by Dee Snider
And those were the people who liked me. I remember getting a call from my sister-in-law, Roseanne, who was house-sitting. She told me she had awoken the night before because she thought she heard something at the back door. As Roseanne approached the door, she heard the sound of rain. Funny, she said to herself, the weather didn’t say anything about rain. When she peered out the window . . . some guy was pissing on my back door! Clearly, he wasn’t a fan.
We hadn’t been in our awesome little corner house on the street for nine months and we had to leave. It wasn’t safe for my wife and especially our baby boy; and it wasn’t fun. Everyone wanted to party with Twisted Sister’s wild front man, but being wild was what I did for a living. It was the last thing I wanted to do when I got home.
ONE OTHER SAD SIDE effect of becoming “a star” is the way some friends and family treat you.
Caught up in a world of runaway success, you need those closest to you to be a stabilizing force. Suzette sure was. No matter how popular, successful, or famous I got, she remained unimpressed. I’d come home from the road pretty much “floating” into the house, I was so high on being a “rock god,” and she would bring me right down to earth. After the initial warm (often passionate) welcome home, the minute I would get egotistical about my accomplishments, Suzette would respond with something like “That’s great. Now go and empty the diaper pail, it smells like shit.” Instant ego deflation; message received. She couldn’t have been happier I was successful, but I was home now, her husband and her child’s father. There was no place for egomaniacal bullshit. That is the stabilizing consistency that has kept my feet (fairly) on the ground. Suzette is the one constant in my life. Other people . . . not so much.
When you are a struggling musician, you remain on par—if not below par—with all the people you know. You have always been the one with “a dream,” but the odds of your making it were slim to none, so everyone assumes this will be your place in their world: struggling artist. When suddenly you break through, and all the money and celebrity you’ve worked so hard for comes, it creates a major imbalance between you and them, and they can’t help but be affected.
In fairness to those around me, while I wanted them to treat me as they always had, with success I’d proven to the world I was right about the best parts of me . . . and I wanted them to forget the worst. Especially those old stories that made me look so uncool (and human). I guess I was complicit in their change of attitude toward me. This said, does anybody want to be reminded of the embarrassments of their youth? I rest my case. The fact remains, most of those closest to me were affected by my success, and it changed our relationships. I was no longer being held to the same standard.
One of the saddest experiences I had involving this was with a close childhood friend, Eddie G. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, and through high school Eddie was one of my closest. We had lost touch after he graduated medical school in podiatry, got married, and moved south to Nashville to open up a “drive-through podiatry center.” This was a joke, of course. Eddie was funny. When Twisted Sister broke big and we were finally going to be playing down South, I reached out to Eddie to reconnect. I could not wait to see my dear friend and share a bit of normalcy.
The day of the show in Nashville, I rushed to answer a knock on my room door. I was expecting Eddie, and though I was half-dressed and looked like hell, who cared? He’d seen me at my worst growing up; I wasn’t making a personal appearance. As I opened the door, there was a camera flash. When my eyes cleared, there stood Eddie with his wife—holding a camera—with uncomfortable, frozen grins on their faces. What was up with that?
Undeterred, I warmly invited them into my room, anxious to catch up and laugh with an old friend. No such luck. Eddie and his wife remained frozen and uncomfortable the entire visit, snapping candid photos of me at the most inopportune times. No matter what I did to try to make them feel at home, they could not relax and act normal. At this point in our rising career the band still stayed at motels, not hotels, so I took my guests to the laundry room with me. What could be more normal and less rock star than doing your laundry? Flash! They took a shot of me folding my damn underwear.
That’s how our day together began and ended. I never saw Eddie again. A sad casualty of fame and fortune.
TWISTED SISTER HIT THE road hard, and this time there was no looking back. With our record and our career taking off, we toured relentlessly for the next ten months. This is the part of every rock ’n’ roll memoir where eighties rock stars tell you their stories of sex-crazed, drug-and-alcohol-fueled rock ’n’ roll debauchery. After all, it was the “decade of decadence.” I have none of those stories to tell.
