Shut Up and Give Me the Mic

by Dee Snider

  We’re not gonna take it

  No, we ain’t gonna take it

  We’re not gonna take it anymore

  That’s it. I couldn’t figure out the rest of the song. It makes me laugh when people cite that song as the “selling out” point of Twisted Sister, when we became “fat cats” and went commercial. In 1979 I couldn’t have been more broke and the band was desperately struggling. The inspiration for that song came from genuine emotion—anger and frustration. It couldn’t have been more real, which I suspect is one of the reasons it resonated so soundly with the rock audience.

  I’m pretty sure I immediately knew I’d created something amazing (which was confirmed when I listened back much later), but I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I didn’t have any ideas for the rest of the song. Which was probably for the best. I think now, if I had completed “We’re Not Gonna Take It” back in ’79, when I first wrote the chorus, it would most likely just have been fodder for some ill-fated demo tape, or sacrificed on the altar that was our first indie record, Under the Blade. It’s doubtful the song would ever have become the juggernaut that it is. The way things worked out, the world will be singing it long after I am gone and forgotten. Hopefully my heirs will still be collecting the royalties! I have often thought of using those royalties to set up a “rhinoplasty trust fund” so future generations of Sniders who inherit my considerable proboscis can afford relief.

  I wouldn’t finish “We’re Not Gonna Take It” until 1983. In the meantime, Twisted Sister needed a new, more professional demo tape to play for the record companies, and into our lives walked engineering/producing legend Eddie Kramer. Literally.

  EDDIE KRAMER HAD WORKED with the Stones and Led Zeppelin, was Hendrix’s exclusive engineer, and produced Woodstock, Frampton Comes Alive, and Kiss Alive, just to name a few. Yeah, the guy’s a recording god. Now, Twisted’s die-hard fans have always been our strength (as you will discover more and more), and our meeting Eddie Kramer is a prime example.

  We were playing at a club called Detroit,3 in Port Chester, New York, one night, and unbeknownst to us, some of our fans had run into Eddie K. Ever the professional (and looking for new talent), he asked what local bands the girls were into. They told him he had to come and see Twisted Sister. Eddie walked into the huge, mobbed club4 and was knocked out by Twisted “fuckin’ ” Sister, as we had come to be known (and still are). He came backstage after our set and told us he wanted to work with us. We were blown away! After all, he was Eddie “fuckin’ ” Kramer!

  Eddie was known as the man who helped build Electric Lady Studios with Jimi Hendrix. He had designed all the studios. When Eddie told us he could get a deal at Electric Lady for us to record, we were sold. Some of our favorite records of all time were made there. Twisted Sister were going to work in the hallowed halls of rock royalty.

  The Electric Lady sessions in November of 1979 gave us our first real demo tapes. Working closely with Eddie Kramer in rehearsals, we tore apart our original songs and rebuilt the best ones from the ground up. “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now,” “Under the Blade,” “Lady’s Boy,” and our cover of the Shangri-Las’ classic “Leader of the Pack” were chosen to be recorded.

  The process was grueling and Eddie Kramer was a taskmaster. He was particularly tough on drummer #3’s timing and brought the man to tears at one point. As much as I didn’t like drummer #3, I actually felt bad for him. Eddie Kramer would pound a bar stool with a drumstick as if he were some kind of human metronome and scream at drummer #3 that he was off time. It was brutal.

  The Good Rats’ drummer, drum-book writer, and friend of both drummer #3’s and the band’s (and future Twisted Sister drummer #7), Joey Franco, was brought in to see if he could do anything to help. While Joey could hear what Eddie Kramer was talking about, he had to say that the inconsistencies were barely perceptible, and at the end of the day it’s only rock ’n’ roll. Some of the biggest hit records of all time have had drum timing issues, and nobody even notices or cares. All in all, I have to say I learned a hell of a lot from Eddie.

