Jeff LaBar, Cinderella’s guitar player joined Izzy Presley on Another FN’ Podcast to talk about his new record, One For The Road, which is available now on iTunes, Amazon, Best Buy and Rat Pak records.
While talking about the new album, LaBar tells stories about how he and former Skid Row front man Sebastian Bach ended up rooming together at the Moscow Music Peace Festival because then Skids drummer, Rob Affuso, booted Bach from their room.
He also discussed how Tom Keifer gave him a 1959 Sunburst Les Paul, the horrible deal that was offered to Cinderella by Gene Simmons before they were signed which stated that Simmons would get all of the publishing, own everything, and all songs would be written or co-written by the KISS bassist.
LaBar then went on to reveal the story of how he was pulled over by the police in the 90’s on his way to visit his son, who was about three at the time, while smoking crack and carrying a couple bundles of heroin. “The less Cinderella worked, the more heroin I did, and the more heroin I did, the more crack I smoked.” After a court ordered stay in rehab, he cleaned up his act, until a hip replacement surgery in 2011. Once his doctors prescribed him pain killers…and more pain killers, he got hooked. Whenever he asked for more, they just gave them to him. After another stay in rehab, he has been clean and sober since. He calls doctors and pain managers “legal drug dealers.”
When asked if that is why he was able to get out and play 10 days after the surgery, LaBar replied “Absolutely, I couldn’t walk, but I could play guitar”.
Listen to the entire show below.
source: izzypresleyproductions.com
14 Responses
Sounds like Bon Jovi with Skid Row. Maybe Gene tried it with Van Halen. Scumbag Gene. He needed loot, a lot of the usual suspects play while being a mess.
No not Gene Simmons….
My brother had the same problem with pain killers after he had knee surgery. His doctor just kept refilling the prescription. He had good insurance, so he was basically a payment guaranteed. He’d just make an appointment, get examined and boom, enough pills to last a month. He was hooked. Fast forward a few years and he was buying them through dealer and taking massive amounts every day. His life was destroyed. I personally grabbed him one day, told him to kiss his wife goodbye because he was going away for a while and I put him in a rehab facility and paid for it out of my own pocket, which hurt me financially but I had to do it to save his life. It was a long hard road, with a couple of relapses and him going through horrible withdrawals and even becoming addicted for a short time to a doctor prescribed opiate blocker which, again, was prescribed by a doctor each month for the price of a bogus office visit. But me, his wife, my mom and our family wouldn’t give up until he kicked the drugs once and for all. I’m happy to say he finally kicked it all and he’s got his life back now. But none of that would have happened and he and his family wouldn’t have gone through that Hell if it weren’t for crooked, and I think criminal, doctors. Jeff’s right, those evil doctors have found a way to be legal drug dealers.
I am glad that you were able to help your brother with his problem, and that he is now clean and sober. And there are definitely doctors that seem to want to just push more pills on their patients, instead of finding out the root cause of the patients problem. But I also believe alot of this is on the patient, and that they have some personal responsibility in that they should only be requesting more pain medication from the doctor if they really need it. You can’t tell me you don’t know when you have crossed the line of taking medication for a medical need, to taking medication to get high.
It’s so easy to get hook on painkiller! I had major neck surgery and the doctor gave twice the amount of painkiller I needed! Luck for me they made me sick so I didn’t really take many. But crack is something I’ll never get why people smoke it? I tried coke back in the day and I hated it so much!!! But everyone has a different chemical balance. Hope Jeff has his life in gear now.
Jeff is doing great now. The new record sounds great and he is looking to do some solo gigs. Listen to the interview :).
Once a person is hooked on pain killers, the drive then is to keep them in your system because the body’s pain receptors are shut down and without the drugs the withdrawal pains are so intense it’s not only a nightmare of unimaginable pain but can also be dangerous. I’ve never done any kind of drugs. I’ve never even smoked or used tobacco. So I can’t comprehend what’s going on in an addict’s mind. All I know is how it affected my brother and how scared he was but he was so hooked physically and psychologically his capacity for making intelligent decisions was gone. He knew he shouldn’t take the drugs but the pain of not taking them was too horrible to face. So I knew I had to take control of the situation for him. I do put some blame on him, but knowing how powerful those drugs are, those doctors knew my brother had been hooked and they did nothing because they were getting paid.
Jeff’s story is cautionary and I’m glad he’s doing great now.
Take away ftom this story? dont smoke crack and druve? No. It’s Just another reason to say Gene is a complete douche.
You forgot “blame the doctors”.
Lets see, side with the crack smoking, heroin injecting has’been who needs to smoke crack in the car on the way to seeing his young child? Or the 40+ year veteran of the industry who knows how to make money..? I think I know where I’m leaning.
A appreciate his honesty, and hope he’s better now. I saw Cinderella open for the David Lee Roth band at Madison Square Garden back in the day. It seemed like they wee poised to be the next big thing, but as we all know in the music business, there’s a fine line between the next big thing and going back to the bars.
Jeff is great now. Definitely a man who learned from his mistakes.