THE STRANGER IN SNIDER

Rip It Up, Issue 89, 1 December 1984, Page 22

THE STRANGER IN SNIDER

Russell Brown

Dee Snider Explains Twisted Sister

On the cover of IWisted Sister’s last . album, Stay Hungry, Dee Snider is about to lunch on a big boneful of raw meat. Grrraaauughh! Upstairs at WEA Records in Auckland he has requested a cup of tea. Two sugars, please! So it would seem that Dee Snider without makeup is quite a different person to the man with the painted face "That’s what people say and it’s true to an extent but they’re both part of me. I believe everybody’s got a negative side anger, frustration, hostility... all the negative emotions make up the negative side of your personality. And when you meet people, hopefully they are nice and straight, as long as you're being nice to them and so forth. And you don’t usually see the bad side until you get into an argument with them or whatever. "If you have a way of expressing the negative side then you’re a lot more in control of that part of your personality. It doesn’t just come blasting out for the hell of it. Before Twisted Sister it would the negative part of my personality that appears on stage was like just part of my everyday personality. Now, over the eight years, I’ve made almost a total separation. “There is a line of course. If people hassle me or bother me. which happens from time to time, it comes out like that I mean, it’s there. But having a form of expression like Twisted Sister makes me quite well adjusted when I’m offstage.” One staff member has barely affirmed to another that no, it’s nota wig, it /sail real, before Dee Snider ambles amiably into the office, a blond monster to his wife Suzette’s platinum petiteness. “Oh hi, Russell, I saw your mag today. We’re not in it yet!” I haven’t talked to you yeti “Yeah!” Hey! Beneath the quite beautiful mass of hair it’s still possible to see Dee Snider as the gawky, awkward kid of a New York immigrant family. His

face is long, coarsely angled certainly not ‘the ugliest man in rock ‘n’ roll” as has been said, but never a male model. The hair hides and softens his face but trailing down from each temple are dark locks curiously reminiscent of the side-curls of orthodox Jews. And he was the gawky, awkward kid, he explains. Until... “When I was 16 I came to the realisation that the trends and the cool people and what was in and what was hip was a bunch of shit. And I resented the fact that for the first 16 years of my life I tried following the trends and I tried being like other people and I wanted desperately to be accepted but because I wasn’t attractive in the normal sense and because I didn’t have money and I couldn't afford the clothes I was an outcast. Because it didn’t naturally come to me to walk to someone else’s beat I was an asshole there, just one of those idiots in school. I was a totaloutcast very few friends. And l met one of those friends recently and we talked about how grossly unpopular we were in school. “There was a choice at that point. You could go into a life of total introversion, where for the rest of your life you were one of those timid people who tries not to make any waves because he’s really popular and everything he does is wrong. You can fall into that kind of life well I went the other way. It dawned on me: ‘ Who the fuck are these people to tell mewhat to do? Who the fuck died and left them fuckin’ king? “It became a kind of committment to prove how cool I was on myterms. I’m still on my terms. And now I’m becoming a hero for millions we sold two million albums for kids. The most uncool person in high school is now the hero So what /scool? Cool is what you decide it is. All you gotta do is feel good about what you’re doing. If you dont feel good about it you should do something to change it.” So Dee Snider took off in his own direction, with a chip on his shoulder 'the size of New Zealand”. He’d walk the streets in makeup, just daring anyone to make fun of him ... The stage situation was similar when he formed Twisted Sister eight years ago. To front up to a heavy metal audience in “any bits of wom-

ens’ clothing that we could squeeze into or rip up” took guts “The makeup and the clothes then were just haphazard, anything that would make people go ‘Oh God!’. But when I met Suzette she started working with me and showing me stuff and I’ve realised that over the years the makeup went from being feminine originally to getting more and more grotesque, but it was becoming more my own face accented by the makeup. If I make the faces that I make on stage I realise that the costuming and makeup have come to represent when just standing still, the negative side of my personality. The clothes are no longer feminine I call them Mad Max Meets Walt Disney. They’re emotional costumes when I put it on it helps me tap into that part of my personality. “I don't feel too friendly when I put it on. I dont feel like I could just sit down and talk like this. That’s why I never do interviews with my makeup on the answers aren’t different, they’re just a lot more ... hostile Heavy Metal: State of the Amalgam, Part 1 “I believe heavy metal or heavy rock is a tremendous outlet for hostility. It’s the one form of rock ‘n’ roll besides punk that still contains rebellion. Your parents hate it. Spandau Ballet, my parents like. They think Boy George is okay so long as you don’t look at him. That’s not rock ‘n’ roll. In its inception, the basis of rock ‘n’ roll was rebellious, your parents hated it and it was a good time. A lot of heavy metal bands have lost touch with that aspect. They’re so into the demons and wizards that they’ve forgotten that the reason people are there is they wanna have fun. So I want people to see us, I want them to scream, yell, shout, escape and give vent to their emotions and leave happier, /leave happier and when I was in the audience I left the concert exhilirated I used to wanna punch someone in the face all day, I wanted to scream at my fuckin’ parents, but I couldn’t, I held it back. “Then I went to the show and I threw my fist in the air and I screamed. Just as loud as I woulda screamed at my parents and I punched just

