by Dee Snider
When the show was finally over over, the band went back to our dressing trailer and stood in stunned silence. We blew it! We sucked! It could not have been worse. Knowing that we have always been our toughest critic—which I believe is the reason we are so good live; we’re never satisfied—I told everyone not to say a word about how horrible we knew we were. Maybe people didn’t think it was that bad.
Minutes later, the dressing-room door flew opened and in poured Marty Callner and his production staff. They were blown away! Everybody was blown away! Nobody noticed any of the issues we were having, and when the show was all edited and overdubbed (Eddie even got to fix his solo on “The Price”), it looked and sounded amazing.
Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry Live was released on VHS tape and laser disc and aired about eighteen times that year on MTV. Audiences loved it! Unlike so many visually compelling bands before us (Alice Cooper, Kiss, etc.), Twisted Sister got to show our stuff on an international grand scale. Which was a blessing and a curse.
35
what the hell did he just say?
After spending several beautiful spring weeks in Los Angeles producing and filming our video, the live concert special, and, before that, recording our new record, Twisted Sister boarded a plane and flew (and drove) to New Castle, Great Britain, to start the first leg of our Stay Hungry tour.
While it took several weeks for a new release to hook in (get into the stores and on the radio) in the United States, the United Kingdom was much more reactive. The metal press had a stronger connection with the fans, and the metalheads responded more readily to the latest news about their favorite bands. But they couldn’t respond to what they didn’t know about. . . .
When on May 27, 1984, Twisted Sister got off our tour bus (from Heathrow Airport) in Newcastle, England—nearly twenty-four hours later—the weather was the polar opposite of what we had left in LA. Where it was sunny and warm in Los Angeles, it was dreary and cold in the UK. We had a day off to readjust before our tour began, but the band and I were immediately depressed just being there. As I lay in my hotel room, recuperating from the jet lag, the phone rang and I heard the immediately recognizable voice of a person I had never met.
“Dee Snider? ThesesBrianJohnsonfrumAhseeDahysee.”
Ahsee Dahysee? Was he even speaking English? I could barely understand him.1
“We cannahafya settinenya ’otelrum onaMundeh-nightenNew-caseh,” Brian continued.
What the hell is an ’otelrum?
“Gatha-up-ya-keeds. Ahmacomin’ tuh-gitya, me boy.” With that, Brian hung up.
He definitely said something about getting somebody’s boy. Just in case, I gathered the band and crew, and a half hour later Brian Johnson and two of his friends showed up in three Mercedes-Benz sedans to take us out on the town. And did we appreciate it. We went out to dinner, then to a blues club (Brian got up and sang “Route 66” in his distinctive voice), and finally went to a local pub . . . in Brian’s house. While we hung out, drinking (for those of us who drank), throwing darts, and playing pool, Brian told us the story of his rescue from oblivion.
After giving rock stardom his best shot with a band called Geordie in the seventies, Brian had lost hope of ever making it and left his rock ’n’ roll dreams behind. He started a business in his hometown, putting vinyl tops on cars. Brian is a “Geordie” (nickname for someone from Newcastle) to the core. When Bon Scott of AC/DC died in 1980, the band asked only a few people to audition for the band as his replacement. Brian Johnson was one of them. He was friends with the AC/DC boys from his Geordie band days and wrote off the audition as a “mercy tryout,” done more out of obligation to a friend than anything else.
A couple of weeks later, Brian got a call from AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young asking him to drop by the studio. Still not thinking much of it, Brian went and paid his friends a visit. When he walked into the room, Angus Young walked straight up to him and said, “You’re never going to have to put a vinyl top on a car again.” Brian was the new singer and member of AC/DC.
The house in which we were hanging out with Brian, listening to his story, was the biggest house in town. When he was a kid, Brian used to do deliveries, driving past it and telling himself that one day, when he was a rock star, he would live in that big house. Now that’s a rock ’n’ roll dream come true!
