DEE SNIDER On Why Satellite Radio Is 'Doomed', His Non-Invitation To HOWARD STERN's Wedding
October 28, 2008In next week's Steppin' Out magazine, Sirius Satellite Radio host and rock legend Dee Snider (TWISTED SISTER) sits down with Chaunce Hayden and tells why he thinks Sirius is doomed. Snider also tells Hayden how he feels about not getting invited to Howard Stern's wedding and why Howard stopped returning his calls. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Chaunce Hayden: What is happening with Sirius? The stock is sinking faster than the Titanic. Will it survive in your opinion?
Dee Snider: I'm going to get fired right now. I'm going to tell you something that is going to get me fired today and end my satellite career. It was doomed before it started.
Chaunce Hayden: Why?
Dee Snider: I have a friend named Don Specter. He's the third largest patent holder in the world. When he talks, I listen. He invented the hyperbaric chamber. The guy is a genius. He was a brain surgeon at 14 and they based the IQ system on his IQ. He got a 200 and everybody else was rated from there. Anyway, he said to me two years ago, "Satellite was doomed before it started." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Dee, nobody wants multi-pieces of hardware. They want everything all together. When you have iPhones with the Internet, GPS and cameras attached with Wi-Fi, people will listen to Internet radio and you'll be able to dock the phone from your car or home or office computer. It's all contained on one piece of equipment. Nobody wants to carry more then that around. Now Wi-Fi is all over cities like Baltimore. Sprint just started a new technology that gives you a better signal. You can drive around and get a better Internet connection then you do from a cable connection in your house. For a 45-dollar-a-month fee your phone will be on the Internet all the time. Sirius isn't getting into cars fast enough and they're not getting them to people for free. People used to get free phones with the service. Everything is going to the Internet. Sirius is going to have to go to the Internet as well. It's going to have to change from satellite over to a server.
On not getting invited to his friend, Howard Stern's wedding:
Dee Snider: We weren't invited. My relationship with Howard hasn't been the same in over a decade. Although we reconnected on the air, and it was great to clear the air and find out what the problems were and put it behind us, just too much time had passed. Howard has a whole different life now. I'm still that same guy that he met in 1984 on the "David Letterman" show. We bonded over the fact that we were both from Long Island and the same age, married to our childhood sweethearts and we each had kids. Our lifestyles were crazy but we left that at the office and came home to our wives. We bonded over that normalcy. But when Howard got divorced, he became a single, partying guy. He became a strip-club guy. That left a guy like me in the dust. I just said, "Okay, have fun." But we no longer had that connection. It's still not the same. He's not a dad. He's very much a celebrity. He's more of a Hollywood guy now. He claims he screwed up our relationship by not talking to me because I started doing radio when he was the one who suggested I go on radio! I actually asked his permission and offered a piece of my show for supporting me. But he said, "No, it's cool." But then he stopped talking to me. He just stopped returning my phone calls. Yet he was the one who pushed me into radio to begin with! So I just couldn't believe he stopped talking to me over it. He admits he fucked up the relationship and that it's just too weird now to invite me to his wedding. But when I heard the guest list I thought, "Wow, we're not the same dudes." It was all celebrities. There were no normal people there. He recently had me on the show and I knew we would be friends again if after my segment was over he asked me to stay and hang out with him and do the news. But this time he just shock my hand and said, "Thanks for stopping by." I knew it would never be the same after that.
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