Like most Tool fans, we were surprised in February 2018 when one of the first reviews of the band's new music came from none other than former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, who heard work-in-progress Fear Inoculum material while visiting the group's L.A. studio. "Some tunes were so pummeling, it felt like I was getting a deep-tissue massage!" he reported in a Facebook post. In a recent interview with Forbes, the hair-metal icon casually dropped tantalizing new details regarding his relationship with the prog-metal titans — in fact, he claimed that Tool offered him the chance to open for them on their current tour and, even more incredible, he turned them down.
"The first thing I would tell you is, I lived in Studio City [in Los Angeles] for two years recently. And I've moved since then, but my next-door neighbor was Adam Jones from Tool," Bach revealed. "We became super fucking close friends, nothing to do with music. His kids come over to my house to play. He comes to our birthday parties. He came to my 50th birthday party, brought Danny [Carey] from Tool, and I'm really good friends with Adam. We bond over comic books."
"Believe it or not," he continued, "I just recently had to turn down the opening slot for Tool. Adam wanted Sebastian Bach to open two weeks of shows in arenas. But I was already booked! So that's mind-blowing to me. … I think the success of bands like Tool is just undeniable that people want to hear heavy fucking rock, and how can you deny that? It's right in your face."
For our part, though we have no complaints about the opening act on the group's current tour (the mighty Killing Joke), we would've loved to have seen Bach melting some Tool fan faces.