One more thing: Phil Carson, who signed AC/DC to Atlantic Records, told me how he was hanging out at a club with the band one night before Bon Scott died. As Phil sat at a table with the rest of the band, a drunk Bon Scott rolled up, with his arm around Brian Johnson, and said, “If anything ever happens to me, this is my replacement.” Now that’s just plain eerie.
“FOR THE WANT OF A NAIL”
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
That’s the legendary rhyme about an empire collapsing because of losing a simple—yet important—thing. Twisted Sister had a similar experience with our Stay Hungry album in Great Britain, except our “want” was for a postage stamp.
For the want of a stamp the postcard was lost.
For the want of a postcard the announcement was lost.
For the want of an announcement the single was lost.
For the want of a single the album was lost.
For the want of an album the country was lost.
All for the want of a postcard stamp.
The key to the successful launch of any record, movie, television show, theatrical production, book, etc., is the setup. You need your first week of release to be well attended, bought, and/or viewed, so that it will be seen as a hot, successful project. You want it at the top of the relevant sales charts, and to do that, you advertise, promote, and hype your project in any and every way you possibly can. In the case of a new album in the UK, back in the ’80s, one of the most important ways to promote a new release is by using the artist’s mailing list. You want those die-hard fans to know about it ahead of time, so they will get out to the stores the first week and buy the record and hound radio to start playing your single. This is Record Promotion 101.
With the success of Twisted’s You Can’t Stop Rock ’n’ Roll album and singles in Great Britain, we had built quite a following and mailing list. Our fans were primed and ready to buy pretty much anything we put out or did. All our distributor, WEA, had to do was let them know our new record was coming. And there’s the catch.
The new head of WEA, whom I shall refer to as Rubber Dick—a pretty close play on his actual name—was not what you would call a fan of heavy metal, or Twisted Sister for that matter. When he was asked to approve the expense of domestic postcard stamps to do the advance mailing to our fan base, he passed on it for budgetary reasons! Stamps?!
As our distributor, WEA’s sole purpose was to promote and distribute recorded product. Rubber Dick nixed the cheapest, most cost-effective, and important promotion they could possibly have done for our record! That Dick!
As a result, our record was released in the UK and didn’t sell well enough initially to get us high into the charts. So we didn’t get on Top of the Pops or find our single on the radio. As a result, our follow-up to a successful record in Great Britain was effectively a flop.2 Fortunately, our shows in the UK sold and went great. No thanks to that Dick.
ON JUNE 6, WE joined forces with Metallica for five shows in Holland (3), Germany (1), and Belgium (1) with them opening. Like ourselves, Metallica were up-and-comers and out promoting their new album, Ride the Lightning. We had never met the guys before (though they quickly informed us that they’d opened for Twisted Sister at a New Jersey nightclub), and they were all down-to-earth and cool (yes, even Lars). Our first show with Metallica in Holland was eye-opening. Unbeknownst to us, the Dutch were heavily into speed metal.
They liked their rock hard. While Metallica’s style played perfectly to that, Twisted Sister, with its makeup and costumes and “anthemic metal” leanings, wasn’t quite as appealing. No problem. We quickly adjusted our set list to be more metallic, less anthemic, and ramped up our already high speeds to a more Netherlandish pace. Problem solved.
The night before our first show, I was offered the opportunity to promote Twisted’s new record on a hugely popular live Dutch radio broadcast. I was taken, along with Joe Gerber—via the band Vandenberg’s custom, converted ambulance—to the club from where the show was aired.
Expecting a real metal club, I was stunned to walk into a disco, playing dance music, filled with Johnny Bravos and Janie Bravettes.
The radio station broadcasting the show assured me the audience loved heavy metal and told me what they wanted me to do. They had heard about my onstage “rants” and wanted me to “do one” on the air. I explained to them that my banter was more inspired than planned, and that I had never just “done one” cold. They kept pushing, so I said I would give it a shot. I told the host to bring me onstage (dressed in my street clothes), then engage me in a conversation about heavy metal; I would see if I could muster a full-blown rant. “No problem,” the host said in his funny Dutch accent, and headed out to make my introduction.
