Dey Street Books (formerly It Books), an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, has set an April 12, 2016 release date for “18 And Life On Skid Row”, the much-anticipated autobiography from former SKID ROW singer Sebastian Bach.
HarperCollins has just released final cover for the book to BLABBERMOUTH.NET. Check it out below.
Official description of the 288-page book: “’18 And Life On Skid Row’ tells the story of a boy who spent his childhood moving from Freeport, Bahamas to California and finally to Canada and who at the age of eight discovered the gift that would change his life.
“Throughout his career, Sebastian Bach has sold over 20 million records, both as the lead singer of SKID ROW and as a solo artist. He is particularly known for the hit singles ‘I Remember You’, ‘Youth Gone Wild’ and ’18 And Life’, and the albums ‘Skid Row’ and ‘Slave To The Grind’, which became the first-ever hard rock album to debut at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 and landed him on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Bach then went on to become the first rock star to grace the Broadway stage, with starring roles in ‘Jekyll & Hyde’, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and ‘The Rocky Horror Show’. He also appeared for seven seasons on the hit television show ‘The Gilmore Girls’.
“In his memoir, Bach recounts lurid tales of excess and debauchery as he toured the world with BON JOVI, AEROSMITH, MÖTLEY CRÜE, SOUNDGARDEN, PANTERA, NINE INCH NAILS and GUNS N’ ROSES. Filled with backstage photos from his own personal collection, ’18 And Life On Skid Row’ is the story of hitting it big at a young age, and of a band that broke up in its prime. It is the story of a man who achieved his wildest dreams, only to lose his family, and then his home. It is a story of perseverance, of wine, women and song and a man who has made his life on the road and always will. ’18 And Life On Skid Row’ is not your ordinary rock memoir, because Sebastian Bach is not your ordinary rock star.”
In an October 2014 interview with Psycho Babble TV, Bach stated about his upcoming autobiography: “My first impulse was not to have a typical book of, like, starting at your childhood, going through, and then you rise and then you fall and then you come back… that whole typical storyline. When I read Neil Young’s book, ‘Waging Heavy Peace’, I’m a big Neil Young fan, and his book’s not linear, it’s not, like, ‘Here’s me as a kid, here’s…’ I just found it interesting. I like to be surprised. I don’t like to be bored. Being bored is boring. But, having said that, when I read Paul Stanley’s book, the story of how he was not famous, or KISS was not famous, and then they became KISS, and what that is like, to go from being a normal person and then being a rock star, that is fascinating to read by anybody, and I have that story. So, even thought I might not personally find that totally interesting to me, to the reader, to read about, okay, I was, like, a teenager and then a millionaire on television and touring the world, that’s a fascinating story. So I wanna tell those details.”
Bach talked in more detail about the writing process for his autobiography in a 2013 interview with Metalshrine. He said: “When I first got the [book] deal [with HarperCollins], they wanted me to use a co-writer and I thought that was bullshit, but at the same time, I had proved to them that I was capable of writing a book, so they said, ‘OK, we’ll give you a chance.’ I wrote, like, 25 pages and they loved it. They loved my writing and they said, ‘Yeah, Sebastian, you can write it all on your own!’ That was extremely important to me and like a milestone. I said, ‘I can? Wow!’ It meant a lot to me, so I’m taking it very seriously and I don’t plan on writing just one book over the course of my life. I’d like to write more than one. I love Henry Rollins‘ books! His books are amazing, like ‘Black Coffee Blues’ and ‘Get In The Van’. He’s just a great writer and I love the way he writes. I used to write on my web site all the time and now I’m just kinda taking it off the Internet and putting it into the pages of the book. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Speaking to Billboard.com in 2012, Bach admitted that writing his autobiography seemed “like such an overwhelming project,” but expressed confidence that he had the goods to make the project work.
“Oh, my story is insanely insane,” he said. “I think I could do a hell of a book. I could make the dirt look clean if I wanted to. Or it could also be a photo book of all the early SKID ROW pictures that chicks from the Internet cannot get enough of, the pinups and stuff. Every time I put one of those on my web site, the Internet shuts down. I’d want to write it by myself; I look at Duff McKagan’s book, Dee Snider’s — they wrote those by themselves and they’re amazing book. The main thing is it has to blow me away before I release it. It has to give me goose bumps or I won’t put it out.”
Source: Blabbermouth