For a lot of reasons my rock ’n’ roll life was so different from that of my peers. For one, I was married and had a kid and a traditional home life. That meant something to me, and I didn’t want to screw it up. I didn’t. More than thirty-five years later, I look at my peers’ lives and am extremely happy with the choices I made and grateful to have an amazing wife, family, and life. Then there was my attitude to performing. I said it earlier, but it bears repeating:
If you have anything left after a performance, you cheated your audience. Period.
When I left the stage, I collapsed in my dressing room, guzzling bottles of Gatorade to rehydrate. Then, after warming down my voice, I’d get changed and go straight to the back lounge of our tour bus—no socializing for me. My voice was so shot every night from screaming my lungs out that I couldn’t afford to strain my throat talking to people in smoke-filled rooms over loud music. I had to rest.
Making sure I had eight hours of sleep each night to recover (no way was I doing drugs to sustain the energy I needed to perform), I’d wake up in pain every morning, my body aching from my aggressive stage performance the night before. I’d down a couple of cups of hot coffee to loosen my strained and closed-up throat, then climb into a steaming-hot bath. I had to soak my muscles and joints to loosen them up, and the steam from the bath further loosened my vocal cords. This ritual went on every night and day . . . and I was only in my twenties! Once I could move and speak again, I’d start my day. A day of interviews, travel, sound checks, and mentally and physically preparing myself for the next show. Some party, huh?
My mind-set was terrible. People always ask Suzette if she traveled on the road with me back in the day. “Hell no!” she tells them. “He was the most miserable bastard to be around. I hated going to visit him on tour.” I was miserable. It was almost as if I were punishing myself for something. I don’t know what.
Mentally I viewed myself as a “hit man” and conducted myself as such. I preferred to arrive in town in the middle of the night and slip into an out-of-the-way hotel, unnoticed. I didn’t want to be hounded by fans hanging and partying outside the hotel, sneaking into the lobby and hallways, banging on my door and calling my room (and they would). I needed to be undisturbed so I could get ready for the “hit.”
I’d sit in my room all day . . . waiting. Waiting for the time to kill my next victim—whatever rock crowd Twisted Sister was going to play for that night. As the killing time approached, like the hit man who slowly and methodically assembles his gun, I put on my makeup and costume, warmed up my voice, stretched my muscles . . . and then the band and I would make the “hit.” Every night. Then I’d get back on the bus and drive through the night to the next town, monotonously repeating the whole process, counting the days until my next break from the tour, when I could go home, see my family, and rest. That’s what I lived for.
People say, when they see me perform, I seem to be having so much fun. I am . . . and I’m not. I’m completely conflicted. I want and have to do it . . . but I hate doing it. As I’ve said before, I live for the feeling of exhilaration I get when I stop or am finished performing, but I can’t get that feeling without performing. The song should have been called “I Have to Rock!” It was a sickness.
37
have some cheese, ratt!
On
July 13 we joined forces with Ratt for a monthlong tour. Ratt was also on Atlantic Records and had a head start on the “race for platinum,” with an earlier release than ours. Doing dates with various openers such as Lita Ford and Mama’s Boys, we covered a lot of ground. From shows in New Hampshire (a festival with Cheap Trick headlining) to McAllen, Texas, on the Mexico border (where after seeing many soaking-wet “visiting” Mexican fans at the show, I learned the pejorative term wetback is literal), we switched off as headliners with Twisted closing in the Northeast and Ratt finishing up in Texas.
Besides the oppressive Southwest summer heat, a few memories stand out.
The first is our show at The Pier—an outdoor venue on the Hudson River—in New York City. Being our home base, Twisted Sister headlined with Ratt special-guesting and Lita Ford opening. Lita had been on quite a few shows with us by then, and we had bonded (we are still great friends to this day). That night was her last show with the tour.