as hard as I woulda punched someone in the face The energy was expended but there was no damage, nobody was hurt. “Heavy metal feeds off negative emotions but the end result is definitely positive.” State Of the Amalgam, Part 2 You talk about non-conformity yet there’s as much, if not more, of a uniform and accepted mode of behaviour in heavy metal as in any other subculture. Does that concern you? “It doesn't worry me— it’s a part of life and the fact is that the great majority of people are gonna be followers and there aren't that many lead-

ens and there aren't that many individuals Maybe if you can save a few and that!s literally what it is then that’s one less person who falls into that trap. And I know I’ve saved a few. That’s what I feel it is, a fuckin’ black hole and I see the kids failin' over the edge into the life of imitation , this life of trying to be like your parents, of having a dream that you don't tell anybody about, that you really wanted to be a carpenter but carpenters don't make money these days so you go into school to leam how to be an accountant." State Of the Amalgam, Part 3 You’re giving your fans a very positive message How do you feel about metal bands who sing, say, about Satanism? Or promulgate a kind of sexism that a lot of people find offensive? “With the devil thing, most of the bands singing about it are doing it for shock value, it’s horror, a scary movie. I don't do that with Twisted Sister because I feel that you shouldn't write about something evil in a positive light. Whether you believe it’s a matter of religion or not, Satan has always represented an evil thing. For instance, I’m an AC/DC fanatic I love the band, but I just couldnt write or sing something like ‘Highway To Hell’. Bon Scott’s rationale would be that he didnt believe in Heaven or Hell and he had a very good sense of humour. But to me this is black and that is white and Satan represents evil and God represents good, whether you’re an agnostic or aetheist or Christian or Bhuddist. “I just cant put across negative concepts. I can write a horror song ‘Captain Howdy/Horrorteria’ is a horror song, but it resolves Captain Howdy, a child molester and torturer, gets off on a technicality in court but gets caught by an angry mob. Good wins out over evil. “I look at Twisted Sister as being the Dirty Harry of rock ‘n’ roll. Dirty Harry was an extremely rightwing good guy. I mean, if you took him on face value, he was so good and so fuckin’ law abiding that it the average person throw up. What I like about Dirty Harry is that he’s not a goody two-shoes he fights back like a bad guy. Most people are on the side of good but they hate the good guys Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson in Death Wish, these were good guys but using the bad guys’ tactics An eye for an eye pal these were good guys, but using the bad guys’ tactics. You fuckin’ shoot a gun at me I’ll shoot a gun at you first. I’m not gonna sit there and say ‘hey, let’s

talk about this’. And that’s not Twisted Sister either. Twisted Sister uses a sledgehammer to get its point across. "The thing about sexist metal bands locker room humour is standard, guys have it. Girls have it if you’ve ever been in a girls’ room in a bar you’ll know. You’ll see ‘Johnny has a big dick’ or whatever written on the wall. That’s what it is, it should be locker-room humour. “Twisted Sister, we don't cater to men, we don't cater to women. By writing songs about ‘Get down on your knees and please me baby,’ you cant relate to men and if you write the opposite; You call that a dick? I thought it was half a packet of lifesavers!” that’s catering to men. Twisted Sister feels that’s limiting the audience with an already limited heavy metal audience, so I just cater to people. So I try and keep it general in topics." This is one concept that Dee Snider hasn't grasped at all "As far as drugs and alcohol go, I don’t. But I dont try to force my concepts on people. I understand why people do society has created a situation where they cant let themselves go unless they have an excuse and the excuse is ‘I was stoned’. This way if they make a fool out of themselves they’re protected.” Whereas your excuse is you’re on stage? “No, I just do it on the street. Actually, for a long time on stage I used to tell people I was stoned because in bars if I said ‘l’m straight’, they'd walk away. Because if I was stoned, dressing and acting in that fashion was okay. If you weren't then there must be sonneting wrong with you. “I use the classic situation of you go into a pub really drunk and stand on a table and piss on the floor the barman will probably tell your friends to get you home and make sure you have a good night’s sleep and your friends would laugh at you the next day. Now if I did it straight, same action, the barman would probably call the police, the police would arrest me for indecent exposure, destruction of private property, take me in and probably call in the psychiatrists to make sure I was sane before they tried me on criminal charges. I had no excuse. As long as society creates that kind of situation, drinking and drugs will be rampant.” Through the Looking Glass ... Forgive me for saying it, but many of the things you’ve said and talked about doing remind me 0f ... Boy George. A man who has made strange clothes and makeup acceptable, doesn't do drink or drugs, exhorts his fans to be themselves ... “Yeah I don’t like Boy George musically and I wanted to hate him personally because he represented a lot Of the things musically that I

