The Last Hard Men

The Last Hard Men were an alternative music supergroup composed of former Skid Row vocalist Sebastian Bach, The Frogs guitarist Jimmy Flemion, The Breeders guitarist–vocalist Kelley Deal, and The Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin.

Formation
Kelley Deal had previously heard that Sebastian Bach had a good voice and felt he "was the realest of the hair band squealers". She had a friend see if Bach could be reached to consider doing a project. A few weeks later Bach (recently broken up with the band Skid Row) called her up and agreed to discuss the idea. Soon after he met Deal backstage after one of her Kelley Deal 6000 shows in New York.

It was agreed that they would do a cover of Alice Cooper's "School's Out" for the soundtrack of Wes Craven's movie Scream. Deal told the interviewer "We knew they wanted someone to do that song for the movie, so I thought 'who else could I get to do this?' See, my idea was always to have a band with two heavy metal guys and two others. I wanted Jimmy (Flemion) and Sebastian was supposed to bring Tommy Lee, but that didn't happen. Sebastian said it was too bad we couldn't get Jimmy (Chamberlin), but that he didn't think he'd do it. But I did my thing and called Jimmy up and asked him to do it. He said sure."

The group convened in the fall of 1996 to record the self-titled The Last Hard Men. Deal planned to have the album to come out on her own Nice Records label "with distribution via a bigger label. She also stated "I don't know if it's a one-off. And I don't know if we'll tour, although Sebastian is already drawing up pyro plans for the shows, but I don't think it's odd at all. I think this is normal, it's the thing everybody should be doing."

After all the band members went off to their own separate pursuits, Bach (promoting his new solo album) was asked about the band by a French magazine, he expressed his happiness with the project placing it alongside earlier work he was proud of. He told the interviewer "'The Last Hard Men' was just a project, nothing to do with Bring 'Em Bach Alive!...It was really rock'n roll because we didn't care about the album's production. When I think that some musicians had been staying in studio for weeks, that makes me crazy. When you listen to 'Monkey Business' from Slave to the Grind, the production wasn't really good, but it sounds so heavy."

Discography

 * The Last Hard Men (1998, reissued in 2001 with modified track listing)
 * Scream – soundtrack featuring the band's cover of "School's Out"