Twisted Sister
What You Don't Know

03.11.2013

*** ARCHIVE ITEM - DATED 2005 *** The return of Twisted Sister, one of America's finest metal bands of the 1980s, was among the biggest news of 2003, as the band came back playing to the biggest audiences they had ever had. And even though vocalist Dee Snider said firmly there are no plans to make a new album, the interest in Twisted Sister is still enormous, and it was further spurred in 2004, when the band released "Still Hungry", a re-recorded version of the 1984 classic record "Stay Hungry", this time in a heavier and more powerful rendition. It's no secret that for many fans it's Dee Snider who personifies Twisted Sister, as he's the vocalist, the songwriter and the most outspoken person in the band, but the subject of our interview is a no less important figure, guitarist Jay Jay French, who founded the band back in 1972 and has been managing it ever since. Getting in contact with Jay Jay turned out quite an adventure, since when we called the U.S. in a pre-arranged timeframe, nobody answered the phone. After 15 minutes of desperate calls somebody did pick up the phone, just to let us know that Jay Jay is out of the office. However this kind person (thanks!!!) promised us that he will find Jay Jay and have him call us back. What's most bewildering, in 1.5 hours he succeeded!  

(EDITOR'S NOTE - THE YEAR 2013: Our first anniversary year is now over, but we keep on putting up archive items that our authors penned before starting to write for HeadBanger.ru. We polled the visitors of our Vkontakte page, and poll results clearly show that these old interviews are still of interest to the readers and they want these texts to be available again to the general public. As to ourselves, this is a good opportunity to re-live some of the great moments of our careers as journalists, and we are naturally eager to share them with you...)

We saw Twisted Sister live at the Bang Your Head festival in Germany in 2003, and it was a fantastic performance. What are your memories about that show?

My memories are very strong. It was fun, it was emotional, it was important for the band to see that kind of dedication and long-lasting popularity. When you disappear for 20 years and then you come back, it's a special experience.

You are playing Bang Your Head again this year. What should the people expect from your performance this time? How much will it be different? 

I think that people want to hear their favorite songs. If you change away from that, they won't be happy. I think we're gonna play mostly the same songs, and then we're gonna add some songs. I think we'll play the whole "Stay Hungry" record, including "Captain Howdy", "Street Justice", and "Don't Let Me Down", which we never played before. That will be fun to do. And I think we'll add a couple of other things, the stuff from the "Still Hungry" record - "Plastic Money" and "Come Back". This already means altering the set list by about 50 percent, and I don't know if the audience wants it more than 50 percent altered. They want "We're Not Gonna Take It", they want "I Wanna Rock", they want "You Can't Stop Rock'n'Roll", they want "Under The Blade", they want "Destroyer", and if we don't play these songs, I think they'll be disappointed.

We remember the crowd at Bang Your Head singing along "We're Not Gonna Take It" even after the music was over, so you started the song again two times. Is it something that often happens at your shows nowadays, or was that something unique? 

You know, it happens everything, but at Bang Your Head it was louder. It does happen everywhere, it's become famous, it's like "We Will Rock You", one of those famous songs that the crowd always sings along with. It's pretty special for us to be onstage and hear that.

By the way, "We're Not Gonna Take It" was recently used by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the official song in his run for the governor of California…

Well, he liked the song, but the song is in a lot of movies, and it's played at sporting events, and those kinds of songs become real kind of social statements, so Schwarzenegger decided that he liked the song, and he meant it, I guess, for his own political symbolism. If we really politically disagree, we could have said "no", but he didn't do enough to make us angry. He's OK, he's a Republican, but he's OK. He supports women's rights, he supports gay rights, he supports social things that we support.  

You have another song that is strongly associated with Arnold - "Stay Hungry"…

Yeah, we did that because of his book (actually the book is written Charles Gaines, and Arnold starred in the movie made from this novel - ed.). "Stay hungry" became his motto, meaning that you always have to stay desirous of a goal in order to achieve it.  

Now let's discuss your latest release "Still Hungry". When did you first come up with the idea to re-record the "Stay Hungry" album?  

I think the name is important, because it shows that we came back with an appetite to do it again. The idea to re-record the record came about, because we originally needed something to put together with the DVD which is still in production and hopefully will be ready this summer. Unfortunately the DVD took longer than expected, and we were faced with the situation that we're in the studio working on the record, and we had no choice but to release the record first. Then we had to have a lot more songs on it to make the package impressive. I think if a fan who had the original "Stay Hungry" went out and bought the record, he would find that there was a reason to do "Still Hungry", because the songs sounded better, and the package was great, and there was a lot of extra material in it. We wanted to give the fans something extra.

