TWISTED SISTER In Talks To Record 'A Twisted Christmas, Too'

As an epilogue to his 2006 Bananiversary Celebration, rock 'n' roll comic C.C.
Banana has interviewed all five members of TWISTED SISTER. In the last of this series of holiday-themed interviews, C.C. Banana speaks with TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider about their current album "A Twisted Christmas", the possible future of the band and a number of Dee's outside projects. A few excerpts from the interview follow:

C.C. Banana: Now that the holiday season is drawing to a close, are you pleased with the response received by "A Twisted Christmas"?

Dee Snider: I am stunned with the response we've received! Doing this Christmas record was supposed to be career suicide. We knew that the only thing we had to lose was airplay and television coverage. Since we were getting neither, we had nowhere to go but up!

C.C. Banana: What are the odds of you recording a duet of "The Magic of Christmas" with Celine Dion?

Dee Snider: Slim! But recording that song with TWISTED SISTER is much more likely. There's already talk of "A Twisted Christmas, Too". We're going to corner the market on hair metal Christmas songs! The first time around, we discussed the idea of including that song but we just never got around to it. If we do a follow-up record, I could definitely see us recording that song... although I don't think Celine will be showing up.

C.C. Banana: Will you be giving anyone the Dee Snider Halloween costume for Christmas?

Dee Snider: No, but I should! What a great fucking idea! How awesome would that be? Man, that would piss off my brothers and sisters. Especially because they resent me as it is! This year everybody was at my house and I was playing "A Twisted Christmas" on a loop, just hammering it into their psyches. We do a family grab bag each year, so that would have been fucking hysterical! I'll have to remember that for next year.

C.C. Banana: What compelled you to shoot the first TWISTED SISTER music video in almost 20 years?

Dee Snider: Well, the guys really wanted to do a video. I was the one who kept saying, "But who's gonna fucking play it?" First of all, we had no money. Plus, I figured that nobody would even give a shit! We had to be realistic in considering something like this because we're not the hottest new act. We're not even the hottest old act, for that matter. But the guys were saying that we could put the video on YouTube and on our own website and stuff like that. So for $5.00 and change we made a new video. We'd literally gone from one extreme to the other. I mean, TWISTED SISTER invented the high-budget, big production video. That didn't exist before us. Videos like "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock" were like little movies and cost six figures to make. Each one was a fucking film production done in one or two days. We'd arrive on the set and there would be hair stylists, make-up people, wardrobe people, catering, everything. Now in 2006, the glorious TWISTED SISTER shows up to shoot a video and there's a box of Dunkin' Munchkins and coffee! How the mighty have fallen! It was just the hokiest production you could imagine. We ended up borrowing someone's house for the shoot. We actually used their Christmas decorations! Eddie had a friend with a camera, so we used that guy to shoot it. It was like one of those old movies with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland: "Hey, I have a barn! My dad's got a stage! Let's put on a show!" So this was definitely not glamorous. That being said, the video has been one of the top videos at Yahoo.com, one of the most-viewed holiday videos at YouTube, stuff like that. It just popped up all over the place. Us old fucks took our cue from the young fucks, basically because we had no choice. A lot of the old bands are flustered by the new music scene — the Internet downloading and the revenue loss and all that stuff. In our case, we had no revenue stream. We do make money from our live shows but we don't sell huge amounts of records these days. And as far as radio airplay or video airplay, we don't have a lot of that either. So we were forced to go to the Internet, where new bands now go by default. Fortunately, it worked for us. So yes, the old dogs learned some new tricks!

C.C. Banana: What would you give Axl Rose for Christmas?

Dee Snider: A watch! I'm telling you, he should wear a big Flavor Flav clock around his neck! So I'd probably give him one of those. And maybe a roasted lamb.

C.C. Banana: A roasted lamb?

Dee Snider: Yeah, apparently he likes roasted lamb. We hear all kinds of stories from promoters, stuff most people probably don't even know about. A lot of times, TWISTED SISTER will come to town soon after GUNS N' ROSES has played there. Or ROSE N' ROSES, as I like to call them! This one promoter said that Axl had demanded a roasted lamb dinner an hour or so before the band was supposed to perform, or he wouldn't go on stage. Then there was the story about Axl insisting that a helicopter pick him up from the middle of nowhere. He called in around midnight and said, "I need a helicopter to come get me and bring me to the show!" Another really good one was told to us by a promoter in Spain. Axl was running a couple of hours late and he still wasn't ready to go on stage. Naturally, the crowd was getting restless. We were told that one of the promoters actually pulled out a gun and put it to the head of Axl's tour manager! He said that he would literally shoot the tour manager if Axl did not get on stage! Remember my theory about putting a gun to Axl's head? Well, I guess it also works if you put a gun to the head of someone Axl cares about, because he was on stage within 15 minutes! This apparently did not make the press, but we were there the next night and the promoters told us about it. Hey, wouldn't it be funny if somebody actually gave him a watch and all his problems suddenly went away? Maybe nobody's ever thought of that before! Maybe that's all it would take! Give him a fucking watch! It's as simple as that.

