JAY JAY FRENCH: Bands Like PRIEST And QUEENSRŸCHE Are Selling 10 Percent Of What They Used To

September 17, 2007

Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly recently conducted an interview with TWISTED SISTER guitarist Jay Jay French. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Entertainment Weekly: How did TWISTED SISTER get into the Xmas album business?

Jay Jay French: The idea came about because my singer hasn't written a new song in 20 years. And I was trying to get him — or anyone — excited about anything. And I thought, How about a Christmas album? And then Dee [Snider] admitted that "O Come All Ye Faithful" was the inspiration for "We're Not Gonna Take It". Thank God the original writers are long dead and there's no infringement.

Entertainment Weekly: Did any of the artists you approached for "Monster Ballads Xmas" tell you stick your yuletide log where the sun doesn't shine?

Jay Jay French: No, the most I got was, ''We're in the studio making a record, we don't have time for it, thank you very much.'' I don't think anybody would tell me to go shove it.

Entertainment Weekly: What's next? A thrash-metal Thanksgiving?

Jay Jay French: Well, the joke was that we're going to make a Hanukkah record. Look, nobody expected the Xmas record to be as successful as it was. And then that led to the label [Razor & Tie] asking me to oversee this other project. Frankly, if TWISTED SISTER had wanted to make a follow-up record this other compilation wouldn't have been done. But it's so hard to get TWISTED SISTER to do much of anything. I don't know if you've looked at our touring schedule this year — but it consists of two shows [laughs]. And even then I get complaints that we're overworking!

Entertainment Weekly: What's the problem?

Jay Jay French: I don't know if there's a problem. But, as you know, the record business isn't selling records. All these heritage acts — the QUEENSRŸCHEs, the PRIESTs — at best sell 10 percent of what they sold at their peak. So, at best they are selling 40-50,000 units, maybe 100,000 units. Touring is a lot of work to put in to NOT sell much product. It becomes an impracticality and kind of gets in the way of everything else you do... And then of course we embarrass our children by walking around on stage looking like a bunch of middle-aged transvestites.

Read the entire interview at www.ew.com.

Watch TWISTED SISTER's video for "O Come All Ye Faithful":

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