by Dee Snider
My mother taught the sixth-grade Sunday-school class at my church. A devout Christian woman, born and raised Roman Catholic by her Swiss parents, she went to church every Sunday of her life . . . until the day she married my formerly Jewish dad. I say formerly because my baseball-playing cop father, upon being bar mitzvahed at fourteen . . . quit. Hey, they did say “Today you are a man.” A man can quit his faith if he wants to, right?
Proclaiming that Judaism is a belief, not a nationality (He would say, “Show me ‘Jewland’ on a map!”), my father became an agnostic and set his sights on gentile girls. Well, I’m not sure he actually set his sights, but he met my goy mother in high school, fell head over heels in love, and eventually proposed.
Since the Catholic Church doesn’t accept love as an excuse for blasphemy, the priests refused to marry my parents and told my mother she was no longer welcome in the Church and was going to “burn in hell.” (Good title for a song, don’tcha think?) So my parents had a civil ceremony and were married at town hall by a judge. For the record, they’ve been married ever since.
One Sunday, a short time after I was born, my mother missed the bus to her Catholic church (where she was still going despite their pronouncement) and literally wandered into an Episcopal church. They welcomed her with open arms, and I (and all my brothers and sister) was baptized, confirmed, and raised (and sang in the church choir) in the Episcopal Church. Thank ya, Jesus!
Now, one Sunday, in class, my mother was imparting some Christian teaching or another unto us when the subject of Santa Claus came up. Staring directly at me from the front of the room, she said, “Of course you all know there is no Santa Claus.” I did now!
When Christmas finally arrived, I was beyond excited. I knew that as long as you only asked for one thing (a CPO), and it wasn’t too expensive (it wasn’t), you would get your wish. Sure it was a little cold out for a light jacket, but I didn’t care. I was going to wear my CPO until the sleeves rotted off!
As was tradition, we got to open our “filler” gifts first, building up to our big one. Socks, chocolate, a shirt or two; whatever—it was all good. Come on, CPO!
Finally, they handed me the box. I knew by the shape, weight, and size, it was CPO “go time.” I tore off the wrapping paper and ripped open the box to find . . . a military-style coat. What!? No CPO?! I burst into tears (hey, I was twelve) as my mother desperately tried to explain how they looked everywhere, but the stores were all sold out. I wouldn’t even look at the coat they got me. I cried, screamed I hated the coat, and told my mom that my Christmas was ruined. To this day I can remember the hurt look on her face. She genuinely felt terrible. Sorry about that, Mom.
True to my word, I wouldn’t even look at the stupid coat she got me. When spring finally rolled around (and I’d calmed down), I needed a lighter jacket and for some reason pulled out my Christmas present and put it on. It was nothing like a CPO . . . but it was kind of cool. Military collar, gold buttons down the front . . . but, no, I hated it. Until I went to school . . .
Everyone flipped! They all wanted to know what kind of jacket it was and where I got it . . . and I was the only person who had one! (Center of attention! Center of attention!)
I loved the response I was getting from being different from everyone else. I loved the notice it brought me and the admiration, too. From that day on I did everything I could to look different and be different. Like a junkie, I had to have that reaction as much as possible and whenever I could. It didn’t even have to be positive, I just had to be noticed. I had to be an individual.
To this day I tell my mother it’s all her fault. If she’d only got me the jacket that everyone else had, the one I asked for, things would be completely different. I wouldn’t be so dead set on being different.
Course set for rock stardom? Aye, aye, Captain!
3
no, no, a hundred times no
Over the next few years, I continued to “play in bands,” which consisted of me and a couple of guys talking a lot about what our band was going to do (and drawing the various band names on our notebooks) and practicing little. In elementary school my band-mates were Rich Squillacioti (a constant until around my senior year in high school) on drums and David Lepiscopo on guitar. We never had a bass player (nobody wanted to do that), and at first I don’t think we even had a microphone for me to sing in. But we were still “a band” and talked a great game. I remember one day we piled all of our equipment into a shopping cart and pushed it around the neighborhood to show off. We were going to be huge!
