Skid Row‘s own living legend and primary songwriter Rachel Bolan recently spoke with Metal Wani‘s Carl O’Rourke ahead of their show at Stonedeaf 2018. The 80’s icons were set to headline the festival, taking to the stage to close out the show after their fellow prestigious peers such as Canadian royalty Anvil as well as The Graham Bonnet Band and more. With an inevitably good night ahead, Bolan was in fine from when he sat down to talk about all things Skid Row.
Since ZP Theart took over vocal duties for the band three years, there has been a fresh excitement around Skid Row both internally and externally, and Rachel agrees.
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“Oh yeah, that’s completely true. He joined the band about three years ago, and it’s like we’ve just been on a rocket, you know what I mean? He brought an energy to the band that we’ve been missing for a while. Other than being a talented singer and a great frontman, he’s a team player. It’s really cool to have that fifth element that thinks alike to what we think and it’s all about the band all the time. Things have just been going really, really good and we’ve been playing so much that, it’s like the old days. It’s like when do we get rest? We don’t need any rest! We’ll sleep when we’re dead! [Laughs]”
Chapter 3 of the United World Rebellion will mark the end of the trilogy with a full length album and the first record with vocalist ZP. Asked if there was any nervousness or trepidation surrounding the album, Rachel shared,
“We’re really excited about it. To be working with Michael [Wagner] again, he’s a really good friend and it’s just something that adds another element to it, another element of excitement. We’ve been in pre-production and working on songs, and the only part that makes us nervous, and it’s a good nervous, because we’re just picking the songs to do and that’s alway the hardest part. So we’re just getting into pre-production and making demos of everything as every band does. Then it comes to the part of deciding what sings we’re gonna actually put out. And this is gonna be a full length record instead of an EP, so picking songs is a bit difficult but we’ll get by. There’s worse problems to have.” Rachel concluded, “As of right now, it’s gonna be all originals. But things could change. We might throw one cover on there, we don’t know. But as of right now we’re just taking all originals.”
On what can be expected from the final instalment Rachel offered,
“When we play it for people they’re like oh my god, this could be the second half of Slave to the Grind. This could have in between or right before Youth Gone Wild on the first record we we’re like okay, cool! We know where we’re going now. It’s a really good feeling, and Michael Wagner he pulls no punches when it comes to telling his opinions on what he thinks of the songs which is great. that’s what you need a producer to do. And he’s just like man, he looked at us and was like this is some of the best shit you guys have written, for real. So that makes me feel really good because I really respect his opinion.”
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Asked why he thinks bands like Skid Row suffer after lineup changes, Rachel gave some insight.
“There’s a couple of angles to look at. Like promoters for instance, they love reunions, you know what I mean? Because that means dollars, and they think on the big scale. I get it, I don’t agree with it, but I get it. Some fans just don’t like change, and that’s a shame. If I were like that then I wouldn’t have liked most of the lineups of Rainbow or Sabbath or AC/DC or Deep Purple, you know what I mean? It’s like things change man! [Laughs] That’s nothing at all spacey or hippie, maybe that’s the Aquarius in me that just likes change man. I’m not afraid of change. Some people are, and whatever, that’s their thing. We’re gonna keep doing this as long as we can keep doing it. It took us a long time to find the absolute, perfect guy for the band but it’s all full steam ahead right now.”