DEE SNIDER On His TV Show: 'We Try To Promote A Certain Degree Of Stability In Our Family'

RockConfidential.com recently conducted an interview with TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider about "Growing Up Twisted", A&E's reality show based on Dee and his family as they navigate everyday life. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

RockConfidential.com: Dee, what I love about "Growing Up Twisted" is it proves that you really are the tame one of the whole bunch!

Dee: (laughs) People seem completely surprised by that! The fact is, when you're a nut for a living the last thing you want to do is go home and be a nut!

RockConfidential.com: It's obvious that you're a great influence on your kids — from their personalities to their career choices. Were those things you encouraged them to go after or did they find them out on their own?

Dee: We're not stage parents. All we want from our kids is for them to do something they're passionate about and to do something that makes them happy. If they want to be an accountant, God bless 'em. Entertainment is a rough industry. Our only guidelines for getting into entertainment, and they can learn by my career crash and burn in the nineties, is not to put all your eggs in one basket. In Jesse's case, it's rock 'n roll. It's something to achieve but more than likely you're going to have to do something else at some point in your life.

RockConfidential.com: Nobody in your family seems to be lacking personality. I'm sure that's part of their bloodline.

Dee: Yeah, and they get a lot of it from their mom. She grew up twisted as well. She and I have been together since she was 15 years old. She was arguing with her mom once and her mom told her, "If you don't like the way you were raised, talk to your husband!" We've been together a looooong time.

RockConfidential.com: You guys have been together 34 years. That's legendary status in the world of rock 'n roll marriages and relationships! What did you two do differently?

Dee: You know, there are a few things that are different but one thing I want to say is this: I was interviewing Kevin Bacon, because I sit in the other chair on the radio. We were discussing this and he's been with Kyra Sedgwick 15 years now. He said percentage-wise there are no more or less successful entertainment couples than there are non-entertainment couples. I think the success rate is about the same but you just hear more about the failures. Those really get sensationalized. As far as our success goes, I met somebody before I was anything. Anything. She wanted nothing to do with me, might I add! (laughs) No interest in me, whatsoever! I knew I was gonna make it, but anybody I met after the fact I always had that little doubt in my mind like, "Is she with me because of who I am?" Where will she be if things go bad, ala Jani Lane and Bobbie Brown. I met Suzette before everything happened. She was there when my career crashed and burned. She was in the trenches with me and now things are going great again. That was a real important factor for me and a lot of people don't have that.

RockConfidential.com: It's human nature that people will automatically compare your show to "Gene Simmons Family Jewels" or "The Osbournes". What do you think when you hear or see those comparisons? The Simmons household almost seems relaxed compared to the Snider home!

Dee: Thanks for noticing that! Gene is great, the show is great and his family is great. Shannon is lovely and she sent me a little tweet to wish me luck. That was classy. I think his kids are really cool. Man, it's so nice over there! It's so nice and calm! I'm the relaxed one at my house as all hell's breaking loose. I want to go stay with the Simmonses! But that's a question we asked. Why us? They pursued us, we didn't pursue this. With Ozzy, and Gene and the Kardashians, it's been done. They asked, "Why do you think there's 'The Cosby Show', 'All In The Family', and 'Everybody Loves Raymond'?" They're all dealing with the same situations but it's about how that cast deals with them. How will this group of personalities deal with a particular situation? That's why people tune in. The situations don't change — life is the same for everybody. Now you get to see the Sniders on Long Island, which is very different. Once my peers got big they pretty much picked up and moved to the West Coast. People love the idea that we're from Long Island and we live in the suburbs. We try to promote a certain degree of stability in our family by not getting sucked into the whole L.A. thing. That's another thing about successful entertainment couples. Stay the fuck out of L.A.! Stay away from the West fuckin' Coast! That place will kill ya!

Read the entire interview at RockConfidential.com.