One constant in my life was the full-length mirror in my bedroom. Every day, the moment I got home from school, I would go to my room (actually my and one or two of my brothers’ room), lock the door, put on music, and lip-synch intensely in front of that mirror for the imaginary audience on the other side. I would rock out until I was either dripping with sweat or my parents screamed for me to “turn down the damn music/let your brothers in their room.” Now, I’m known for being a great stage performer—it’s probably the thing I do best. People always ask me how I got so good, and I answer, “By jumping around in front of my bedroom mirror.” Oh, sure, all my years of live performing helped, but performing in the mirror gave me the confidence to get out there in the first place, knowing how what I was doing looked to the audience. I still can’t resist making faces or throwing shapes in any available mirror. For years it was my only audience.
Musically, in late 1965, ’66, and ’67 everybody was into the Beatles, Stones, and the whole British Invasion/British Invasion Impersonation thing going on. But in the summer of 1965 and the fall of 1966, two new television shows, featuring definitively “American” bands, hit the airwaves. Where the Action Is and The Monkees introduced two pop/rock bands to the masses, Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Monkees, respectively.1 These two bands not only had tremendous appeal to young people, but we got to watch their antics daily or weekly, further fueling my, and many other kids’, desire to be a rock star.
While the majority of kids in my school and house were Monkees fans, I was drawn to the subtle danger of singer Mark Lindsay from Paul Revere and the Raiders. I know, I know, danger and the Raiders may seem, to those of you aware of those “happy rock” bands, to be a bit of an oxymoron,2 but unlike the Monkees, whose every song was pure pop pablum, Paul Revere and the Raiders songs were innuendo-filled. Hits such as “Hungry” and “Kicks” were barely veiled songs about sex, drugs, and alcohol. Mark Lindsay’s slight rasp along with the generally “heavier” tone of the band’s music are recognized precursors to what would become “hard rock” . . . and eventually “heavy metal.” I am an original headbanger and I credit Paul Revere and the Raiders for starting me down that path. Thank you, boys!
My father didn’t want to know about my passion for rock ’n’ roll. His dream as a kid was to be a professional baseball player (no, I’m not related to Duke Snider), a dream that he could never pursue or realize. He was convinced that his oldest son was a natural and wanted me to be the ballplayer he couldn’t be. Now, I liked playing baseball, but not as much as I wanted to rock. I think my dad saw my love of rock ’n’ roll as a potential threat to his plans for me.
To my mother’s credit, she was positive and encouraging about my “silly” obsession. Herself an artist and singer in various choirs, she saw the value of anything creative and paid for me out of her own hard-earned money (she taught seniors art classes) to take “group guitar lessons” the summer of seventh grade. We didn’t have a lot of money, and it went directly against the wishes of my perpetually angry dad (personified by Mark Metcalf in the Twisted Sister videos), so this was a big deal. Every morning for a few weeks my mother drove me to the lessons and I learned to play basic guitar. Thank you for that, Mom. Armed with my newfound ability to play some basic chords and an acoustic guitar, I felt I was finally on my way.
My siblings often talked of forming a “family rock band” like the Osmonds or the Cowsills. My sister, Sue, younger than me by a
year, shared a passion for a lot of the same music3 and enjoyed listening to me sing songs or singing them with me, but to actually get any of my much younger brothers to learn an instrument was yet another rock ’n’ roll fantasy. We did however all sing in the church choir and one time performed “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” as a family for the congregation. To this day I dread when someone at a family gathering starts singing that song (usually in jest), my mother enthusiastically joins in, and we’re all forced to repeat our 1971 Sunday command performance. Once was definitely enough.