We remember thee unpleasant comments that the producer of "Stay Hungry", Tom Werman, did a year ago about his work with Twisted Sister. (In particular, Tom said in an interview that working with Eagles was much easier than with Twisted Sister, because Eagles at least had an idea of what they were doing - ed.) Did these comments have any influence on your decision to re-record the album? 

No, I never even thought about it. Although I saw Tom Werman last month in a restaurant in Massachusetts, and the next day he invited me to the hotel that he owns, and we spent time and talked about it. But our decision had nothing to do with anything personal with Tom Werman. Most bands don't like the records they make, in general, if they look back at them, and Twisted Sister is a much heavier group live than we are on record. I think it was an opportunity to make us sound as heavy on record as we are live, and it's a much better representation, but you're fans, so you tell me, does "Still Hungry" sound better than "Stay Hungry"?

Yes, sure!

Are you as fans happy that we did it?

Yes, absolutely!

Do you think it was a waste of time for us to do it?

No!!! 

Do you like the extra songs on it?

Yes!

So overall do you think it was a good experiment?  

Definitely!

OK, now you have answered all my questions, and I can go now! (everybody laughs)

No, not yet, please! We still have a lot of questions. For instance, let's compare the recording process of these two albums. What was different and what remained the same in the studio?

The number one difference is that "Still Hungry" was recorded without any tape at all, it was recorded on Pro-Tools. The process was very quick, it was done in the studio that we like in New York, it was done with our own equipment, which was nice, it was done in our pace, which was also nice. The sound is better, the digital allows you to play a bit heavier, and the sonic nature of the record was able to come across heavier because of the technology. Mark Mendosa never liked the sound of his bass, but now he was able to get a good sound for the record, and that was good. We pretty much did it ourselves, we didn't have to have somebody else in there. And there's something else that's very important - we had 20 years to practice the songs. To be honest with you, when bands release live records, a live record is the same thing in a way - they just go back and record the songs after playing them 100 times. And live records are not even really live, they're recorded in the studio with a plus track put on top of it, because purely live versions tend to suck. So bands are re-recording their biggest records all the time in the form of live albums, and we just re-recorded ours and said what it was, which was a re-recording without the fake studio audience.

What is your current opinion about the impact that the original "Stay Hungry" had on your career?

It had an enormous effect, it sold six million records, broke us worldwide, you can't deny it, and I don't deny it. Frankly, the only people who don't listen to records are the musicians who make them. While you may have listened to "Stay Hungry" a hundred times, I listened to it twice. I listened it in 1984 when we finished it, and in 1994 when we put it in digital. I don't have a particular connection to that record from the sonic standpoint, it's not romantic to me, but I can understand that it is to many people, because I like certain records, I've grown up with them, and it would be difficult for me to listen to them differently. But from our prospective, from the band's prospective, there was no big deal in doing it. We didn't really like the first one sounded, so let's make it better.

As you said, "Still Hungry" has a bunch of very interesting bonus tracks. Let's start with "Never Say Never" and "Blastin' Fast And Loud" - how much are these versions different from the ones that were released on "Club Daze Vol.2" a couple of years ago?

They're exact. Those songs should have been saved for this package, we put those out on "Club Daze" just because somebody said we should get something new out there. We rescued the original rhythm tracks for those songs and re-recorded everything else on them in the year 2000. We put them on "Still Hungry" only to complete it, because those two songs were written during the same time as "Stay Hungry", they're there because they should have been on the original record. But you know, on vinyl you can only put so much time on the record, and we were not able to put those songs out. Now all the songs recorded during that time are on the record. I think that "Never Say Never" is a great song. We were able to remaster it for this album, so it sounds better.

Also among the bonus tracks is the song "Rock'n'Roll Saviors", and its lyrics are still very much up-to-date even though it's nearly 25 years old. But have you considered replacing the line "disco is dying" with some newer musical style, something like "hip-hop is dying"?

We thought about it, but decided that it's a historical document. Dee writes these things, and when he suggested to re-write it, we thought, "You know what? No one uses the term 'rock'n'roll these days either". It was a statement song from 1979, so we kept it.

You've mentioned the upcoming DVD also called "Still Hungry", which was shot in Wacken in 2003. What label will be releasing it?

Different labels in different parts of the world. I believe it will be Drakkar in Germany, Demolition in the UK. The DVD will have on the foot side of it music, we just don't know what's gonna be on it yet. I don't know if it's gonna be the greatest-hits-of-Twisted-Sister package, if it's gonna have just the songs from "Still Hungry" in the "Stay Hungry" versions, just 10 songs, but it's gonna be one disc with a bunch of stuff on it. Hopefully people will buy it and enjoy it. It's gonna have footage from the first show we played in the year 2000, when we got together for a friend of ours named Jason Flom (vice president of Twisted Sister's former label Atlantic Records - ed.), then it's gonna have a couple of songs from New York Still, a couple of shows from Korea, and the Wacken festival.