C.C. Banana: Which do you think would be more successful — a Kwanzaa record by LIVING COLOUR or Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley recording an album of Chanukah favorites?

Dee Snider: Oh, shit! I would fucking buy that! I would pony up my money and pay full record company list price for a Simmons/Stanley Chanukah record! A real Witz/Eisen collection of Chanukah hits! God, I'd be on line at the store waiting for that fucking album to come out! I love that!

C.C. Banana: Which weighs more — your nose or Jay Leno's chin?

Dee Snider: Well! My nose would probably have beaten Leno's chin.... before I had several pounds trimmed off! I actually had some work done to my nose in the late 1980s. When I tell people that, they don't believe me! "You're kidding, right? It's still huge!" Seriously, I had sinus troubles and septum issues and stuff like that. So I told the doctor that while he was in there tearing it up, he should also lop a couple of slices off the end! But to answer your question, today I think Leno would win. He's got me beat by a nose!

C.C. Banana: Is it nice to have the DESPERADO album finally receive an official release?

Dee Snider: Yes. 20 years later and without any fanfare! Not even a confetti cannon or one of those little party poppers. But yes, it's great to have it officially available. There was actually a bootleg out there for years, but I never bothered pursuing it. How many copies could they possibly have sold, a few hundred? Quite honestly, I was just happy that people were able to hear the music. I happen to think that the DESPERADO album featured some of my best writing and vocal performances. On my iPod I do not have any TWISTED SISTER music. I love TWISTED SISTER music, but I hear it often enough. However, I do have DESPERADO music on my iPod. That music never received any airplay and it was never toured, so I'm glad that it's finally available to be heard.

C.C. Banana: Which will see the light of day first, "Chinese Democracy" or "Strangeland II"?

Dee Snider: Hahahahaha! That's GOOD! That's fucking GOOD! Oh, that is GOOD! You're right, I've been talking about that fucking project for as long as Axl! And you just made me realize it! Oh, man! That is fucking good. Back at ya, Snider! I will have to call myself out on that in my podcast. In my defense, I do have an excuse! The U.S. government seized the property and arrested the CFO of The Shooting Gallery, the production company who made the first "Strangeland". So I was in court fighting to get my property back for five fucking years! I did finally get it back this past year and now Lions Gate Entertainment says that they'd like to pick it up. Their exact words were, "We want to make the sequel." But getting it from there into movie theaters is going to be a long fucking road. Lions Gate does have plans to release an extended cut of the original "Strangeland" on DVD in July 2007. We're even going to be shooting a new scene, which will be attached to the end of the movie as a teaser for the next one. After it fades to black, it will now fade up on an autopsy. That will be the opening scene for the sequel, which will be called "Strangeland: Disciple". But knowing Axl, I feel comfortable saying that even if this film takes me another 10 years... I'll still beat that fucker to the punch!

C.C. Banana: Now that TWISTED SISTER is holding off in its retirement plans, do you feel bad for making people come to all those "final area appearances?"

Dee Snider: Yes! I feel horrible! I wasn't kidding when I said that I wanted to end it. I really meant it! It's all these other people that keep booking more shows for us. I'm telling you, it's not me! I've always been the one saying that we're done after this year. But then they keep booking new things!

C.C. Banana: What can fans expect from TWISTED SISTER in 2007?

Dee Snider: Very little! Less than ever, in fact. Probably another push at the end of the year to promote "A Twisted Christmas" again because it was so well-received. There's gold in them there hills! Lita Ford has actually agreed to appear in a video for "I'll Be Home For Christmas", if we ultimately decide to shoot one. And as I said, there's also the possibly of a follow-up Christmas album.

C.C. Banana: What would it take for TWISTED SISTER to record an album of new material?

Dee Snider: You'd have to get that promoter from Spain to put a gun to my head.

The entire interview is available at this location.