Twisted Sister legend, Dee Snider, recently spoke with RockPages.gr about his Frats novel, his recording career, and much more. An excerpt follows...
Rockpages.gr: Will we be treated with a third solo record, because the truth is that you have spoiled us with For The Love Of Metal and Leave A Scar.
Dee Snider: "Don’t hold your breath! I feel like I’m done. I said that after For The Love Of Metal and then COVID hit and I called Jamey Jasta up and he said he wanted to do another record. But right, right now I’m feeling very, very comfortable in who I am, what I am, what I’m doing. And how I’m spending my life. I’m not feeling this urge. And it helps that those last two albums For The Love Of Metal and Leave A Scar and then the live record For The Love Of Metal – Live really, I feel I put an exclamation mark on the end of my career. I think it’s thanks to Jamey Jasta, you know, encouraging me to get back to true, real metal and what I really was about. My last two records are very powerful. The performances are there, everything’s there. And as a legacy, I like seeing those albums at the end of my recording career. Because, you know, I mean I’m always very honest, even to the point where I get in trouble with other bands for being too honest.
"And I also listen to people being honest about me. I’m telling you about having no money and being broke. But, the end of Twisted Sister, as much fun as it was and whatever, our last record is a “Christmas” record and it was fun. And I’m not ashamed of it. I loved it, you know? But, then I went and left Twisted Sister and I did a solo album, which was kind of someone challenged me to do, like a mainstream rock record, We Are The Ones and it’s a good record, but it wasn’t really Dee Snider. It was an attempt to do something more mainstream. So, it could have ended with those records and I would have felt that that was really not the way I’d like to go out. It’s because of The Love Of Metal and Leave A Scar that I feel good about walking away and saying, 'yeah, take that! That’s Dee Snider. Remember that? I was 65 years old or whatever. That’s Dee Snider and good night'. So, those records are very important to me.
Black sheep of the family, nothing like the rest, separate from the others, failing all their tests."
Rockpages.gr: So, For The Love Of Metal and Leave A Scar are your last recordings ever?
Dee Snider: "I don’t see any going back. I just see where I am in my life and the things I’m doing and the things I want to do creatively. I’m supposed to direct my first movie. My drive is really to keep doing screenplays and novels and things like that and get off the stage, behind the camera and be a person on that side of things. I’ve been doing radio for over 30 years now, as well. I’m in my radio studio right now, so they give me satisfaction. I don’t feel like, 'oh, I’m missing out'. I feel I’m being satisfied creatively. I feel very creative and I feel very productive. So I’m very excited about what Dee Snider has on the horizon moving forward. So as long as I have things like that, I really don’t think about going back to doing what I did before."
Rockpages.gr: Do you realize that by saying that you are making your fans upset and sad, knowing that they won’t see you playing live again?
Dee Snider: "I love you guys, I love you… I love you people who want me to keep going, I get it. But, if we really analyze why you want me to keep going it’s because you have great memories of great shows and great music. And that’s why you want me to keep going. But, look at the bands that are out there and still going. How many of them have disappointed you when you see them? And they are running tapes now, and they’re not as good as they used to be… They don’t live up to the memory. And in fairness to them, they’re in their sixties, they’re in their seventies. How could they possibly be as good as they were in the twenties and thirties? But that’s our memories. I’m working against memories of really intense, aggressive live performances, which is what I think I did best. I’m a frontman for a band.
"One of my greatest compliments was Lemmy Kilmister, who saw the Beatles at the Cavern Club and the Stones at the Marquee Club. He roadied for Jimi Hendrix… He’s seen it all. And he said… he didn’t say it with this voice (imitating Lemmy’s voice), 'you know Dee, you’re one of the best three frontmen I’ve ever seen, and the best at talking to a crowd'. No one better than Dee Snider talking to a crowd. That meant the world to me because I do consider that to be what I’m really good at. But, I have a style that’s very aggressive and very intense, and if I can’t keep that level of intensity up, I don’t want to see smiles on the faces of the audience. I never want to see disappointment. And I hear the stories… Just go on social media. You hear the comments about - I’m not going to name bands - who are still out there who’ve been farewell touring forever, or reuniting after they said goodbye. And people are posting terrible YouTube videos of these people, of heroes, and write horrible things about them and showing how they’re falling apart, their weakness. I don’t want to disappoint you guys, and I don’t want to be subjected to that either. I don’t want having myself memorialized because my best days have not been memorialized. There was no gazillion social media cameras in the world back in 1980s where people could capture this: Snider, in his prime in his twenties. So there’s a lot of great stuff from my fifties and sixties, you know. But but he said, I know that I can’t keep doing it at that level, and I don’t want to see those postings on there, like 'Dee isn’t what he used to be.'"
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