Dee Snider
interviewsofrecordingartists.com
According to Dee Snider, 2002 is going to be the year that he is once again in the international spotlight.
Snider says since he is finally on good terms with band members from the heavy metal rock group, Twisted Sister, he is planning a possible reunion tour in 2002.
In addition, as a screenwriter and actor, Snider has another role which he believes will provide him with high visibility.
He was the central figure in the cult horror film classic titled "StrangeLand" (1998). Snider wrote, co-produced and played the lead role as the character Captain Howdy and now Snider says, he has begun working on the sequel tentatively titled, "StrangeLand 2".
There are horror movie experts who have told Snider, that the task of contriving further diabolical adventures of Captain Howdy and developing those gruesome exploits into interesting plot for a successful movie sequel, would be difficult and might not work.
Yet Snider notes that within his "Twisted Plan" for the development of the character, as well as the plot for the new film screen play, he envisions plenty of opportunity to broaden the horizons and thus the international audience,
for the movie sequel.
In the following interview, Dee Snider speaks of the rise and subsequent decline in popularity of Twisted Sister and the resurgence in Twisted Sister's popularity, along with his plans for the movie sequel to "StrangeLand".
(Q)- Twisted Sister was certainly a different heavy metal act in the 1980's.
Dee Snider- When I joined Twisted Sister in 1976 the Glam rock and heavy metal movement was dead and buried! Nobody was telling me that Glam rock or heavy metal would make it. Both of those genres were viewed by the music industry as
dinosaurs. I was repeatedly told the group was based on a concept that was over. In 1976, punk and new wave bands were what was happening. But I loved the Glam rock and heavy metal and even if it didn't pay anything then, I was going to keep doing it anyway. Because all I had was the love of the music and musical presentation, that I was doing. That goes for anything. It is not only about being visionary, it is about being passionate about your vision, because that is going to carry you through.
(Q)- In your opinion, why did you as the leader and main songwriter of
Twisted Sister, become an international rock star while the other members did not?
Dee Snider- I was writing all of the songs and creating all of the ideas.
And when we finally got to an international presence through worldwide radio airplay of our singles and Twisted Sister music videos being played on MTV, I was all that people wanted to know about. So whenever we were touring around the world and we would come to a major city, I was all that people in the media wanted to know about. So Twisted Sister went from being a band to me. I mean the same situation occurred with Alice Cooper in the early Seventies.
So you can draw comparisons between Twisted Sister and myself and the Alice Cooper Band and Alice Cooper.
(Q)- How did that scenario change your relationship with the other members of Twisted Sister?
Dee Snider- The other guys in Twisted Sister got left in the dust. Then they came to resent me. Because, since I wrote all of the songs I had all of the publishing and the money that came with the song publishing royalties.
(Q)- How did the money and differences in income hurt the relationship between the members of Twisted Sister and yourself as success came to the group?
Dee Snider- They would make enough money to rent an apartment and I bought a house. When they bought a house, I bought a mansion. They bought a car and I bought a small fleet of cars. There was deep resentment.
(Q)- What was the main problem for you personally?
Dee Snider- I started to believe my own press and the hype surrounding me.
(Q)- Is there any chance Twisted Sister could reunite and record as well as tour worldwide once again?
Dee Snider- We're actually getting along very well now. So yes there could be that possibility.
(Q)- Is there a central lyrical theme to the classic heavy metal rock lyrics of Twisted Sister?
Dee Snider- There is only one theme. Showing the world, by overcoming everything and proving to everybody that no one is going to stop me. In some capacity or another that is what every Twisted Sister song was about. So much so that
it got to the point where it was almost monotonous. Staying hungry and I want
to rock, are variations of those themes. There was no songs about sex, drugs and rock and roll. No songs about love lost. There was no male verses female issues in any of the songs. It was always about nobody is going to stop me. Period.
(Q)- That theme appeals to many people around the world.
Dee Snider- Yes it surely is. I'll tell you something that was very intriguing. I once met a fan who had seen Twisted Sister in concert, forty five times.