Do you have any plans to re-release your old videos on DVD? The "Come Out And Play" video is not easy to find on VHS these days.

We can't find them. We're trying like crazy, we've been calling everybody to find the stuff, but we can't locate it. I wish we could release the DVD with all those songs on it, but we have only found one song, "We're Not Gonna Take It", that's it, which kinda sucks.

By the way, did you shoot any videos for the album "Love Is For Suckers" (1987)? Unfortunately we have never seen any of these…

We did one song, "Hot Love". I have no idea where that is.

One of your best videos is definitely "Be Chrool To Your Scuel", as the studio recording of that song features such guests as Alice Cooper, Billy Joel and Brian Setzer. Was it easy to convince them to play with you?

It was an idea that Dee had. We waned to get Chuck Berry, but he wasn't available, so we got Brian Setzer to play guitar and Clarence Clemons from the E Street band to play saxophone, Billy Joel did piano and Alice Cooper was singing. It was really cool.

And why of all these guys only Alice appears in the video?

Billy and Clarence weren't in L.A. when it was made. But to start with, it didn't matter to have those other guys in there, what mattered was Alice, because he could really add to the production. I don't think it would matter if Billy Joel was in there, it could have been cute, but it didn't really matter. What was interesting is that Lennie Casea (unsure about the spelling - ed.), a very famous stage actress, is in the video, she plays the cook in this ugly kitchen tearing some kid's throat open. So if you're a fan of Lennie Casea and you find that, you'll be rather fascinated that she's in the movie.

"Still Hungry" is released through a variety of independent record labels around the world, and as you said, that will be the same for the DVD. Are you comfortable with this situation, was it something that you wanted from the beginning?

You know what? The major labels don't care about metal like us anymore, so you have no choice really than to work with specialized labels in different parts of the world. It's not even an option. What it does is that it allows you to do independent licensing, so you can show your product more, which is better.

After the release of "Still Hungry", two volumes of "Club Daze", and the double live album, is there any more unreleased Twisted Sister material from the early days?

The only stuff left is rehearsal tapes, which I don't know if they'll ever be released. It's just the stuff done in a rehearsal room with a cassette deck, when we were writing songs. I think that a very funny thing to do would be to put the very first demo of "We're Not Gonna Take It" on the acoustic guitar on one of these projects just because it's fun to listen to, but I have to find it first and find out how embarrassing it is. Everything else is out.

Have you ever considered re-recording "Love Is For Suckers"? This is an album that we love very much, but it's kind of overlooked by many fans…

Yeah, it's not the hottest release of the band, but we might play a song from it this year, we may play "Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant)"? But to be honest with you, I never listen to that record, I'm not on the record.

Could you say it again - you are not playing on this record?

I believe that there's a studio guitar player who plays all the parts on "Love Is For Suckers".

Why weren't you involved in the recording?

At this point the band was falling apart, we were having arguments with the producer, and I think he brought in Reb Beach (later Winger, Dokken, now with Whitesnake - ed.) to do all the guitar parts.

But you are still credited on the album…

Yeah, of course, because I own the company. But the band broke up during the record of that album, AJ Pero is not on the record, and Joe Franko doesn't play live drums, it's all drum machines, and Eddie Ojeda and I were replaced by Reb Beach. I don't really regard it as a Twisted Sister record. However there are some good songs on it.

Now let's talk about the 1970s. Various sources say that before forming Twisted Sister you were the guitarist in a band called Wicked Lester which later turned into Kiss. Is that correct?

No. I auditioned for a band that was to become Kiss, Wicked Lester was already broken up. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were auditioning people in June, July and August of 1972, and in the month of June for two weeks I auditioned. I didn't hear anything back from them, and later that summer I was offered to join another band in Pennsylvania. When I came back to New York in September, I saw that the ad they had for a guitar player was still running in a local paper. I called them up, and they said they had just filled the spot with this guy named Paul Frehley (now commonly known as Ace Frehley - ed.). I went down, I heard the band, and I thought they were great. That's the whole story, I was simply one of the dozens of guitar players who auditioned for them. Then Twisted Sister started in December of that year.

It took Twisted Sister nearly 10 years to get a record deal (the first album "Under The Blade" came out only in 1982 - ed.), but nowadays it's all different - a band gets together, records a couple of demos, plays a few shows, and then gets picked by a label. Don't you think that the current situation in the music business doesn't allow a band to get mature before getting real public exposure?