The music stopped and the host introduced me. I entered with microphone in hand, to a tepid response. The minute I got out there . . . the host walked off the stage without another word. The crowd stared blankly at me, and I stared back in silence. The national radio broadcast was transmitting “dead air.” There are radio stations that actually have alarms that go off when there is dead air. This was not a good thing.
My mind racing, I started to rant. About what, I’m not sure, but I was going on about something for a few minutes—with zero audience response—when some guy in the audience yelled, “You look like a pregnant goldfish!” and the crowd laughed. I had no idea what that meant, but the people in the club did, and it clearly wasn’t a good thing. I jumped off the stage—microphone still in hand—and charged the asshole who said it.
Well, I’m livid, shoving this guy and muthafucking him—into the microphone of course, always the professional—for all I’m worth, until security pulls us apart and drags me off. Joe Gerber, who, of course, had come to my assistance, says to me, “Oh, well, I guess that’s the end of radio airplay in Holland.”
But when I walked into the back room where the radio station people and record company reps were, to face the music . . . I got a standing ovation! They loved it! As far as the Dutch were concerned, that was great radio. Go figure.
OUR THIRD SHOW IN Holland with Metallica, we pulled into town to find every poster and ad promoting the show had a tiny TWISTED SISTER at the top and a huge WITH METALLICA, and their “troll” logo, taking up 90 percent of the page. Clearly, they were the draw.
Twisted Sister were never ones to headline a show for the sake of headlining, so we sent Joe Gerber to tell James Hetfield and the boys that they could close that night.
A few minutes later, Joe came back to the dressing room with a confused look on his face. “They said no. They couldn’t understand why you would want to give up the headlining slot. They think you guys are up to something.” That shows you the mentality of the average band. No one gives up the headline spot, even if the audience isn’t there to see them. Egos.
I went into Metallica’s dressing room and explained there was no trick—we weren’t up to anything. They were the draw; they should close the show. Once assured, Metallica agreed to the billing swap.
The upside to this was I finally got to see Metallica perform. Due to my two-hour prep time for shows, I was always in the back getting ready while many great bands went on before us. After our set that night, I quickly got changed and went stage-side with Mark Mendoza to watch this young band who were getting so many accolades from the metal press and fans. Toward the end of their powerful set, I turned to Animal and said, “These guys have got a lot of heart, but they’re never gonna go anywhere.”
So much for what I know!
MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE States, we were getting reports that our first single was being very well received. Before the We’re Not Gonna Take It (WNGTI) video even started to air on MTV, 145 radio stations nationally were playing the song. I stress that because of the accepted belief that our video made the song a hit. While the video undoubtedly enhanced the single—and by enhanced I mean “super-charged the shit out of it”—“We’re Not Gonna Take It” was killing at rock radio from the day it was released. Video or no video, Twisted Sister was set to explode in 1984.
The WNGTI video is generally regarded as groundbreaking and game-changing; it altered the face of the medium. In virtually any list of all-time greatest rock videos, WNGTI always makes it. For better or for worse, it is one of the main things Twisted Sister is remembered for. No one was more surprised than us. This said, the reception the WNGTI clip received at MTV is a whole other story.
The video, as delivered to MTV in its original form, had a two-minute-and-fifty-one-second prologue—an acted lead-in, without music. This was unheard of in 1984 . . . and MTV hated it! I was told that Music Television cofounder/originator and senior executive vice-president Les Garland was horrified by our effort and said, “That’s not a rock video! That’s method acting!” Needless to say, WNGTI was not a “Buzz Clip.” Despite its massive success, and the audience’s obvious mania for it, the WNGTI video was never aired more than in medium rotation.