Forty five! This was in the mid Eighties. I asked this kid, "Why would you go and see this band or any band, forty five times and pay to see this band forty five times?" I mean four or five times but not forty-five times! That's unbelievable. He had counted the times too! So I asked him and after he stopped and thought for a while he looked me in the eye and then he said to me, "Because I believed that you believed. You were so passionate in the way that you sang about how you were going to make it in anything that you pursued and that you were going to achieve the things that you set out to achieve, that you wanted to achieve, I believed in myself by watching you sing about those things. I had to get behind you and I had to believe in you." I was sort of really taken back at that moment. It was sort of like an idiot savant moment for me. He believed that I believed. As a matter of fact, when Twisted Sister started to crumble was not when I stopped believing, but when I no longer felt that I had to continue to prove myself because I already had proven myself. It was at that point that, if I continued on then I would have reached a point where I would have just been proving it once again. But the point has been made, that you can't stop rock and roll and that we all want to rock. There wasn't anything negative going with myself when I decided to break away from Twisted Sister.
I was actually feeling really good about achieving all that I had and I was feeling a real sense of contentment within.
(Q)-Where does Twisted Sister remain popular?
Dee Snider- Twisted Sister has the biggest areas for success throughout the world where there are places that have video outlets for music videos. The biggest country for popularity for Twisted Sister is Canada. Then United States, Mexico, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Australia. Places that had access to videos on television which had the power to reinforce our musical side with the visual side as well. While I am doing this interview here in my office looking at the walls, the walls are covered with platinum and gold albums from all of those countries.
(Q)- Yet in the Nineties, Twisted Sister disbanded and several of your musical projects after Twisted Sister did not do well commercially. Eventually your career took a different path and you moved into writing and acting, with your music at the fringes. Did those years of no attention prior to your success in screenwriting and acting, take a toll on your personal life?
Dee Snider- I'll admit, in the Nineties there were some times that were bad. In 1992, I worked answering telephones for five dollars an hour and I would bicycle to work because I didn't have a car. I was working in the warehouse district answering the telephones. However, I've fortunately had a relationship with the same woman for twenty-five-years and I have four children who are all healthy and happy. I'm healthy and happy and I know that all didn't come from success or notoriety.
(Q)-What was your biggest frustration at that time?
Dee Snider- My biggest frustration after Twisted Sister was that many people, were of this public opinion, which was held by many, that the whole thing was an accident. With Twisted Sister I was trying to prove a point and at a certain point, I realized I had proven my point. Now I'm trying to prove other things. Many people thought that we just threw the whole Twisted Sister thing together and then we caught a wave of a trend or whatever. And I said, "What! It took ten years for us to make it internationally! That was not an accident. It was stupid maybe, but not an accident. And that really started to bother me. So I decided to take on a new project and form a new band so then, if I could do it all twice, the second time couldn't possibly an accident. It would be
by design, I'd do something that hadn't been done before. But what I ran into in the Nineties was like I had a doctorate in a field of medicine that was no longer being studied anymore. I was a doctor in a field of medicine where there was no practice. I was an expert in a field that there was no call for anymore.
People were not interested in the music that I made. It was a huge frustration that became increasingly frustrating to me.
(Q)- Was there a turning point?
Dee Snider- I told my brother once that I had to prove to people, to show people that Twisted Sister and my success was no accident. So my brother told me that I could show people that by doing something else to satisfy my desire. Then that would prove my point. If I could do something else and be successful at it, then that would prove that when I put my mind to something I make it happen. At that point I was already interested in screenplay writing and I started to dabble in radio. (Dee Snider is now a North American disc jockey on the radio airwaves in over ninety USA cities.) Now I am doing better financially then I was whenever Twisted Sister was at the top.
(Q)- What was it like for you to go from financially wealthy to virtually no money then back again to financial security?
Dee Snider- You become accustomed to a certain (financial) lifestyle and then you get to a certain place and things start falling apart. You ego is so big and your positive that the next record is going to pick things up (financially). So rather then tone down our lifestyle, you sustain your lifestyle at a high financial level and then you start failing financially. Then you advance further and further into debt and at some point the music royalties checks are not what they used to be. So you have to go further into debt to support the high financial lifestyle you have been living. I went into debt and I had to pay back the debt. So today, with the Twisted Sister (song publishing) catalog, it brings in for me what most people consider to be a comfortable salary. Once I dug myself out of debt it was really great. Then subsequently I wanted to do more and to achieve more so I wanted to work at another goal. In the past I've said,
"I never wanted to be the King of the world. I only want to be the King of my world." That is what I've worked at doing.