Since I was always getting ready when she was on, I never got to see Lita perform, but I got to listen to her rock every night, and she was blowing me away. I’ve been a fan of hers since the Runaways, but now Lita was taking her playing to a whole new level. Besides April Lawton from the seventies band Ramatam, Lita was the first female guitarist I had ever heard who could hold her own with the guys. Since April Lawton was a transsexual, having originally played with Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge as a dude, I guess that made Lita the only one.
When Lita came into Twisted’s dressing room after her final show on the tour to say good-bye, I pulled her to the side and told her just how great I thought she was. “You have a great opportunity,” I said. “Your killer guitar playing can really show people that women can rock.”
Lita was flattered by my words.
“People are going to push you to use sex to sell your music; don’t let them,” I continued. “To paraphrase Joe Perry, let your playing do the talking!”
Lita thanked me profusely for my inspiring words. She seemed truly fired up to take on the male-dominated guitar-playing world.
The next time I saw Lita Ford was a couple of years later, in a rock video on MTV. She was scantily clad, crawling on all fours, and pretty much humping a block of ice. Her guitar lay discarded on the floor, a few feet away. So much for my impassioned speech.
At that same Pier show, I was inspired to incorporate the giant USS Intrepid aircraft carrier, permanently docked adjacent to the concert site, in one of my stage rants.
I told the crowd that I believed they had enough energy to restart the out-of-service ship, and I encouraged them to join me in trying to get it going by shouting “Fuck you!” over and over and over. (Fuck you?) Needless to say, it didn’t work.
Several weeks later, Twisted’s management received a letter from the mayor’s office informing us our group had officially been banned from all outdoor venues in New York City. Why? Well, unbeknownst to us, sound carries really, really, really well over water. Apparently, on the other side of the river, New Jersey residents were being forced to listen to Twisted Sister’s “Fuck you!” chorus while sitting in their backyards on a warm summer night with their families.
Somehow, I don’t think our fired-up, rowdy fans making a huge pile out of all the folding chairs and turning over food carts on their way out of the show helped either.
THE ONE SHOW WITH Ratt I remember most in Texas—besides the blistering heat in McAllen (I couldn’t believe Ratt abandoned their stage clothes and wore shorts!)—is Corpus Christi.
While my onstage rants are pretty much spontaneous, if I hit on something that works universally, I won’t hesitate to reuse it or modify it to fit the current situation. This said, I can’t understand how bands can use the same stage patter, verbatim, every night. How can it always be appropriate or not get old? Here are some classic stage-rap faux pas I’ve heard about.
David Lee Roth had a great line he’d lay on some heckling guy in the audience (you may have heard it): “After the show, I’m gonna fuck your girlfriend!” Cool. Not so cool when he did the same line, at the same time in the show, at a venue only twenty-five miles away, to a lot of the same people who had seen him the night before. Lame.
Triumph used to turn their massive light show on the upper balcony of the audience—every night, at the same moment in the show—and say “How ya’ll doin’ up there!” It would always get a huge response. Except for the night the show hadn’t sold well and the balcony was closed off and empty. The janitor up there by himself, sweeping the balcony, was doing fine.
Paul Stanley from Kiss is renowned for exactly replicating his onstage speeches, every show, on every tour . . . even after they’ve been captured on live albums. On a tour with Mark “the Animal” Mendoza’s band the Dictators opening for them, Paul repeated his raps so exactly and often that even the heroin-addled Dictators’ lead singer, Handsome Dick Manitoba, could memorize them. The night Handsome Dick went onstage with the Dictators and repeated Paul’s showstopping stage rap, word for word, was the last night the Dictators played with Kiss. I wonder what Paul said that night at that point in Kiss’s set.
You gotta keep it fresh, kids, and react to your surroundings—not every venue and audience is the same. This said, in each town we played, at some moment in the show I would rename the town (you may remember a variation of this from the MTV concert):
“You know, Louisville is a pretty lame name for this town.”