despise. We did Top of the Fbpswith him in England and I would slag him off on stage regularly. Our dressing rooms were next to each other and we met and the first thing he said was ‘I think you guys are brilliant. I have your video.’ And I have a very difficult time being mean to people who are nice to me. And he was really nice and honest and I have to admit that even before I met him I always had to give him credit for having the balls to do what he does. I’ve walked down the street with makeup on, I stopped wearing it. And he’s not a big guy like I am, he’s a wimp. He’s not actually too small but he’s very effeminate, he’s bisexual. He’s stuck to his guns and you’ve got to respect the shit of that. Musically, we’re miles apart...” But isn’t he just trying to make the music he loves, sweet soul? "Oh yeah. I will say I don’t like his music but I would never try and stop anybody’s music. My thing with heavy metal for a long time is that it is still often not treated equally. Radio stations play what they wanna play and not what people wanna hear. It is standard that if a metal song is a hit single it’s the last to be added to the playlist and the first to be removed. I think the music people wanna hear should be accessible to them, equally. In America there’s a resurgence in metal at the moment so we get treated equally in terms of video and it’s getting better on radio.” It’s interesting, however that the biggest metal band in America is Van Halen, who have probably the cleanest visual profile.

"Van Halen? Well, first of all, their music varies. Like Twisted Sister, it can go from kind of pop metal, hard rock, to heavy metal. The difference with Van Halen is they’ve got the underpinnings of a boogie band. Everything seems to be like ‘ Aarumramdam, Hey we’re goin’ to a paaaarrrty ev’ry day, owwww!’ even when it’s not, every song seems to have that kind of feel. ‘Owwwwww! We’re walkin’ down the street and we’re drinkin’ Jack DaaaanyellsF even when they dont. They’re not exactly clean more the classic sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll band. It’s very happy— that would be the best way to describe their imaga You see their pictures and they’re always smilin’.

‘Twisted Sister and most other metal bands are angry and mean. That’s especially so when we’re playing live the speed doubles and melody goes out the window, it just gets in the way. We come on like we’re on fire and the, as the anger subsides, you’ll see some laughing and joking with the audience.” I take it the show is less camped-up, too.

"There is no camp. It is five, aggressive, masculine heavy metallers. Live we are heavy metal. Well actually, it’s almost punk. The feeling is intense and I just wanna scream. It’s raw energy. "There’s not one explosion, no nothing. We

wear makeup, we are the special effects." Time comes up and it’s time for the photo session. The idea had been to capture him against some of the weight training equipment in the gymnasium below. A weight trainer back home, he’s amenable until he peers in on the lunchtime crowd sweating and straining at the bars. “No, this is serious This is a serious gym, like my one back home. We wouldnt want anybody fooling round while we were training. “I’m gonna really get into weights when Twisted Sister winds up,” he explains as we descend the stairs. "Twisted Sister as it is can’t last much more than two years before the anger and the hunger that keeps it going has all gone. When that happens I wanna really get into pumping. 1 wanna get big really humungous ” Outside on the road he’s a photographer’s dream, snarling, baring teeth, pulling ferocious poses. He spies an oil drum with the letters ’FT.W.’ painted on it:“See that? Know what that means? It stands for ‘Fuck The World’. That’s nihilist. Let’s take a coupla pictures here, huh?” The last series of shots is taken atop a small wall. By now the occupants of a nearby office block have seen him and are gazing out the window. A wolf whistle sounds out from above ... “Who’s the whistler!? I hope it’s not a gus I hate gays!” he shouts in a tone quite different to any he has employed that day, angry and unfriendly. “At least I’m down here and not locked up in there!” “See?” he turns round. THIS is what brings out the character you wanted to see!” And it’s true. Eerie, but it’s true. So Dee Snider came and went, a perfect gentleman. He’s not your average metaller and within the glam-metal chants of Twisted Sister songs lies a real conviction. But if Dee Snider has set himself towards championing the right to be different, the right not to conform, then he has a few yawning holes in his philosophy. He plainly doesn't see there’s equally no need for men to conform to what society lays down as“masculine” (or for that matter, for women to be “feminine”), that rebellion need not be loud and muscular, that loudness and muscularity as a standard is often the opposite of rebellion. Ah, but hell, nobody’s perfect. Dee Snider has battled a long time to do things his way and that in itself deserves respect. Twisted Sister are fun for their unselfconscious boisterousness and laudable for Snider’s exhortations to youthful selfrespect. There’s better ‘n’ worse but there’s a place for Twisted Sister.