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A product of New York City's early-'70s glam rock scene, Twisted Sister were eager students of the New York Dolls, with the theatrics of Kiss
and the shock rock of Alice Cooper thrown in for good measure. While providing an excellent role model from an artistic standpoint, the Dolls'
disappointing record sales and subsequent implosion would make it difficult for such faithful disciples as Twisted Sister to land a record deal,
and the band wound up struggling for nearly a decade before finally getting their big break in the early '80s. Unfortunately, when this break
finally came, the ba ...read more
A product of New York City's early-'70s glam rock scene, Twisted Sister were eager students of the New York Dolls, with the theatrics of Kiss
and the shock rock of Alice Cooper thrown in for good measure. While providing an excellent role model from an artistic standpoint, the Dolls'
disappointing record sales and subsequent implosion would make it difficult for such faithful disciples as Twisted Sister to land a record deal,
and the band wound up struggling for nearly a decade before finally getting their big break in the early '80s. Unfortunately, when this break
finally came, the band would then embody one of the most gruesome examples of record company overexposure in the history of rock & roll
(or at least since Kiss' late-'70s decline), bringing an abrupt end to their brief moment of glory.
Founded in December 1972 by guitarist Jay Jay French (who as John Segal, legend has it, played in a pre-Kiss band called Rainbow with Gene
Simmons and Paul Stanley), Twisted Sister based their every move on the aforementioned New York Dolls. Their apprenticeship on the local
club scene was a slow one, but by late 1975 a somewhat stable lineup had coalesced around French, fellow guitarist and high school buddy
Eddie "Fingers" Ojeda, bassist Kenneth Harrison Neil, and drummer Kevin John Grace. A number of different vocalists filed through their
ranks, but it was only with the arrival of Dee Snider in early 1976 that the band found its true leader. Snider brought a strong Alice Cooper
influence to the band, giving their by then antiquated, fey glam sound a welcome kick in the ass. He also quickly developed into the band's
dominant songwriter, and with new drummer Tony Petri in tow, Twisted Sister really started making a name for themselves in and around the
city.
A significant growth spurt ensued; Snider wrote a wealth of original material and the band's live performances grew in local legend, setting
attendance records that still stand in many clubs and culminating in a fruitful May 1978 recording session that would yield most of the
material released 20 years later as the Club Daze album. Twisted Sister's transformation from glam rock also-rans into metallic hard
rock contenders was completed later that year with the arrival of ex-Dictators bass player Mark "The Animal" Mendoza. November 1979 saw
another studio session (this time at Electric Lady Studios with famed Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer), which resulted in their first single, "I'll
Never Grow Up Now!," released on the band's own TSR label in early 1980. Another single, "Bad Boys of Rock 'n' Roll," followed that summer,
but for all their hard work, come 1981 the band had only a growing collection of record company rejection slips to show for their efforts.
Finally, independent Secret Records decided to take a chance on the group and after cutting the four-track Ruff Cuts EP, the group flew
to England with new drummer A.J. Pero (ex-Cities) to record their first full-length album, Under the Blade, under the direction of UFO
bassist Pete Way as producer. And despite obtaining only a mediocre sound from the inexperienced Way, the album became a surprise
underground success, generating enough buzz to attract Atlantic Records, which came calling with a major distribution contract -- the final
ingredient for Twisted Sister's assault on the charts over the next two years.
1983's seminal You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll laid the groundwork for things to come with its more polished production values and more
consistent material, yielding only one chart-flirting single in the title track (for which the band filmed their first, incredibly cheesy, but rather
amusing video) but garnering serious cred with the metal crowd. Later that year, L.A.'s Quiet Riot topped the charts with their smash hit
Metal Health (the first heavy metal album to do so), and Twisted Sister took advantage of this sympathetic musical climate to unleash
their own definitive statement, Stay Hungry. Digging deep into his pop and glam roots, Snider infused added commercial appeal to the
band's hard rock onslaught, and with such monster hits as "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock" leading the way to radio and MTV
saturation with their hilariously tongue-in-cheek videos, the album soon exceeded multi-platinum sales. The extensive touring that followed
guaranteed the album's stay near the top of the charts for many months to come and, against all odds, helped make the "sick mo-fos" from
Long Island into household names in America.
Of course the backlash, when it came, was equally sudden and incredibly vicious. Overexposed to the breaking point after converting every
angry teenager in America and most of their parents, Twisted Sister had lost the edge of their dangerous image, not to mention the respect of
their loyal but terribly possessive core metal fan base. To complicate matters, 1985's Come Out and Play album was very uneven;
attempting to cater to both the band's hardcore elements and their newfound pop constituency and introducing an excessively glammed-up
image makeover to boot, it quickly slid off the charts. Not even Atlantic Records' timely reissue of Under the Blade (with an added bonus
track, "I'll Never Grow Up Now!") could staunch the bleeding, and a dumbfounded Twisted Sister found themselves quickly transformed from
media darlings to favorite whipping boys.
For his part, Snider remained in the camera eye, however, appearing before a Senate committee later that year (along with such rock & roll
luminaries as Frank Zappa and Bob Denver) to testify against the Parents Music Resource Center's demands for music censorship legislation.
Sadly, it would prove to be Twisted Sister's highest profile appearance all year, as their concerts were frequently marred either by low
attendance or crowd animosity. Adding insult to injury, drummer Pero had rendered his resignation at tour's end, opening the door to a very
troubled 1986 for Twisted Sister, as rumors ran rampant about an irreparable rift between Snider and French over the band's direction. They
eventually re-emerged with 1987's Love Is for Suckers, featuring new drummer Joey "Seven" Franco (formerly of The Good Rats), but
not even the services of flavor-of-the-month pop-metal producer Beau Hill could save the album from disappointing sales, and despite still
getting by on the basis of their reliably fierce concert performances, Twisted Sister wound up disintegrating shortly thereafter.
Except for Dee Snider, who gamely soldiered on with an ultimately unsuccessful new hard rock band named Desperado (later renamed
Widowmaker and featuring guitarist Bernie Tormé and drummer Franco), the members of Twisted Sister pretty much vanished from sight over
the next few years. Grunge came and went, and posthumous releases like 1992's Big Hits and Nasty Cuts and 1994's Live at
Hammersmith provided the only memory of Twisted Sister's meteoric flight across the hard rock firmament. As the '90s wore on, Snider's
voice was heard promoting the New York State Lotto as often as shouting "I wanna rock!" and by decade's end he'd transitioned into a widely
syndicated radio DJ and even sometime movie producer. He wrote and starred in the 1998 horror flick Strangeland, for which he also
managed to reunite Twisted Sister's final lineup to record "Heroes Are Hard to Find," a brand new song.
His reconciliation with TS founder Jay Jay French (who'd kept busy managing bands, most notably nu-metallers Sevendust) eventually paved
the way to a never-dreamed-of, full-fledged reunion of the "classic" Stay Hungry lineup, which performed publicly for the first time in
almost 15 years at a post-9/11 benefit concert for New York City. By then, Spitfire Records had reissued much of Twisted Sister's original
catalog, along with a pair of Club Daze collections documenting the band's "lost" '70s recordings, and, in 2004, released a re-recorded
Stay Hungry (retitled Still Hungry) to mark its 20th anniversary. All of this activity fostered further demand for a more permanent
return to action -- they even released a holiday album (Twisted Christmas) in 2006 -- and Twisted Sister has since toured sporadically
across the globe, even, as documented by 2005's Live at Wacken DVD, performing to massive European festival audiences. « hide |
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