TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider was recently interviewed on the "Iron City Rocks" podcast. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). On the 1985 PMRC hearings that saw Snider defend TWISTED SISTER's music and imagery against censorship: Dee: "Short-term, it was a wrong decision for me. I put myself out there and in harm's way, so to speak, when everybody else in the industry went quiet and waited for the dust to settle, which they really did for the most part. It was the right thing, and long-term, it's been one of those things. Not a day goes by that literally someone doesn't walk up to me and shakes my hand, young and old. It's taught in colleges; it's history now. I was a part of it. That is what it is." On his latest solo album, "For The Love Of Metal": Dee: "Now I got a hit metal record. It went to No. 20 on the Billboard charts. I haven't been on the Billboard charts in 30 years. It's been Top 10 metal record in the world since it came out, it was number one in America for six weeks. People are going, 'Holy fuck! Dee Snider is back.' With the help of Jamey Jasta of HATEBREED and his whole bunch of contemporary metal artists, I've found my place among contemporary metal bands and with the contemporary metal audience. My Spotify is 18-58, so I not only brought my old fans with me, but kids are getting turned on to Dee Snider, which Jamey said, 'I'm telling you, man, with the right record, there's a place for you.' He was right. We're going back into the studio this winter to start working on the follow-up album. So, like I said, I've done different things, I've done a number of different projects from 'Van Helsing's Curse' to DESPERADO to WIDOWMAKER, then solo, odd solo records, like 'Dee Does Broadway'. I did a mainstream rock record last year or whenever it was. But with this record, 'For The Love Of Metal', this is my place, my passion. I just didn't know how to make my mark within the current community. Jamey helped me figure that out. Now that I figured it out, I ain't going nowhere." On the creation behind "For The Love Of Metal" and the fact he was not involved in the songwriting process: Dee: "I've been very public about this and people are always shocked like, 'What?' With TWISTED, I wrote and created everything. I stopped writing in '95 around the second WIDOWMAKER record. That was pretty much it. I discovered that I was no longer leading, I was following. I was no longer creating for the sake of creating and having my music be a part of the movement and the current sound and what became the hair metal, '80s metal, whatever you want to call it. But now I was studying contemporary metal bands and imitating them. I got called on it. I'm not a review guy, but when they strike a note, that was something kind of bothering me. Like, okay, I'm analyzing, there's no heart in it. It's pure analysis what I'm doing here. It wasn't bad. It was the second WIDOWMAKER record and people really liked it, but that didn't feel right to me. That's when I stopped writing and stopped creating. When Jamey challenged me, I said, 'Dude, I go to metal shows. I love contemporary metal. My kids are all metalheads. I love the community, but I don't know what to do without sounding like an old guy trying to be hip.' So, I said 'Who's going to write the songs?' He said, 'Dee, everybody's going to want to write for you.' So, people from DISTURBED, people from LAMB OF GOD, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, people started coming to the party and Jamey, to his credit, really studied me. We talked extensively about... Because I said, 'All right, I'm down.' But I wasn't sure that am I going to be able to do this. They're not my songs. First, when I started hearing this stuff, I go, 'Shit, this works!' Then I started thinking about it, I said, '[Frank] Sinatra didn't write 'My Way' and Elvis [Presley] didn't write 'Hound Dog' and Aretha [Franklin] didn't write 'Respect', yet the lyrics spoke to them and they were able to present them to the audience. The word 'sell' is a horrible word. You don't sell art, but at the same time, you are the message, you got to be the messenger and you got to believe it. Jamey, after talking to me and spending time, was bringing songs that were Dee Snider-inspired. There were things I felt good about. If there was something, a line or a word or something, I would change it. I didn't take credit for it. It wasn't that huge a contribution. So, I need to be in there and believe everything I'm saying and I do. So, it worked and as we go into the next record, I told Jamey and his team, I said, 'It ain't broke. I'm not fixing it.' I said 'Let's just do what we did again because it worked.' I wasn't sure when we first started that it would, but once we started in the studio and I started singing the songs and feeling them and it came alive. It was better than I ever thought it would be and quite honestly on the other side of the glass, Jamey and the Bellmore brothers, Nicky and Charlie, they were going, 'Holy shit. We thought this would be great. It's even better than we thought.' It just worked." "For The Love Of Metal" was released in July via Napalm Records. The disc, which was produced by Jasta, features contributions from Howard Jones (ex-KILLSWITCH ENGAGE), Mark Morton (LAMB OF GOD), Alissa White-Gluz (ARCH ENEMY), Joel Grind and Nick Bellmore (TOXIC HOLOCAUST), and Charlie Bellmore (KINGDOM OF SORROW). TWISTED SISTER called it quits in 2016 after completing a farewell 40th-anniversary tour. Interview (audio):
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