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Skid Row's Sebastian Bach: 'If you support Donald Trump, you stand against rock 'n' roll'

Former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach was trending on Thursday morning after he tweeted, “If you support Donald Trump you stand against rock ‘n' roll” — a post that he had pinned to the top of his Twitter page, just in case anyone missed it in the middle of the night. He then doubled down with a spree of angry replies to the MAGA supporters who bashed him.

Many fans seemed surprised, pleasantly or otherwise, by the mouthy metal man’s tweets, apparently assuming that he was politically conservative. But Bach has actually long held an anti-Trump stance — dating back to the 2016 presidential election, when the former star of VH1’s Gone Country and Supergroup and ABC’s Sing Your Face Off snarkily tweeted, “I would do a better job [as president]. After all, my reality TV shows were better than [Trump’s] reality TV shows so that makes me automatically more qualified.”

Bach has not backed down since the 2016 election. In November 2018, he made headlines alongside the also unexpectedly outspoken Axl Rose, when the two joined forces on Twitter to react to the president’s widely criticized tweet blaming that month’s California fires on forest mismanagement. That same year, in an interview with TheRecord.com, Sebastian revealed that he had voted for Hillary Clinton, saying, "I don't understand how anybody would accept a reality show host as president instead of a politician. It's insanity. It's like starting a band and your first show is at Toronto SkyDome. You gotta build up to it."

This election year, Bach’s anti-Trump comments have become more frequent. In March, he defended NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander after Trump called Alexander a "terrible reporter" for asking the president to address Americans who are afraid during the pandemic. “The United States of America is Over until further notice. There is no end in sight,” a seemingly outraged Bach tweeted. “Our reality TV show host leader is a petulant little baby who doesn't believe in science when it's science and science only that will get us out of this science fiction novel. He is killing us.” More recently, Bach tweeted that Trump supporters are "complete f***ing idiots" and “only a moron would vote for Donald Trump this November.”

Bach is not the only ’80s metal star to express his anti-Trump views. Motley Crüe’s Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx are not fans of the current president either. But Bach’s above-mentioned friend Axl Rose is the most vocal of the bunch, so much so that the hashtag “#wokeaxl” often trends on social media. Earlier this month, the Guns N’ Roses star posted a lengthy rant about his “disdain for our current administration,” acknowledging that not all GNR fans will agree with his political opinions, but explaining, “In general my posts in regard to current events, politics or social issues are usually coming from a sense of outrage, obligation, and responsibility to say something at times when I feel not to is being complicit.”

Last year, Rose’s bandmate Duff McKagan, whose 2019 solo album, Tenderness, addressed socio-political issues like gun control in schools and the #MeToo movement, told Yahoo Entertainment, “[Axl] is woke. ... If you're gonna try to outsmart him, or out-intellectual him, it ain't gonna work. You're gonna be in trouble. When Axl says something, I know how much he thinks about it first, and he does research. If he says anything publicly, or tweets it or whatever, he's thought long and hard about it. It's not some anger tweet. So, go ahead and unfollow him, I suppose, if that’s the worst thing you can do.”

Rose’s “disdain” post drew the support of Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider, who responded on Twitter with, “Brother Axl Rose, for what it’s worth, I stand with you.” Snider, a former friend of the president after appearing on Trump’s reality show Celebrity Apprentice, told Yahoo Entertainment in an interview last year that he had asked Trump to stop playing Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” at rallies, explaining, “There's a lot that he does not stand with, and I don't stand with him.” Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French has also recently bashed Trump, calling the president a “functionally illiterate racist.”

Meanwhile, Bach’s Supergroup co-star, Ted Nugent, remains one of hard rock’s most steadfast Trump supporters. There seems to be no love lost between Nugent and Bach, with Bach blasting the “Free-for-All” singer for, among other transgressions, hunting animals and allegedly being racist on the Supergroup set.

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