(Q)- The plot for the horror movie "StrangeLand" (1998) was way ahead of the times. Luring teenagers and children through the use of computers and the Internet for various illegal activities, was not an idea that anyone was
willing to write about seven years ago.
Dee Snider- When I began writing about that subject in 1994, no one to my knowledge had written a screenplay about the subject. Back then the modem speed of a computer was only 2400 bits. That was the top modem speed whenever I started writing the script. So I guess that idea was ahead of it's time. (He laughs). As the script was advancing I had to change the modem speed because that was changing as computer technology advanced.
(Q)- In your opinion, why was the movie so successful?
Dee Snider- It was set in the world of body modification and tribal rituals.
It was a very different scary movie. The thing that was unique about it was that it was just getting into the realm of the Internet and it was a brand new theme.
AOL (the computer online service provider.) had just started and I was thinking that this could really be misused. It was really scary. I started experimenting with ideas and I began to find people with certain types of qualities and to check their little online bios and to try and find out when they were in chat rooms online. Then I looked into being notified whenever they entered a little chat room to play off of their own traits and communicate with them through the Internet. Then I went and made up my own little bio and made a match for girls and I'd ask them, "Hey. Do you want to go over here for a party?" And a girl would say, "Yeah. Sure." Then I'd pull the plug because my wife would never go for it. So here I am a few years later shopping the movie script around and all of a sudden there is this guy, who in reality is torturing some girl that he lured over the Internet. So I called my wife and said, "Some guy stole my idea! He beat me to the punch!" And my wife told me, "Honey do you really want to be known as the guy who invented Internet sex crime?"
(Q)- Do you foresee another movie and more acting?
Dee Snider- We are already in pre-production the sequel will start shooting next year. "StrangeLand 2" has already a cult following and I'm going to do it again. I really like writing and producing and I do want to try and create a franchise horror figure for the New Millennium. My character Captain Howdy, was very disturbing part of the film. That character was a visionary one, but it was a creepy one. So yes, I'm looking forward to doing more acting and screen writing in 2002.
(Q)- How did those who know you feel whenever they initially read the original "StrangeLand" screenplay manuscript? Was there any uneasiness towards you by those who know you, because you created such a bizarre, evil character?
Dee Snider- Yes. After my wife read the movie script, she came to me and said, "Is there something that you want to tell me? Have you been hiding something from me?"
(Q)-It seems as if the major movie studios do not want to take chances anymore with horror movies. The independent film productions oftentimes risk the most and yet yield the most profits in return, whenever a film does take off.
Dee Snider- It is a unique situation. It's a catch twenty-two. Ultimately the films that do the best or any literary property that is different and sells
well are the ones that take chances and do not toe the corporate line. Yet you cannot get those movies produced because the script does not work within the corporate guidelines. I mean was anybody making outer space movies whenever George Lucas came out with "Star Wars"? Everybody in Hollywood looked at him and asked him, "What are you crazy? Who is doing this?" Nobody was making space adventure movies when "Star Wars" first came out. But that's why it was so huge. It is always the first people out of the box who are willing to take a chance who are the individuals who are more creative and ultimately have the larger success. You cannot be truly successful following other people around and going with the trends. You have got to be different.
(Q)- There are those within the movie industry who say that it will be very difficult for you to make a successful sequel to "StrangeLand" and to keep the interest level in the Captain Howdy character ongoing.
Dee Snider- That is my passion. If you really look at and study those people who have been at the forefront of horror or science fiction movies, they were not sitting around asking themselves, "How can I create something new? How can I be at the forefront of something new and exciting that will be the next big thing in film?" They were people who said, "Wow! What I've discovered here is really cool. I'm really like this, I'm really into it. I don't care if other people are not into this, because I think this is really great." I have a genuine enthusiasm and passion for this character and the sequel. If you are not passionate then you're not going to be able to carry the original and fresh idea through to completion. If you want to make another duplicate of what someone has already made, then you are not going to make it through to the finish and become a success. You have got to love that idea. And I have a passion to make the sequel successful.
