When Will Skid Row Tour Again?

Skid Row hasn’t played a live concert in nearly two years following the departure of vocalist Erik Gronwall. It’s the longest break the band has taken from the stage since they reactivated the group in 1999.

The easy answer, of course (at least on paper), is that they could just get their former vocalist Sebastian Bach back in the lineup. But as everyone not named Sebastian Bach has emphasized in multiple interviews, they have no interest in doing that.

So when they parted ways with Gronwall in March of 2024, they did what they’ve done before. They started to look for their next voice. Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale stepped in to play several highly regarded gigs with the band, to help honor their present commitments at that time. It would have been an easy bet to guess that they would quickly establish their next bandmate and move on.

READ MORE: Watch Skid Row Play First Show With Lzzy Hale

Why Skid Row Hasn’t Been Touring

But as we know now, they haven’t done that and bassist Rachel Bolan explains why. «We’ve had the luxury of time,» he tells UCR in a new interview. «We have the luxury of time to find the right person.»

«You know, the last few times we had a tour booked, or something happened, or we were in the middle of doing a record,» he details. «So now we’re at the point where we’re like, let’s take our time. If we don’t tour for a few years, then so be it. We’re always going to be able to tour. We just have to find the right person.»

What Skid Row Is Looking For

Understandably, now that they’ve done this a few times — and the knowledge gained through 40 years of being a band, they’ve got a pretty good handle on how they want to move forward with someone new. It comes with some conditions.

«We [want to] really go through everything meticulously [and find out], okay, can you go on the road? How many days can you [do it]? These poor people are getting a barrage of questions,» he says.

There Are ‘No Plans of Retiring’

«We want to be in a [good] situation,» he shares. «None of us have any plans of retiring anytime soon. So it’s like, let’s just run it and run it and run it until we can’t move our legs.»

The response to the nationwide search they launched with the help of online music retailer Sweetwater earlier this year has been positive. Bolan says they’ve received more than 300 submissions from prospective vocalists through the online contest and had about 20 more prior to that, connections they’d made with people they know in the business.

What’s Next For Skid Row?

While they’re looking forward to getting back on tour, the time away has been beneficial. «I had a lot of big changes in that time. I got married, I moved….you know, we had two houses that we moved out of, both of them and then the solo record,» Bolan says. «It was a lot [going on] in this time, man.»

«In June, it will be two years since our last show with Lzzy. So it went by pretty quickly, at first,» he adds. «You know, we’ll talk to each other on the phone. I’ll talk to one of the guys, and they’ll be like, ‘Man, we haven’t gigged in a while.’ I’ll sit there and a friend will ask me to get up and sit in with a band or something. I’m like, ‘Hell yeah. How many songs? I’ll learn all of them.»

Bolan says they’ve got some solid prospects they’re looking at — and he’s also preparing to put out his first solo album, Gargoyle of the Garden State on June 12.

READ MORE: Hear New Music From Skid Row’s Rachel Bolan

Skid Row is also starting to look at getting new songs together, a suggestion from management that they should begin to formulate plans so they’re ready when they select a new vocalist.

‘[They said], we know you don’t have a singer now, but you guys [need] to get a bunch of songs and get those magic songs in there,» he says — noting that it was a welcome call. «I got off that phone conversation, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I love this kind of pressure!’ I love having just something to work for.»