“And I know it’s been said a bazillion times, but it’s really true.”
Shortly after Skid Row formed in 1986, one of its co-founding members – guitarist Dave “Snake” Sabo – sought the advice of two successful figures in the music biz, Jon Bon Jovi (who he had been friends with for years) and then-Bon Jovi/current-Kiss manager, Doc McGhee. As he recently recounted during an interview with Tulsa Music Stream, the helpful tips eventually led to massive success for the group (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar).”As a band, [McGhee] told us very early on that your band has to be representative of who you truly are. Don’t be somebody else’s band – be who you truly are. Find your true self and that’s your band. And that was advice given to us by him, by Jon Bon Jovi as well. Because you want to be all things to everyone when you’re first starting out – ‘I want to be Randy Rhoads, I want to be Eddie Van Halen, I want to be Joe Perry, I want to be Michael Schenker, I want to be Ace Frehley, I want to be Kiss, I want to be Aerosmith.'”And while every rock musician starts off studying their influences, Sabo explained what the next step should be. “The trick is to take all of those things and to make them your own. And I know it’s been said a bazillion times but it’s really true. You take what other people have done – people that you admire, songs that you love…and I was lucky enough to have a great musical education growing up.”
“Having four older brothers playing everything from Motown to Elvis to Little Richard to Otis Redding to The Beatles, Black Sabbath. I mean, it goes on and on. I was raised with this myriad of musical influences, and they all played a huge part in helping develop who I am as a musician and a songwriter. And ultimately, what I bring to the table within Skid Row.”
Finally, McGhee didn’t mince words when it came to what he thought about Skid Row’s singer at the time. “Doc also was the guy who initially said, ‘I love your songs, can’t stand your singer original singer’ – before Sebastian [Bach]. He’s like, ‘Love the songs, you got to get a singer and he’s got to be a star. You can’t have a guy that just sits there and sings the songs, that sings the lyrics. You’ve got to have somebody who’s bigger than that and can sing these songs with believability and heart and soul.’ And that’s what happened – we were very lucky, and we had a good run with the original line-up.”
Sabo and co. heeded this advice – singer Sebastian Bach soon joined the up-and-coming band, McGhee signed on as their manager, and in 1988, issued their eventual 5x platinum self-titled debut (which spawned such hair metal hits as “Youth Gone Wild,” “18 and Life”, and “I Remember You”).
