“Worst Thing I Ever Heard”: The Tense Phone Call(s) Made Before Hair Metal Band Skid Row Came up With Their Name

Before there was the Skid Row of Toms River, New Jersey, fame with hair metal hits like “I Remember You” and “18 and Life,” there was the Skid Row of Dublin, Ireland, fame, a blues outfit formed on the influence of late 1960s rock ‘n’ rollers like Jimi Hendrix and Cream. Rock lovers in the States might not have realized that there was a Skid Row playing, recording, and touring decades before the American band landed their first record deal in 1988.

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Of course, considering members of the American band claimed they came up with the name, it would be an understandable mistake to make.

Irish Skid Row vs. American Skid Row

The first Skid Row from Dublin, Ireland, included Brendan Shiels on bass, Noel Bridgeman on drums, Bernard Cheevers on guitar, later replaced by Gary Moore (yes, of Thin Lizzy fame), and Phil Lynott on vocals. They played their first gig together in 1967. The second American Skid Row from New Jersey included Rachel Bolan on bass, Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill on guitar, Rob Affuso on drums, and Sebastian Bach on vocals. The band landed their first record deal with Atlantic Records in the late 1980s with the help of Jon Bon Jovi, who was childhood friends and former bandmates with Sabo.

As they often do in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, half-rumor, half-myths began circulating about the passing of the torch from the Irish to the Americans. Legend had it that Moore sold the rights to the Skid Row name to the New Jersey musicians for $35,000, or roughly $99,000 today. “That was the worst thing I’d ever heard,” Shiels told Guitar World. “Gary rang and said, ‘Jon Bon Jovi is managing this band with Richie Sambora and Doc McGee. They’d love to use our name.’ They thought it was Gary’s band. But he wasn’t even there when it started! Gary said, ‘Jon Bon Jovi should be ringing you.’”

Shiels said he found a lawyer in Dublin before adding, “I can’t get into it. But there’s some very funny stories about me going to look for Jon Bon Jovi when he came over. It kind of turned into a mythological thing, where I went to look for him when he was playing and asked him about why he stole the name. But all I wanted was an apology.”

Finding a Silver Lining Out Of Court

Brendan “Brush” Shiels of the Irish Skid Row is willing to tell his side of the story. But that doesn’t mean he’s looking for legal retribution, especially not in the 2020s when neither the Irish nor American version of the band is as popular as they once were. “At this stage, I’m not going to sue them,” Shiels told Guitar World. “They’re getting so little for their gigs that they’ll be the ruin of my lifestyle.”

“I do talk to Sebastian Bach every so often—you know, the guy they let go,” Shiels continued. “He said they told them they’d given Gary [Moore] $35,000 for the name. I said,  ‘No such thing ever happened. They must have taken the $35,000 and split it between the two of them!” 

While Shiels would gladly take an apology from Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, or anyone else involved in the evolution of the American Skid Row, he asserts that he’s “Happy enough. We disappeared off the face of the Earth, and somebody else took up our name. The fact that they stole our name means that Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora must have been listening to our records.”

Photo by Krasner/Trebitz/Redferns