens? I like that one.” Carl, Veronica, and Leila all laughed at my Canadianism.

  I thought that’s what they were called.

  I had a great friend in Carl Anderson. I had learned so much from him about singing. About performance. About hard work. About red wine. And now he had the same disease, at the same age, that I was singing to my father about, every night, during the show. I couldn’t believe the odds of this.

  Months later, I got another phone call from Natalie.

  “Carl died.”

  That was it. Since his birthday in Cleveland in February, since I had been fired on my birthday in April, less than a year later, Carl passed on. From the same accursed disease as my own dad. A father figure to me, Carl also left us at the same age as my father. And my father’s father before him.

  I will miss you, Carl. Thank you so much for the inspiration, friendship, and talent you shared with us so generously. You were one of the greatest singers I have ever known, and were a great friend to me, and everyone else you worked with. All I know is this. When I reach the age of fifty-eight?

  I will think of you both.

  Gilmore Girls

  After Broadway, I got yet another surprising telephone call. From Barbara Skydel, again.

  Telling me about a TV show called Gilmore Girls. My first response was, “What is that?”

  She explained to me the premise of the show. A mother (played by Lauren Graham) and daughter (played by Alexis Bledel) struggle to make it on their own, in their hometown of Stars Hollow. Alexis puts together a band with her friend (played by Keiko Agena). I was to play the “hunky guitar player” of Lane’s band (played by Keiko Agena). Thus “Gil,” on guitar, was born.

  Gilmore Girls is a big TV show that continues to play around the world to this day. It’s funny how I get recognized in different areas of the public. In certain parts of town, rock ’n’ roll bars, music stores, etcetera, I will get recognized for Skid Row. In Canada, I will get recognized for Trailer Park Boys. But in shopping malls across America? Museums in Italy, walking the streets of Europe or South America? If it’s a little girl, with her mom, I will invariably hear the following words: “Oh my God, it’s that guy from Gilmore Girls.” I was on the show for seven seasons, and very much enjoyed my time interacting with such a fun and talented cast and crew.

  One of the actre
sses on the show was none other than Sally Struthers, who played Gloria on one of my all-time favorite TV programs, All in the Family. We had a wild night at her house, with me and my stand-in on the show, Kerry. Stoned out of my mind, I was staring at all the Emmy awards from her decades in the business. I remember Sally was laughing the whole time and it was really fun to party with Gloria. I almost felt like a Meathead myself that night.

  One of my favorite memories of the show was the day when Geddy Lee of Rush came to visit on set, with his daughter, who was a very big fan of the show. Kerry called me in my hotel room at the Sheraton Universal.

  “Hey dude! You’re not going to be believe who’s here to watch us today!”

  “Who is that?”

  “Geddy Lee of RUSH is here!!!”

  I was like, “What?”

  Gives you an idea as to the scope of the show. I went down to the set, and there he was. The Voice of the Holy Triumvirate Himself. A Canadian Deity. He told us all that he and his daughter enjoyed Gilmore Girls very much, and he complimented me on my transition from rock ’n’ roll to television. “Seamless,” he told me. I beamed with pride. We had such a great time that day. Around dinnertime, I said to Geddy, “Hey man!!! Why don’t you and your daughter be in the show?” He started laughing, and said, “Oh, I don’t know, Sebastian. Let me think about it.” I ran over to Helen Pai, producer (whose name was an anagram for our band, Hep Alien). I said, “Oh my God, we have to have Geddy Lee on the show!!” I knew that Daniel Palladino, and Amy Sherman-Palladino, series creators and writers, would love it. (I had spent a booze-fueled night at the Rainbow with Daniel, talking about the day he first saw Rush, on their first-ever tour playing in the Los Angeles area, back in the ’70s.) She said, “Okay,” and we filmed a scene in which Geddy and I sang and played guitar. Sadly, when it came time to watch the episode, Geddy was barely noticeable in the scene. Which was a real shame. But it was so much fun hanging out with them that day and working together for an hour or two. It felt amazing to be on a television set with Gloria from All in the Family and the lead singer of Rush, all at the same time. Was this a dream I was living? Or what?