END.
interviewsofrecordingartists.com
According to Dee Snider, 2002 is going to be the year that he is once again in the international spotlight. Snider says since he is finally on good terms with band members from the heavy metal rock group, Twisted Sister, he is planning a possible reunion tour in 2002. In addition, as a screenwriter and actor, Snider has another role which he believes will provide him with high visibility. He was the central figure in the cult horror film classic titled "StrangeLand" (1998). Snider wrote, co-produced and played the lead role as the character Captain Howdy and now Snider says, he has begun working on the sequel tentatively titled, "StrangeLand 2". There are horror movie experts who have told Snider, that the task of contriving further diabolical adventures of Captain Howdy and developing those gruesome exploits into interesting plot for a successful movie sequel, would be difficult and might not work. Yet Snider notes that within his "Twisted Plan" for the development of the character, as well as the plot for the new film screen play, he envisions plenty of opportunity to broaden the horizons and thus the international audience, for the movie sequel. In the following interview, Dee Snider speaks of the rise and subsequent decline in popularity of Twisted Sister and the resurgence in Twisted Sister's popularity, along with his plans for the movie sequel to "StrangeLand".
(Q)- Twisted Sister was certainly a different heavy metal act in the 1980's.
Dee Snider- When I joined Twisted Sister in 1976 the Glam rock and heavy metal movement was dead and buried! Nobody was telling me that Glam rock or heavy metal would make it. Both of those genres were viewed by the music industry as dinosaurs. I was repeatedly told the group was based on a concept that was over. In 1976, punk and new wave bands were what was happening. But I loved the Glam rock and heavy metal and even if it didn't pay anything then, I was going to keep doing it anyway. Because all I had was the love of the music and musical presentation, that I was doing. That goes for anything. It is not only about being visionary, it is about being passionate about your vision, because that is going to carry you through.
(Q)- In your opinion, why did you as the leader and main songwriter of Twisted Sister, become an international rock star while the other members did not?
Dee Snider- I was writing all of the songs and creating all of the ideas. And when we finally got to an international presence through worldwide radio airplay of our singles and Twisted Sister music videos being played on MTV, I was all that people wanted to know about. So whenever we were touring around the world and we would come to a major city, I was all that people in the media wanted to know about. So Twisted Sister went from being a band to me. I mean the same situation occurred with Alice Cooper in the early Seventies. So you can draw comparisons between Twisted Sister and myself and the Alice Cooper Band and Alice Cooper.
(Q)- How did that scenario change your relationship with the other members of Twisted Sister?
Dee Snider- The other guys in Twisted Sister got left in the dust. Then they came to resent me. Because, since I wrote all of the songs I had all of the publishing and the money that came with the song publishing royalties.
(Q)- How did the money and differences in income hurt the relationship between the members of Twisted Sister and yourself as success came to the group?
Dee Snider- They would make enough money to rent an apartment and I bought a house. When they bought a house, I bought a mansion. They bought a car and I bought a small fleet of cars. There was deep resentment.
(Q)- What was the main problem for you personally?
Dee Snider- I started to believe my own press and the hype surrounding me.
(Q)- Is there any chance Twisted Sister could reunite and record as well as tour worldwide once again?
Dee Snider- We're actually getting along very well now. So yes there could be that possibility.
(Q)- Is there a central lyrical theme to the classic heavy metal rock lyrics of Twisted Sister?
Dee Snider- There is only one theme. Showing the world, by overcoming everything and proving to everybody that no one is going to stop me. In some capacity or another that is what every Twisted Sister song was about. So much so that it got to the point where it was almost monotonous. Staying hungry and I want to rock, are variations of those themes. There was no songs about sex, drugs and rock and roll. No songs about love lost. There was no male verses female issues in any of the songs. It was always about nobody is going to stop me. Period.
(Q)- That theme appeals to many people around the world.
