I really don't get it. All the hatred that comes from "fans" of rock/ metal singers when the band dares to replace a singer. We went through it when Todd La Torre replaced Geoff Tate in Queensryche, when Ripper Owens replaced Rob Halford in Judas Priest, and when Blayze Bayley replaced Bruce Dickinson in Iron Maiden. There are others which we will get to shortly, but now, we are going to focus on the current situation.
The current situation is of course, Tony Harnell of TNT replacing NOT Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, but Johnny Solinger of Skid Row. But, if you read over the comments on Blabbermouth's Facebook page. you'd swear that Skid Row with Sebastian Bach had been a united force releasing hits and packing stadiums since the 80's, and that the band had just replaced Bach out of the blue. That isn't the case. Not even close.
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| Its 18. As in the number of years Solinger was in Skid Row. |
Skid Row and Sebastian Bach parted ways in 1996, and have had (NOT counting Tony Harnell) not one, but TWO singers since Bach. Johnny Solinger has been Skid Row's singer for almost TWENTY YEARS which is almost double the amount of time that Bach was the singer,
One of the most prevalent comments I've seen is about the newly released re recording of the Skid Row hit, 18 and Life with Tony Harnell on vocals. These people somehow think that the recording is a slap in the face to Sebastian Bach. It isn't. Its simply a preview of what is coming from the band, The band understands that releasing a classic hit would reach more people than it would if they had re recorded one of the songs from any of their albums with Solinger. Really. That's all it is. A preview, and a damn good one at that. The band is not going to re record the first two albums. Tony Harnell not only hit all of the notes in that song, he nailed them. That's the best that song has sounded since it was originally recorded. Sebastian Bach is a great studio singer, but he was nowhere near as good live than he was in the studio. Another fact that is lost on some of these people is that Harnell was announced as the singer 2 weeks ago, and the band has already clicked with him well enough to record this song.
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| Harnell |
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| Bach |
Click this link. Its a live performance of Sebastian Bach while with Skid Row.(In the 80's.) Now, click this link. Its a performance of Tony Harnell that was done last year with TNT. At 50 years old, Harnell sounds better live than Bach did when he was in his 20's. There, I said it. Nothing against Bach at all. He has always been and always will be one of my favorite singers. But so is Harnell.
This move also is not like Owens, La Torre, or Bayley replacing the singers in Priest, Queensryche, and Maiden. Its much different. Its more like Ronnie James Dio replacing Ozzy in Black Sabbath than anything. Harnell is a well known and respected singer. The aforementioned singers were relative unknowns for the most part.
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| Truth |
Its really as simple as this: Sebastian Bach and Skid Row will never reunite. To expect them to hang it up just because Bach (who is NOT even the original singer) is stupid and delusional. If you like Skid Row, they finally have a singer who can not only nail the notes, but is a class act. Go see them, and buy the albums. Or, don't. But to trash and insult the band is stupid. To say that Tony Harnell sucks is idiotic, and shows ignorance on an epic scale. The band knows better what is best for them than their so called fans who apparently didn't even know that Bach has been gone for years. To expect them to simply change the name is even more ignorant. The band owns the name, so why should they?
I guess another situation you could compare this to would be when Van Halen brought in Sammy Hagar. Everyone was screaming about how horrible it was. Then, after a couple decades, they brought back David Lee Roth, and the same people are bitching about that. Maybe these people need to just let the band do what they need to do. Van Halen proves that no matter what a band does, the fans are never going to be satisfied as long as it doesn't sound exactly like it did back in the glory days.
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| We brought Dave back! What more do you want??? |