In 1968, a band called the Human Beinz released a cover of an Isley Brothers song called “Nobody but Me.” This two-chord, catchy little ditty, repeats the word no a hundred times during the song and nobody forty-six, making it “mildly” repetitive. It reached the Top 10 of the Billboard charts, and its “hit” status, and simple lyrical and chord structure, made it perfect fodder for two-fifths of “The Snider Family” singing group. I played guitar and sang lead, while the enthusiastic Sue played tambourine and shouted out the backing chants of “Shing-a-ling! Skate! Boogaloo! Philly!” It was the best song we had ever done and we practiced it all day long.
Just to be sure we weren’t kidding ourselves about how great it was, we performed it for all of our brothers and my mom, and they loved it. I couldn’t wait for my cynical, nonbeliever dad to get home. I was going to blow him away!
When my father finally arrived, Sue and I could not contain our excitement. We ran into the living room to greet him, armed with guitar, tambourine, and sheet music.
“Daddy! Daddy! Wait’ll you hear! We learned a song! We’ve been practicing all day!”
With all the genuine rock energy we could muster, Sue and I performed our song for him, “no, no, noing” and “boogalooing” our hearts out. When we finished, awaiting his highest praise for the great job we had done . . . he mocked us mercilessly.
“You call that a song? It’s a joke! ‘No, no, no, no, no’? What kind of stupid song is that?!”
We were devastated. To make matters worse, for weeks after, anytime one of my parents’ friends came over, my dad would tell the story of his idiot son (my younger sister was clearly duped into singing it with me) and his asinine “No-No” song. I was completely humiliated, but inside me was building a righteous anger. The old man had lit the pilot light to a flame that eventually evolved into the towering inferno of rage that would drive me all the way to the top.
Years later, my dad tried to take credit for my success, suggesting that his being so hard on me as a boy is what drove me on. “It’s like that Johnny Cash song ‘A Boy Named Sue,’ ” he proclaimed. “If I wasn’t so tough on you, you never would have made it.”
To this stupidity I responded, “How do you know I wouldn’t be happier as a well-adjusted accountant?” Dick.
IN EIGHTH GRADE, THE kids in my church choir were approached to record one hundred children’s songs for a series of albums designed to provide elementary schools without a formal music program something for the children to sing along with. We were all super-excited. Not only were we going to get to record in a real recording studio, but we were going to be paid with “a color television” each.
Now, in 1968, color TV was still a relatively new thing. You couldn’t find a set cheaper than $350. So for giving up an afternoon a week to rehearse, and every Saturday for five months to record, we twelve- and thirteen-year-old kids would be rich! My sister and I (Sue also sang in the church choir)—still smarting from our television-less year—fantasized about lying in our own beds, watching our own color television! It was incredible.
When we finally finished the Herculean task (during which time a couple of us boys in the choir went through puberty and our voices awkwardly changed), we were informed that unbeknownst to anybody, including our parents and the church choir directors, some Japanese company had come out with a cheap, portable color television valued at $150. In the sixties Made in Japan was a sign of inferiority. Funny how things have changed, huh? For all of our hard months of work, we were offered a piece-of-crap TV or $150 in cash. My first involvement with the recording industry and I was already being taken advantage of . . . foreshadowing things to come. My sister and I both took the cash (still a chunk of change for a couple of kids), and I learned a serious life lesson.
Somewhere out there in the school closets of America, I’m sure some dusty Strawberry Wristwatch LPs still exist. That’s what our choir directors named us; it was the psychedelic era. Were they on psychedelics? That would explain our shitty deal. I wonder if anyone knows (or cares) that they are Dee Snider’s first recordings.
Oh yeah; I took my 150 bucks and with an additional $15 kicked in from my dad (thanks) bought my first, real electric guitar: a Gibson SG Special. Now I was starting to rock.
THE PINNACLE OF MY “all talk, no action” band experience came toward the tail end of junior high. I now had a band called Brighton Rock, consisting of myself on guitar and vocals, Rich Squillacioti on drums, Phil Knourzer on bass (finally a bass player!), and Timmy Smith on lead guitar. Rich and I had an interesting life experience with Timmy before he joined the band.