The audience is unsure how to react. Did Dee just call us lame?
“You guys are way too cool to be called Louisville.”
The audience is still confused. Dee did say we were cool.
“From now on I’m gonna call this town Louis-fuckin’-ville!”
The crowd goes wild!
“Let me hear you say Louis-fuckin’-ville!”
“LOUIS-FUCKIN’-VILLE!”
“What?!”
“LOUIS-FUCKIN’-VILLE!”
“What!?”
“LOUIS-FUCKIN’-VILLE!”
I would do it with the name of every town on the tour. It worked every time.
Right before I was heading out to the stage in Corpus Christi, Texas, Joe Gerber rushed up to me.
“Whatever you do, don’t say ‘Corpus-fuckin’-Christi’ tonight!”
“Why not?” I responded, annoyed by his presuming to tell me what to say or not say onstage.
“Because corpus Christi means ‘the body of Christ.’ You do not want to be screaming ‘the body of fuckin’ Christ’ in the Deep South!”
Point taken.
AT THE END OF the Twisted Sister/Ratt tour, the 1984 Summer Olympics began. Americans always get caught up in Olympic fever (“USA! USA! USA!”), but this year was particularly special for both the United States and Twisted Sister. Not only were the games being held in Los Angeles but as our Olympians pursued the gold, so were we. Twisted Sister was approaching our first gold record (five hundred thousand copies) in sales as the Olympic athletes competed fiercely for the dream they, too, had worked so hard for.
As we drove from town to town, rocking our asses off and selling records, night after night, day after day, we tuned in to the Olympic Games and cheered our countrymen and women on. It could not have been more ironic or better timed. Of course, the most inspiring of all was America’s sweetheart, gymnast Mary Lou Retton. For a band who had struggled for so long, against such great odds, we connected strongly with the young dynamo, who would not let anything stop her from achieving her goal . . . including a sprained ankle. Mary Lou, you are a true twisted sister! Almost to the day Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry album went gold, Mary Lou Retton stuck it that one final time to win her gold. Amazing!
We joined Dio’s Last in Line tour on the final day of the ’84 Olympics, and one of our first shows was at the Nassau Coliseum, in Uniondale, Long Island, the arena where I used to go to concerts as a teen. Only miles away from where I grew up, in the heart of Twisted Sister’s “SMF stronghold,” I couldn’t imagine a better p
lace to receive our first gold-record awards.
To make the night even more special, we brought in Mark Metcalf, the star of the WNGTI video, to present us our “gold” onstage. Dressed in his character’s wardrobe from the video, Neidermeyer “surprised” the band when he walked out onstage. The crowd went wild at the sight of him and as he laid into them “Neidermeyer style.”
In the spirit of the Olympics, special gold-record “medals” had been made with red ribbons, and Mark “Neidermeyer” Metcalf draped one around each band member’s neck. With our fans, families, and friends all looking on, this was a momentous occasion. After eight and a half years of struggle, more than two thousand live shows, fighting against insurmountable odds, and simply refusing to give up when most others would have, Twisted Sister had finally done it. That gold record could never be taken from us, and no matter what happened in our lives from that point on, we had done what we had set out all those years ago to do. We had made it!
BY AUGUST, WITH OUR gold album well on the way to platinum, audiences were coming to see us as well as Dio. We were no longer “some band” opening for the headliner. This said, as is usual, the headliners are the main draw, and their fans always snap up the best seats in the house. Night after night, we would have to deal with rows of hardcore Dio fans sitting in the front, many of whom couldn’t care less about this new band Twisted Sister. Remember Dee Rule #2: If you don’t like me, we’ve got a problem? As you might imagine . . . I didn’t respond well to the negativity. If you were being an asshole, I felt it was my duty to let you know . . . loudly. Not surprisingly, some people had a problem with this.