  The Electric Lady recording sessions themselves were incredibly eventful. While we were in our studio recording, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones were doing some overdubs and mixing their hugely successful Some Girls album down the hall. Eddie had worked with the Stones on Their Satanic Majesties Request and knew the guys well. One of the more surreal moments in my life occurred while we were mixing “Leader of the Pack” (not the one on Come Out and Play). We were listening to a playback and Eddie’s got the mix cranked. Suddenly, the door to the studio flies open and in dances Mick Jagger! As I sat there, Mick does his classic “chicken dance” around the room to the song and exits as quickly as he came. Kramer never stops mixing (as if this is a normal occurrence), and I’m sitting there stunned, wondering if it had actually happened. Weird.

  Another night, people are hanging out in the common area of the studio. Now, Ric Ocasek from the Cars is there with Ronnie Spector, whom he was producing in one of the other studios. Eddie Kramer is talking to Jagger and takes the opportunity to introduce his budding star (me!) to the rock legend.

  “Mick Jagger, I want you to meet Dee Snider. Dee Snider, this is Mick Jagger.”

  As I reach to shake Mick’s hand, I hear my own voice saying, with ridiculously forced casualness, “Yeah, I’ve seen you around.” What?! What did that even mean? What kind of an idiot says that?!

  Eddie Kramer just shakes his head in disbelief as Mick smiles knowingly (I’m sure he’s seen that deer-in-the-headlights reaction a million times) and shakes my hand.

  Did I mention . . . I’M A FRIGGIN’ IDIOT!?

  The one other Rolling Stones moment of note was the day Mick was waiting for Keith Richards to show up and record some guitar overdubs. Mick arrives, as he did every day, promptly at 11:00 a.m. Keith was scheduled to be there at about noon. Mick waited over twelve hours for Keith, who never showed up, so Mick finally leaves for the day.

  At about 1:30 a.m. in rolls “Keef,” posse, kids (I remember young Marlon was with him), guitars, and all, ready for his session. Someone explains to him that Mick had been waiting all day and finally gave up and left.

  “Awl-right,” Keith says in his classic gravelly voice, and up the stairs, out the door, and into the night he and his entire crew go. I never saw him at the studio again.

  THE ELECTRIC LADY RECORDING sessions were eye-opening. I stayed with Eddie Kramer and his engineer Rob Freeman every second of the process and learned a boatload about song construction, studio performances, the recording process, mixing, and more. I loved working with Eddie, and my only complaint about him is that he just didn’t know when to quit. We would be there for hours on end, and he would literally fall asleep at the console, midtake. I’d do a pass at a vocal, he would nod off during it, and when I’d get to the end, he’d wake up and say “One more for the machine, mate!” What did that even mean? I’d start another take, and he’d fall asleep all over again! It’s nice to know my performances had him so riveted.

  With the Electric Lady tapes finished, we had a big piece ready for another major assault on the American record labels. Twisted Sister was once again on the march!

  17

  i‘m snider than you are

  Twisted Sister ended the decade with a real bang, and I’m not talking about one of our legendary New Year’s Eve parties. Tired of waiting for the record companies to acknowledge us and looking to take things up yet another notch, we decided to use the Eddie Kramer demos and release our own single. In December, on Twisted Sister Records (TSR), “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!” with “Under the Blade” was released on an actual 45 rpm seven-inch! “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!” was the archetype for what would eventually become our calling card: the rebellious, teen-angst anthem. The formula I discovered writing this song would be replicated by me, culminating (but not ending) with “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” My addiction to the music of the early-seventies English glitter-rock band Slade taught me everyt
hing I needed to know about writing these types of songs.

  With a (terrible) professionally designed TS logo1 on the cover and a new photo shot to go with it for the back, Twisted Sister gave their fans what they wanted, and all five thousand copies we printed quickly sold out.

  The single got some “homegrown” radio airplay, was added to a lot of local jukeboxes, and gave Twisted our much needed, next degree of legitimacy with the fans. The flip side, “Under the Blade,” was even added into rotation by upstate radio station WPDH in Poughkeepsie and became a minor hit in their broadcast area. WPDH was the first station in the world to recognize Twisted Sister as a legitimate rock act. Thank you, WPDH! You rock!

