In a new interview with Ultimate Guitar, TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider was asked for his opinion on the ‘current trend” of bands who come out of retirement for a new tour, such as MÖTLEY CRÜE and RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. “I think it’s bullshit,” he said. “When you say farewell… RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE breaks up — that’s not retirement. They broke up, and they reformed, and that’s great. But when you do a farewell tour, and you announce this, and you sell tickets, and you have a t-shirt that says ‘No More Tours’ — thank you very much, Ozzy [Osbourne], I bought one of those — and then you come back, that’s bullshit. So when you say, ‘We’re retiring,’ people now don’t take it seriously. So, you know, it’s like a joke, and I think that a part of it is that these artists have nothing else going on. And I realize that — without playing, they have no career.
“I have done so many things — I mentioned Broadway, I’ve been doing radio for 30 years now, voiceover work, I act, I write screenplays, I’m gonna be directing my first two movies, I was supposed to be directing in May but COVID stopped that; I just finished my first novel,” he continued. “And now, in the late stage of my life, I’ve found my voice, my place in the metal community. After a lot of attempts over the last couple of decades, I’ve finally found my place. So, if I do anything musically, I’m not gonna go backward; I’m going to continue forwards with Dee Snider for the new millennium, musically.”
This past March, Dee told SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” that he had “no plans” to perform with TWISTED SISTER ever again. “I’ve heard people [talk about it], and I just shrug my shoulders,” he said. “The idea of being a hundred on that stage terrifies me.
“I created a persona and a performance level for myself that I painted myself into a corner,” he continued. “And there’s a standard that people expect and that I expect of myself. And honestly, I’m afraid of hurting myself because my ego is too big to not thrash about.
“I quietly walked away last summer, and I’m doing some KINGS OF CHAOS things this year.
“I’ve got no plans on the horizon,” Dee reiterated. “And just the idea of a bunch of lumbering old dudes on a stage… I’m not impressed with a lot of the reunions. I won’t name names, but one that’s out there has been performing for way too long in their reunion, and they stand there at their microphones with virtually no movement at all. I was stunned to see a band that used to be all over the stage just standing there frozen in place… For my money, that’s not the memory I want people to have of me and TWISTED SISTER.
“So, I have no plans. People say, ‘Never say never.’ But there’s nothing on the horizon.”
In 2016, TWISTED SISTER embarked on one final trek, titled “Forty And Fuck It”, in celebration of its 40th anniversary. These shows featured the band’s “core lineup” of Snider, guitarist Jay Jay French, guitarist Eddie Ojeda and bassist Mark Mendoza, along with drummer Mike Portnoy. The band’s last-ever concert took place in November of that year — 20 months after the passing of TWISTED‘s longtime drummer A.J. Pero.
TWISTED SISTER‘s original run ended in the late ’80s. After more than a decade, the band publicly reunited in November 2001 to top the bill of New York Steel, a hard-rock benefit concert to raise money for the New York Police And Fire Widows’ And Children’s Benefit Fund.
A year ago, French said that he was that “blissfully retired” from playing music. “I walked off stage at the last show in Mexico, and I gave all my guitars away to my crew,” he told the “Neil Jones Rock Show”. “I said, ‘Guys, thank you. It’s been great. See you later.’ I never looked back. We didn’t even meet in the lobby and have a drink. I was off stage in a golf cart with my wife on the way to the hotel. I was on a plane and out of here.”
French said that he played nine thousand shows with TWISTED SISTER and he “loved every bit of it.” But he understood when people told him that they don’t believe the band is completely retired.
“I never said we weren’t coming back,” he explained. “We retired for a while. And I said, ‘No, I’m not gonna say never.’ We could. Maybe there’s a charity [event that we could play at]. Maybe there’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. I doubt it, but maybe. Whatever. It could happen. But at this point in my life, I don’t think about it.”
Photo credit: John Raptis
