SEBASTIAN BACH Pays Tribute To CINDERELLA’s JEFF LABAR: ‘He Did Not Deserve To Leave Us So Soon’

BLABBERMOUTH.NET

Former SKID ROW singer Sebastian Bach has issued a brief statement regarding the passing of CINDERELLA guitarist Jeff LaBar. Jeff was found dead by his wife, Debinique Salazar-LaBar, on Wednesday, July 14 inside his apartment in Nashville. He was 58 years old. On Friday, Bach took to his Twitter to share a photo of him with LaBar, and he wrote in an accompanying message: "Rock in Peace to my buddy Jeff LeBar. We had some good times together and he did not deserve to leave us so soon. To his son Sebastian hang in there dude & be strong from the other Sebastian your dad will always be by your side". LaBar joined CINDERELLA in time to record the band's debut album, 1986's "Night Songs", which peaked at position No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and was eventually certified triple platinum. It included CINDERELLA's biggest hit, "Nobody's Fool", which reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. CINDERELLA's second album, 1988's "Long Cold Winter", was also certified triple platinum. The band's third LP, 1990's "Heartbreak Station", went platinum before the rise of the grunge movement effectively killed glam and hair metal, resulting in drastically lower sales for the band's final release, 1994's "Still Climbing". LaBar released a solo album, "One For The Road", in 2014. Although CINDERELLA hadn't released a new studio album since "Still Climbing", the band started playing sporadic shows again in 2010 but had been largely inactive for the last few years while frontman Tom Keifer focused on his solo career. Back in 2016, LaBar accepted blame for CINDERELLA's prolonged period of inactivity, explaining that his "drinking problem" caused a rift between him and his bandmates. He told "Another FN Podcast With Izzy Presley": "I can only speculate, but I believe it's all my fault. It's no secret that I've had a drinking problem. And it showed its ugly face on one of those [cruises that CINDERELLA played]. I guess that's what caused a rift… When I fell out on one of those cruise ships in front of everybody — like, basically O.D.'d — that's when the band, and mostly Tom, took notice and was, like, 'What the fuck?'" Asked if he was sober at the time of the interview, LaBar said: "No, I'm not. Which is the problem. Which is probably the problem. Like I said, I can only speculate, because I don't talk to the other guys anymore. I talk to Fred every now and then. Eric [Brittingham, bass] lives 20 minutes from me. We haven't talked lately, but Eric and I have been the most consistent of all my bandmates throughout the past 32 years. It's just Tom and I that don't talk anymore. And I can only speculate that he's very disappointed and doesn't wanna see me die. He doesn't wanna witness me dying."