Dee Snider- Yes it surely is. I'll tell you something that was very intriguing. I once met a fan who had seen Twisted Sister in concert, forty five times. Forty five! This was in the mid Eighties. I asked this kid, "Why would you go and see this band or any band, forty five times and pay to see this band forty five times?" I mean four or five times but not forty-five times! That's unbelievable. He had counted the times too! So I asked him and after he stopped and thought for a while he looked me in the eye and then he said to me, "Because I believed that you believed. You were so passionate in the way that you sang about how you were going to make it in anything that you pursued and that you were going to achieve the things that you set out to achieve, that you wanted to achieve, I believed in myself by watching you sing about those things. I had to get behind you and I had to believe in you." I was sort of really taken back at that moment. It was sort of like an idiot savant moment for me. He believed that I believed. As a matter of fact, when Twisted Sister started to crumble was not when I stopped believing, but when I no longer felt that I had to continue to prove myself because I already had proven myself. It was at that point that, if I continued on then I would have reached a point where I would have just been proving it once again. But the point has been made, that you can't stop rock and roll and that we all want to rock. There wasn't anything negative going with myself when I decided to break away from Twisted Sister. I was actually feeling really good about achieving all that I had and I was feeling a real sense of contentment within.
(Q)-Where does Twisted Sister remain popular?
Dee Snider- Twisted Sister has the biggest areas for success throughout the world where there are places that have video outlets for music videos. The biggest country for popularity for Twisted Sister is Canada. Then United States, Mexico, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Australia. Places that had access to videos on television which had the power to reinforce our musical side with the visual side as well. While I am doing this interview here in my office looking at the walls, the walls are covered with platinum and gold albums from all of those countries.
(Q)- Yet in the Nineties, Twisted Sister disbanded and several of your musical projects after Twisted Sister did not do well commercially. Eventually your career took a different path and you moved into writing and acting, with your music at the fringes. Did those years of no attention prior to your success in screenwriting and acting, take a toll on your personal life?
Dee Snider- I'll admit, in the Nineties there were some times that were bad. In 1992, I worked answering telephones for five dollars an hour and I would bicycle to work because I didn't have a car. I was working in the warehouse district answering the telephones. However, I've fortunately had a relationship with the same woman for twenty-five-years and I have four children who are all healthy and happy. I'm healthy and happy and I know that all didn't come from success or notoriety.
(Q)-What was your biggest frustration at that time?
Dee Snider- My biggest frustration after Twisted Sister was that many people, were of this public opinion, which was held by many, that the whole thing was an accident. With Twisted Sister I was trying to prove a point and at a certain point, I realized I had proven my point. Now I'm trying to prove other things. Many people thought that we just threw the whole Twisted Sister thing together and then we caught a wave of a trend or whatever. And I said, "What! It took ten years for us to make it internationally! That was not an accident. It was stupid maybe, but not an accident. And that really started to bother me. So I decided to take on a new project and form a new band so then, if I could do it all twice, the second time couldn't possibly an accident. It would be by design, I'd do something that hadn't been done before. But what I ran into in the Nineties was like I had a doctorate in a field of medicine that was no longer being studied anymore. I was a doctor in a field of medicine where there was no practice. I was an expert in a field that there was no call for anymore. People were not interested in the music that I made. It was a huge frustration that became increasingly frustrating to me.
(Q)- Was there a turning point?
Dee Snider- I told my brother once that I had to prove to people, to show people that Twisted Sister and my success was no accident. So my brother told me that I could show people that by doing something else to satisfy my desire. Then that would prove my point. If I could do something else and be successful at it, then that would prove that when I put my mind to something I make it happen. At that point I was already interested in screenplay writing and I started to dabble in radio. (Dee Snider is now a North American disc jockey on the radio airwaves in over ninety USA cities.) Now I am doing better financially then I was whenever Twisted Sister was at the top.
(Q)- What was it like for you to go from financially wealthy to virtually no money then back again to financial security?
Dee Snider- You become accustomed to a certain (financial) lifestyle and then you get to a certain place and things start falling apart. You ego is so big and your positive that the next record is going to pick things up (financially). So rather then tone down our lifestyle, you sustain your lifestyle at a high financial level and then you start failing financially. Then you advance further and further into debt and at some point the music royalties checks are not what they used to be. So you have to go further into debt to support the high financial lifestyle you have been living. I went into debt and I had to pay back the debt. So today, with the Twisted Sister (song publishing) catalog, it brings in for me what most people consider to be a comfortable salary. Once I dug myself out of debt it was really great. Then subsequently I wanted to do more and to achieve more so I wanted to work at another goal. In the past I've said, "I never wanted to be the King of the world. I only want to be the King of my world." That is what I've worked at doing.
