Former TNT and SKID ROW singer Tony Harnell celebrated the fourth anniversary of his getting sober on January 30. Harnell tweeted: “Today marks 4 years alcohol-free. Thank you to all those who have been there for me along my journey. Sending love to those who are struggling today. Take care of yourselves. #grateful #onedayatatime #nojudgement #love”.
Harnell previously said that his drinking was partly responsible for him quitting SKID ROW via social media, explaining that it was “a really dumb” and “very unprofessional” thing to do.
Harnell joined SKID ROW in April 2015 as the replacement for Johnny Solinger, who was the band’s frontman for fifteen years. Tony quit the group only eight months later, writing in a Facebook post that “being ignored and disrespected isn’t my thing.”
Tony later said in an interview with “Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon” that he made his exit official after going through was he described as “one of the most difficult times” in his life. “And the climax of it was the end of 2015, and I was in a bar, drinking way too much, was pissed off at the world, and did a stupid thing,” he said. “And that was it. And it was very unprofessional. I’ve never done anything like that before, and I haven’t done anything like that since. And I’m not proud of it.”
Harnell went on to confirm that his drinking “played a role” in the way he went about quitting SKID ROW. “And a lot of people that know me would be, like, ‘What? We never saw the guy drunk,'” he said. “It was my little private thing that a lot of people weren’t really aware of — not even some people that were very close to me. So that definitely played a role. I wouldn’t say that it was the only thing that was ‘wrong’ at the time, but it did play a role in the whole scenario.”
Tony also claimed that he has since “apologized to both the band and the fans.” He added: “It was a really dumb thing to do. That’s basically all there is to it.”
SKID ROW guitarist Dave “Snake” Sabo told the “Trunk Nation” show that things fell apart so quickly with Harnell because “some things just aren’t meant to work… they just don’t work together. Knowing him before and then working with him, it was two separate… it really was two different things,” he explained. “A lot of conflict, a lot of butting heads, and it just… it never meshed, it was never right. We knew him for a long time, [but we] never worked with him — never worked in a band situation, in a band environment with him. And you know what — for better or for worse, this is our band; it belongs to us. And so if someone is gonna come in and work with us, we have a certain way that we do things, and that may not work for some people. It didn’t work for him. Look, [he’s] a talented guy; it just wasn’t right for us.”
Harnell was replaced in SKID ROW by South African-born, British-based singer ZP Theart, who previously fronted DRAGONFORCE, TANK and I AM I.
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