Earlier this year, Erik Grönwall stepped down from his role as lead singer of Skid Row, after a two-year stint with the band. Citing health issues as the main reason for his departure, guitarist Dave ‘Snake’ Sabo recently discussed the situation in detail during an interview on Rockin’ 101’s ‘The Johnny Rock Show.’
“Erik did ‘The Gang’s All Here’ record, and then Erik was able to spend almost three years in the band. But whether you know or not, Erik’s a cancer survivor, and he had a bone marrow transplant in order to put him in remission,” the guitarist recalled.
“And he immediately, once he was in remission and started getting some energy back, he immediately wanted to get back out and start singing again. And so we called him up and said, ‘Hey, man, we just recorded a record and we’d love for you to sing on it.’ And we sent him the music, and he did.”
Grönwall, who was a member of H.E.A.T. for almost a decade, left his previous band in late 2020. A year later, he revealed that he was cancer-free after undergoing a bone marrow transplant to treat his acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
The singer made his debut with Skid Row in March 2022 with a performance in Las Vegas. “Then all of a sudden we started touring,” Sabo continued. “We could see early on that his health was still not there yet, and he knew it too. And so we did the best that we could with his situation, and he gave us all that he could, but it got to a point where it just was too much for his body at that particular point. And the way we tour, it’s tough, it’s a grind, and we attempted to compromise and come up with a situation where it would benefit his health.”
“But after speaking with his doctors and him and his family and stuff, it turned out to be that we just wouldn’t be able to work it out from a health perspective for him and from a sort of an economic standpoint for the band. We didn’t wanna go and go in and have to go postpone more shows and things like that and then have to make them up later on down the road. It wasn’t good for him and it wasn’t good for the band and stuff.”
He concluded, “But we’re thankful for the time that we got to spend with them. He’s a great singer. And we were able to do two records that we’re really, really proud of — ‘The Gang’s All Here,’ which we’re extremely proud of, we all are. And then the live record.”
After Grönwall left, Skid Row brought in Lzzy Hale to help finish their remaining tour dates for 2024. The vocalist himself took a short break before returning to the stage for a Europe show in Stockholm, Sweden.
Grönwall also worked on new music, teaming up with Michael Schenker to cover some UFO songs for the ‘My Years with UFO’ album and releasing a demo track originally planned for a Skid Row album. He is now preparing to tour with Schenker through 2025.