(Q)- The plot for the horror movie "StrangeLand" (1998) was way ahead of the times. Luring teenagers and children through the use of computers and the Internet for various illegal activities, was not an idea that anyone was willing to write about seven years ago.
Dee Snider- When I began writing about that subject in 1994, no one to my knowledge had written a screenplay about the subject. Back then the modem speed of a computer was only 2400 bits. That was the top modem speed whenever I started writing the script. So I guess that idea was ahead of it's time. (He laughs). As the script was advancing I had to change the modem speed because that was changing as computer technology advanced.
(Q)- In your opinion, why was the movie so successful?
Dee Snider- It was set in the world of body modification and tribal rituals. It was a very different scary movie. The thing that was unique about it was that it was just getting into the realm of the Internet and it was a brand new theme. AOL (the computer online service provider.) had just started and I was thinking that this could really be misused. It was really scary. I started experimenting with ideas and I began to find people with certain types of qualities and to check their little online bios and to try and find out when they were in chat rooms online. Then I looked into being notified whenever they entered a little chat room to play off of their own traits and communicate with them through the Internet. Then I went and made up my own little bio and made a match for girls and I'd ask them, "Hey. Do you want to go over here for a party?" And a girl would say, "Yeah. Sure." Then I'd pull the plug because my wife would never go for it. So here I am a few years later shopping the movie script around and all of a sudden there is this guy, who in reality is torturing some girl that he lured over the Internet. So I called my wife and said, "Some guy stole my idea! He beat me to the punch!" And my wife told me, "Honey do you really want to be known as the guy who invented Internet sex crime?"
(Q)- Do you foresee another movie and more acting?
Dee Snider- We are already in pre-production the sequel will start shooting next year. "StrangeLand 2" has already a cult following and I'm going to do it again. I really like writing and producing and I do want to try and create a franchise horror figure for the New Millennium. My character Captain Howdy, was very disturbing part of the film. That character was a visionary one, but it was a creepy one. So yes, I'm looking forward to doing more acting and screen writing in 2002.
(Q)- How did those who know you feel whenever they initially read the original "StrangeLand" screenplay manuscript? Was there any uneasiness towards you by those who know you, because you created such a bizarre, evil character?
Dee Snider- Yes. After my wife read the movie script, she came to me and said, "Is there something that you want to tell me? Have you been hiding something from me?"
(Q)-It seems as if the major movie studios do not want to take chances anymore with horror movies. The independent film productions oftentimes risk the most and yet yield the most profits in return, whenever a film does take off.
Dee Snider- It is a unique situation. It's a catch twenty-two. Ultimately the films that do the best or any literary property that is different and sells well are the ones that take chances and do not toe the corporate line. Yet you cannot get those movies produced because the script does not work within the corporate guidelines. I mean was anybody making outer space movies whenever George Lucas came out with "Star Wars"? Everybody in Hollywood looked at him and asked him, "What are you crazy? Who is doing this?" Nobody was making space adventure movies when "Star Wars" first came out. But that's why it was so huge. It is always the first people out of the box who are willing to take a chance who are the individuals who are more creative and ultimately have the larger success. You cannot be truly successful following other people around and going with the trends. You have got to be different.
(Q)- There are those within the movie industry who say that it will be very difficult for you to make a successful sequel to "StrangeLand" and to keep the interest level in the Captain Howdy character ongoing.
Dee Snider- That is my passion. If you really look at and study those people who have been at the forefront of horror or science fiction movies, they were not sitting around asking themselves, "How can I create something new? How can I be at the forefront of something new and exciting that will be the next big thing in film?" They were people who said, "Wow! What I've discovered here is really cool. I'm really like this, I'm really into it. I don't care if other people are not into this, because I think this is really great." I have a genuine enthusiasm and passion for this character and the sequel. If you are not passionate then you're not going to be able to carry the original and fresh idea through to completion. If you want to make another duplicate of what someone has already made, then you are not going to make it through to the finish and become a success. You have got to love that idea. And I have a passion to make the sequel successful.
END.