A few months later, when a now hugely popular Twisted Sister delivered the WNGTI video sequel, “I Wanna Rock” (which also had a prologue), Les Garland was quoted as saying, “Now this is a rock video!” It was immediately put into heavy rotation. Egos.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
After finishing our run of dates in Europe and the UK, we finally headed back home. I couldn’t wait to reunite with my wife and son, and Stay Hungry was blowing up in the States.
I was not prepared for what came next.
36
why does the rain smell like pee?
Having been hugely popular in the tristate area, I thought I knew what being famous was. We had thousands of fans clamoring to get into our shows and meet us, we needed bodyguards, our phone numbers were unlisted, and I had to pull my hair back and wear a baseball hat to be less detected on the street. That’s a rock star, right? Sure . . . but an average rock star. What I was becoming—totally unbeknownst to me, mind you—was something very different.
It felt great to come back to my house, with my wife and son waiting for me. Suzette loved our first little place (it only had two bedrooms) and put her heart into making it look great. Jesse was now almost two years old and a real handful. Coming and going the way I did offered me a unique view of my son’s development. People do a third of their life’s growth in the first three years of their life, so Jesse’s mental and physical leaps—while to Suzette seeming incremental—to me were in huge spurts and a bit overwhelming. I was missing out on so much.
My first night home, I got in my car to run for some milk or something, and I put on the Long Island rock station WRCN. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was playing. Fair enough. It was a Long Island radio station and we were a Long Island band; they should be playing our song. On a whim, I flipped over to the other Long Island rock station, WBAB. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was playing. I’ve never been a gambler, but I decided to go for the trifecta. I spun the wheel one more time, hitting the button for the big New York City rock station and . . . “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was on there, too! All three rock radio stations in my listening area were blasting my band’s song! We had arrived! As cool as that feeling was, things soon got creepy and weird.
Suzette, Jesse, and I were shopping at a grocery store, for the first time since I’d got back from Europe, when we heard frantic, hushed calls over the store’s PA system for people to “check out aisle three.”
�
�That’s the aisle we’re in, Suzette. There’s nothing here.”
A little bit later we heard, “Check out aisle five.”
“That’s the aisle we’re in, Dee. There’s nothing going on.”
Then a few minutes later: “Aisle seven!”
Hey, that’s the aisle we’re in, I started to say, but then it hit me.
As we checked out at the register, kids were arriving in droves on their bicycles and smooshing their faces against the glass to look in and see me. This is what I always wanted, but the reality was a bit surreal and even disconcerting. It’s one thing to have your every move watched when you are performing, but it’s uncomfortable when you’re just going about your daily business. We got in our car quickly and drove off. It was cool in a weird sort of way.
The next night, Suzette and I decided to take Jesse out to one of those kid-friendly restaurants with rides and stuff. I wasn’t home much, so I wanted to have a nice family evening with my wife and son. We walked in the place and Jesse immediately ran (as any toddler will do) toward some colorful plaything. We weren’t five steps in when I realized the entire restaurant had stopped what they were doing, turned, and were frozen, staring at me in shock. Suddenly, the freeze broke, and the wild-eyed masses started to move as one toward me. Realizing this was going to turn into a personal appearance—not a night out with the family—I told Suzette to grab Jesse and we ran for our car.
That was the last time we did anything normal as a family for a long time.
I was becoming more of a star than I ever dreamed of. I wanted to be a rock star, but didn’t expect Beatlemania kind of stuff. There was definitely a bit of a mania with Twisted Sister . . . and it was all being directed at me. When I went back out on the road with Twisted a short time later, I sent Suzette and Jesse down to Florida to stay with her family. Our quiet neighborhood street, with our quaint suburban house, had become a busy thoroughfare as the word got out where I lived. Cars raced down the block, people honked their horns, shouted and blasted my music. Some even parked outside at night and played Twisted Sister’s entire song catalog. Yeah, that’s what I wanted to hear when I wasn’t recording or on tour playing my music.