John Preston Solinger (August 7, 1965 – June 26, 2021) was known as Johnny Solinger and was an American singer known for being the lead vocalist of the hard rock/heavy metal band Skid Row from 1999 to 2015.
Johnny Solinger moved to the Dallas–Fort Worth area as a young boy, where he was exposed to hard rock and country music, and fell in love with them both.
In 1990, he formed the rock band Solinger in Dallas, recording four independent records “Solinger”, “Solinger II”, “Chain Link Fence”, and “Solinger Live”. He enjoyed live performance and radio success throughout the Southwest.
In 1999, Skid Row members Dave “The Snake” Sabo, Rachel Bolan, and Scotti Hill hired Johnny Solinger to replace previous lead vocalist Sebastian Bach.
Skid Row is an American rock band formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey, and achieved commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with its first two albums “Skid Row” in 1989 and “Slave to the Grind” in 1991 certified multi-platinum. “Slave to the Grind” also reached number one on the Billboard 200. Those two albums also produced some of Skid Row’s most popular hits, both in and outside of the United States, including “18 and Life” and “I Remember You”, which peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and other charting singles such as “Youth Gone Wild”, “Monkey Business”, “Slave to the Grind”, “Wasted Time”, and “In a Darkened Room”.
The band’s third album “Subhuman Race” in 1995 was also critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat the success of the first two. Those three albums featured the band’s “classic” lineup, which consisted of Bolan, Sabo, Hill, drummer Rob Affuso and frontman Sebastian Bach. The band had sold 20 million albums worldwide by the end of 1996. Amid rising tensions, Bach and Affuso both left Skid Row towards the end of that year, after which the band entered a three-year hiatus.
Skid Row reformed in 1999, with Johnny Solinger as Bach’s replacement and a revolving cast of drummers. Johnny Solinger recorded two albums with the band “Thickskin” in 2003 and “Revolutions per Minute” in 2006, as well as the EPs “United World Rebellion: Chapter One” in 2013 and “Rise of the Damnation Army – United World Rebellion: Chapter Two” in 2014 to mixed receptions.
In April 2015, Skid Row announced that they had parted ways with Johnny Solinger, and replaced him with former TNT singer Tony Harnell.
With over 15 years in the band, Johnny Solinger was Skid Row’s longest-serving vocalist.
In 2008, Johnny Solinger also pursued a country music solo career. His first country album, called “Johnny Solinger” was only released regionally and has both country and rock songs on it, including the song “You Lie”, which he recorded with his band mates from Skid Row.
Johnny Solinger revealed his diagnosis in a social media update on May 8, 2021 and wrote “It is with a heavy heart I must let everyone know what’s going on with me and my health. I have been hospitalized for over the last month. I have been diagnosed with liver failure. And prognosis is not so good. As with most musicians I do not have health insurance and it’s very difficult to get proper care without it. I am currently under at least seven different medications and I need to have my abdomen drained of fluid that gets accumulated every couple of days. I have lost a lot of strength and will require physical therapy as well.”
Johnny Solinger died one month later on June 26, 2021, he was 55 years old.
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