  JAY JAY AND I were still sharing the onstage banter, but his raps leaned more toward selling merchandise, promoting the band’s mailing list, and his usual Borscht-Belt comedy. I was handling the rabble-rousing and fanatical tirades.

  Having become one hell of an orator (if I do say so myself), I was more than capable of communicating the Twisted Sister doctrine to our rabid fans, nightly, with both hostility and humor. No, they’re not mutually exclusive! Each night the audience had two choices: join the Twisted Sister nation or get the hell out of the club. Or suffer a personalized, blistering verbal assault, from the stage, by yours truly. Okay, three choices.

  As the months and years passed, my ego and my anger grew, as did my ability to express it with laserlike accuracy. My friend and now band bodyguard Roger was not only a physical lethal weapon, but he had an incredibly bright mind and acerbic tongue. He and I would spend hours each day riling each other up and pushing the limits of acceptable sarcasm. Referring to each other as Godachi and Messiarah, we walked around verbally tearing people apart, with the full weight of Roger’s Hulk-like strength to keep people from resorting to violence as a defense. These daily verbal sparring sessions resulted in even more focused and debilitating oral assaults on the audience each night . . . and they loved it! The band . . . not so much.

  Guys make fun of each other. It’s what they do. When any group of men—or even boys—get together, it’s not long before the insults start to fly. It’s how men are wired. The guys in Twisted Sister were the same way. We spent hour upon hour together, and a good part of that time was passed joking around and goofing on each other.

  When it came to insults, I had become really, really good. I have often said my last name is not a proper noun, it’s an adjective. It wasn’t just because I had a quick wit and was good with a comeback, but because nothing hurt me. Over the years I had gone from being a painfully sensitive kid (I would cry at sad songs) to becoming stonelike, virtually incapable of being offended or embarrassed in these exchanges.2 In my life, people had said a lot of cruel, offensive things to me, and I had been teased a lot, so my skin got real thick. Night after night, day after day, I would go from destroying people on the street and in the audience, to destroying the guys in my band backstage. I could not be beat.

  One day, a band meeting was called. I didn’t think much about it; we had pretty regular band meetings. Immediately, the focus of the gathering became me. The guys were tired of my abuse (I thought it was dressing-room banter!) and voted—unbeknownst to me—that I could no longer participate in the exchange of insults between band members. Supposedly my lack of giving a shit, and my Swiss-Ukrainian-Transylvanian heritage, left little for the guys to work with when they retaliated. I think they just aren’t good at it.

  Bottom line? I was too vicious for them, and so I would sit in dressing rooms, hotel rooms, car rides, tour buses, plane flights, etc., not joining in the “reindeer games.” Forever.3 Which made me feel even more alienated from the band. (To be fair, I guess I was doing my fair share of alienating.)

  To his credit, Joe Gerber pulled me aside and said, “Don’t you dare stop exchanging insults with me. I love it!” And I love you, too, Joe. At least I had him and Roger4 to joke around with.

  THROUGH THIS ALL, SUZETTE was there. Not coming to the clubs every night anymore, but still with me.

  Having graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology at the top of her class, she turned down a job offer from Betsey Johnson and was now working on Twisted Sister costumes full-time. She continually tried to break up with me (I can’t imagine why, I seem like such a treat), but I wasn’t letting go. Something told me not to screw this one up, and I barely didn’t. Somehow I hung on.

  No matter how maniacal I got, my tough, little, Italian hottie refused to allow me to get away with any of my arrogant, asshole shit in our private life. It couldn’t have been easy, but she remained (and remains) the singular grounding force in my life.

  THE NEW DECADE ARRIVED and the cloud over Twisted Sister continued to darken, as did my disposition. The energy from the release of our first single quickly dissipated, and the fans’ attention began to wander. They had joined our mad parade to rock stardom, and when the payoff for our endless chest pounding and fist pumping didn’t come, I’m sure we started to look like we were full of shit.

  While we continued to scramble and clamor for record company attention, now we had to work even harder to sustain our tristate popularity as well. The early part of 1980 called for a masterstroke of some kind, and in the spring of that year I came up with just the thing.

