TWISTED SISTER Guitarist: 'Walking Away Right Now Would Be Kind Of Stupid'

Michael Melchor of 411Mania.com recently conducted an interview with TWISTED SISTER guitarist Jay Jay French. An excerpt from the chat follows:

411Mania.com: In reading the press info and everything else I got to prepare for talking to you, everything indicated that was going to be the final TWISTED SISTER tour and the final TWISTED SISTER album. Can you confirm or deny that?

Jay Jay French: We've revised that since. [Laughs] It's probably not. When we got together again, we figured this reunion would only last about a year. Here we are now, 3 or 4 years in, and it's been really fun. We figured we'd do the [Christmas] record and it'd be fun; a good note to go out on. But now the record's doing well and the demand has increased and we're being told, "Maybe you should reconsider that." So to say that at this point is impossible.

411Mania.com: More of the "never say never" philosophy.

Jay Jay French: Right. We made this record initially to say "goodbye", but the reaction has been great. Walking away right now would be kind of stupid. [Laughs] So, we're taking more of a "wait and see" attitude. If it works out, great; if it doesn't, it doesn't.

411Mania.com: Gotcha. So, with all that in mind, are there any talks of maybe making a new album? Any ideas floating around for new songs or material?

Jay Jay French: No, not now. Dee [Snider] hasn't written a song in quite a few years and he's really not interested in writing one now, so there's a problem there. [Laughs] That's a big issue there. I don't know what would create the scenario in his mind to want to write. I'm not him. So, we're just going to have to see how it goes and play [the reunion] by ear at this point.

411Mania.com: All right, fair play. So what was the impetus, then, to do, out of all things from TWISTED SISTER, a Christmas album?

Jay Jay French: Well, TWISTED's always been kind of a funny band. It's an element that's always been there; we've done some brutal metal, but the humor has always been a part of the equation in some way, shape, or form. Dee admitted — it's been said for years — that "We're Not Gonna Take It" is a combination of the SEX PISTOLS, ALICE COOPER, and "Come All Ye Faithful". That's exactly where that melody came from. We brought that up during one of our rehearsals and Dee wanted to try something. He talked us into it and we played "We're Not Gonna Take It", but he started singing "Come All Ye Faithful" — and I was knocked out. It was pretty funny! [Laughs] So we elaborated from there; we had "Come All Ye Faithful" and then went in the direction of how it would sound if other bands did the same thing. How would it sound with AC/DC, IRON MAIDEN, JUDAS PRIEST, all these other bands playing a Christmas song? But, we couldn't get those guys, so we did it ourselves. [Laughs] So we did it how we thought they would have done it. These were all bands we loved, anyway, so we thought about their styles and tried to adapt them to these songs, as well as add some parts in from their songs. We did other things like, at the end of "Come All Ye Faithful", we play a piece of "Hava Nagilah" that sounds like BLACK SABBATH.

Read the entire interview at 411Mania.com.