I would say you are probably generally correct. There used to be a club scene that used to develop bands. Now the club scene doesn't exist, so the bands don't have time to mature. But don't be fooled or mistaken - thousands of band get signed after only having been together for a month, this has always happened in the history of music. It's not that they lasted when this happened. But the idea that a band can be signed after building up a following, which is important to develop the band's ability to play, write, perform, that's pretty much over with. There's very little room to do this now.

What happened to the guys from early Twisted Sister line-ups? Do you have any contact with them?

On occasion. There are so many of them I haven't spoken to in years, but there are a couple of them I talk to.

How did you first meet Dee Snider? What was your first impression of him?

My booking agent wanted me to play Led Zeppelin songs, because he said we'd make more money. He told me that Danny Snider, that's his real name was singing lead for a group called Pit Ark (unsure about the spelling - ed.), and that he was really good, he could do Zeppelin. If you're hired to do Led Zeppelin music, you will get more money, that was the instinct, and that was the reason. He joined in 1976 and started writing music in 1978.

About a decade later, what was your reaction when Dee started writing a book, this famous "Teenage Survival Guide"?

I thought it was fun, everybody can write. People want me to write my book, but I don't wanna write it until I retire, too many people's lives will be hurt by it. My stories are ridiculous, and therefore I'm not gonna write it, but yeah, it made sense. I know Dee's book became very popular in Russia, but I don't know anything about the book, I've never read it.

What were you doing after Twisted Sister broke up? As far as we understand, you are now a prominent manager…

Yeah, I manage a lot of different artists. I've been doing it since the early days, I managed Twisted Sister anyway, so when I got out of that, I managed singer-songwriters, blues guitar players, rock groups like Sevendust, pop artists like Tina Sugandh, she's Indian, but born and raised in America. Now I also manage a band called The Sound Of Urchin, they're really good, and my managing company represents a couple of DJs, mixers and producers. So it's across the border, all different kinds of music.

And what about making your own music?

No, I never had the desire to. If I was to make a record, that would be a blues album. I don't know who's interested in blues these days, but that's my own personal love.

Twisted Sister got together again in the late 1990s, when you recorded AC/DC song "Sin City" for your tribute album "Twisted Forever". What was the idea behind recording a cover version for a tribute to yourselves?

We thought it was a funny idea. Everybody does Twisted Sister songs, and Twisted Sister appears on the record and does the song by one of the bands that we believe in the most, which is AC/DC. They are one of my all-time favorite bands.

But why did it take you until 2003 to get on the road again?

Well, we only did one song. It's very difficult, everybody has his own lives, children and jobs, and Twisted Sister unfortunately is only a little part of it. I don't really have a lot of time to do this, and neither does anybody else, so Twisted Sister gets a little bit of time once in a while - we play a show, we make a record. We have a lot of fun, don't misunderstand me, it's just that it no longer is the center of our lives. We try to do it when we can do it.

In 2003 you did a tour of U.S. military bases in South Korea. How was that like?

That was amazing. To go to South Korea for USOs to play was extraordinary, the experiences we had there will last a lifetime.

How big were the audiences?

The camp bases are what they are, a couple of thousands of people a night. You play at a base, so you have to play to the guys at the base.

Did you get a chance to see any of the country?

Oh yeah, they took us to the demilitarized zone, face to face with North Koreas. Everybody was carrying guns, aiming at each other, that was pretty scary.

How long are you planning to continue with Twisted Sister if, as Dee says, there are no new albums planned?

Well, I don't know if there really is a plan. I think we will just play a show here and there, and that's it. We're gonna play some shows this year, it could be the last shows. I'm not saying that for the dramatic effect after saying it, I don't really think too far in advance. We book a show, we play it, that's fine, we book a show, we play it, that's fine. But I don't have the time, neither does Dee or Mark, to do more than what we do. There is no tour, there is no album, there won't be one, I don't see that happen. We can't tour, because we can't play more than once a week. It just means that if you see that Twisted Sister are advertised, come and see us, because it will be the one time to see the band.

What are the chances of seeing Twisted Sister live in Russia? Have you ever got any proposals to play some live shows over here?

If a promoter makes an offer that will make sense, we'll play. So far we have had some questions, but nothing currently. But I believe that if we play Russia, people would love it. So if you want Twisted Sister there, tell people to ask the promoters. Everybody knows how to reach us, we're easily reachable. I'd like to play Russia one time before we stop. My mother was Russian, my father's Romanian, so I'd love to play in Moscow.

Well, Jay Jay, thank you very much for this interview!

Thank you and thanks for keeping the spirit alive. Hopefully in 2005 or 2006 we will go to do one show in Russia. Always tell the people: www.twistedsister.com - go there, follow all the information and see where we're gonna play.

Twisted Sister on the Internet: http://www.twistedsister.com