Timmy was our only cool friend, who, at fourteen, smoked so many nonfiltered cigarettes, he had yellow, nicotine-stained fingers. When Rich and I decided that the only way we were going to get girls was to smoke (yeah, that was the problem), Tim took us out one day to teach us how, starting us on filtered Tareyton cigarettes to ease us into that harsh world. After an afternoon filled with chain-smoking, acting cool, and dealing with the bad taste, breath, and cigarette smell on our bodies, Rich and I decided if we had to smoke to get girls, we would be celibate. Life lesson learned.
Like many of my bands before, Brighton Rock never rehearsed, but we talked a good game. We sat together every day at lunch, discussing how we would rock, and acting like the Beatles and the Monkees. One day Phil came in with amazing news. They were having a dance at his church and he got us the gig! While church dances were a typical venue for young bands, Phil went to the Unitarian Church, which was the hippest of the churches, making this booking that much cooler. This would be my first gig ever. I had finally arrived! Sure we had never rehearsed, but the show was six months away, plenty of time to put a set together.
As the weeks and months rolled by, we promised each other we would rehearse, but something always kept us from getting together. For some reason or another, over six months we could not find even one day for a rehearsal. I don’t know about the other guys, but I was a full-of-shit, chronic procrastinator who always put everything off until the last minute. Up until that time, I viewed being in a band as effortless, as something that just somehow “happened.” Boy, was I wrong.
The week of the show, the reality that time had run out hit us, and the undeniable fact that we couldn’t do a whole show on our own set in. We still figured we could rehearse a short set at the church the day of the show, but we knew we needed someone to headline.
Some of our best friends, and a true inspiration to Brighton Rock, were an actual performing band called Armadillo. The same age as us, these guys were advanced; read, they weren’t full of shit and actually took lessons and rehearsed. They were such an early inspiration, I want to make sure I recognize them individually: Doug Steigerwald on guitar (more on him later), Denny McNerney on drums (still a dear friend of mine), Mike Graziano on bass, and the much older (he was in high school!) Don Koenig on vocals. These guys could play, and their performance of Black Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath” was not only my introduction to heavy metal, but scared the living crap out of me. Amazing.
My band approached the guys in Armadillo (sitting at their band table during lunch) and asked if they would headline the Unitarian-church show that weekend, and they accepted. Joy of joys, we were saved! Now all we had to do was rehearse a short set the day of the show. Ha!
Saturday arrived and we loaded in nice and early so we could get maximum rehearsal time before the dance. Timmy brought his older (equally nic
otine-stained) brother with him to play harmonica. We hadn’t even worked out a set list! For the first time we attempted to run through songs we all mutually knew and—surprise, surprise—we all only knew three songs. We rehearsed our “set” for a while (a couple of hours, tops) and were stunned to discover—we sucked! I couldn’t believe it. How was that possible? We talked about our band all the time.
We were such garbage that we instantaneously renamed our band just that, Garbage (predating the much more popular band Garbage by about three decades). I remember Phil literally throwing his bass on the floor in anger, and instead of continuing to rehearse and work on the songs (why do that?), we did what any all-talk, no-action band would do: we went around to all the posters in the building, crossed out the name Brighton Rock, and wrote in Garbage. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Our time to perform came all too soon, and we headed out onto the stage (the floor of the church gathering room) to face a full house of kids sitting on the floor, waiting to be rocked. Somebody introduced the band to the confused crowd (“Ladies and gentlemen, we are Garbage!”), and we launched into the funeral dirge that is Donovan’s “Atlantis.” What a shitty opener! We made it through the song, to a tepid response from the crowd, at which point Phil and I decided that we had had enough. What the hell were we thinking?! Being closest to the exit, without a word to the other band members, Phil and I walked off. Not realizing his bass guitarist and rhythm guitarist/lead vocalist had left the stage, Rich counted off the next song, and he, Timmy, and Timmy’s brother (let’s just call him Stainy) started playing the next song without us. Stunned by what was going on, Phil and I watched as this catastrophe continued to unfold. Heaven forbid we go back out onstage.