  AMONG THE MANY NAMES and phrases used to describe Twisted Sister (besides fags and assholes), “the Bad Boys of Rock ’n’ Roll” was one that stuck. Following the template of “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!” I wrote our new battle cry using that exact turn of phrase. With the song as a spearhead, I worked with Suzette to create a new look, then revamped our staging, lighting, merchandise . . . everything.

  The one thing the band still lacked was a definitive Twisted Sister logo. Since the top design agency had delivered total garbage, this time, we decided to work with someone local and younger; someone who would let me have input on the work. I don’t remember exactly how we found Ellie Hradsky, but we did and I laid it out for her. We were not only looking for the ultimate Twisted Sister logo, but it needed one specific quality—carvability. Like the Van Halen VH, the Twisted logo needed to be cool enough that fans would want to carve it into their desks, and simple enough that they could.

  Working closely and combining our ideas, Ellie and I finally came up with a great design. A bent and stylized T connected to a bent and stylized S, forming one diamond-shaped symbol. It was simple, strong, and eminently carvable. It was the definitive Twisted Sister logo.

  In May we released our second single on Twisted Sister Records, “Bad Boys (of Rock ’n’ Roll)” backed with “Lady’s Boy,” emblazoned with the new “floating” TS logo, and launched our “Bad Boys of Rock ’n’ Roll” tour of the tristate. It was just what the doctor ordered and reinvigorated our local career. The record companies . . . not so much.

  Our management made another go-round with all of the major—and minor—labels of note, with a new press kit, demo tape, and offer: if any A&R person or record company executive was willing to come to the suburbs and see our band, we would provide them with a limo and dinner. Seems fair enough, right? We made this offer to every single credible industry person . . . and we had one taker: Reen Nalli, president of ATCO Records. She was limoed from Manhattan to the Mad Hatter nightclub in Stony Brook, Long Island, and in that packed club, she saw Twisted fuckin’ Sister do what we did every night . . . light up the record-buying public! At the end of the evening, Reen got back into her limo, pledging to sign our band to ATCO. She knew we were going to be the next big thing . . . until she got to work on Monday morning.

  The problem with people—successful people especially—is they tend to second-guess themselves. Reen was convinced by what she saw that Friday night on Long Island, and when she got to work on Monday in New York City, and started telling people about an amazing new band, I’m sure her subordinates and coworkers were pumped.

  “Really?! Who is it?!” they must have clamored to know.

  “Twisted Sister!” I bet Reen said with grea
t excitement. After all, she’d discovered the next big thing, and nobody else knew about it.

  “That bar band? They’re a regional phenomenon. Everybody passed on them already. They’re a joke” are just some of the wonderful accolades I’m sure Reen heard from people who had never even seen the band!

  At this point self-doubt began to set in. What if I’m wrong? What if I’ve made a terrible mistake? Reen even received a call from her superior at Atlantic Records, ATCO’s parent company and a label that had soundly rejected us a couple of times already, telling her to forget about this Twisted Sister silliness. Did she really want to take a chance of looking foolish by signing a band that looked like us? She didn’t . . . and the phone calls to our management about signing us soon ceased.

  You have to keep in mind this is 1980. Glitter rock was over. “Hair metal” didn’t exist yet—Twisted Sister were the sole purveyors of that glitter/metal amalgam. There was no Mötley Crüe or Ratt or Poison. Even Kiss had made a disco record (which I can’t believe their fans ever forgave them for) in a desperate attempt to regain favor. We were in uncharted waters. Signing a band such as Twisted would take a lot of ’nads . . . or simply the belief in your own eyes and ears. Unfortunately, those kinds of record men and women are few and far between.

  Twisted Sister were heading toward the end of 1980, still unsigned, with only a pile of rejection notices to show for our whole Bad Boys initiative. There was, however, one glimmer of light. An adventurous young English rock photographer named Ross Halfin was in New York, on assignment, I believe, to cover a bunch of English and Australian metal bands currently touring in the United States. He ran into a couple of female heavy metal fans somewhere who insisted he come see this amazing band playing in New Jersey.

  God, I love our fans! They carried the torch for our band when no record company would touch us.