DEE SNIDER RELEASES VIDEO FOR NEW SINGLE AND ANNOUNCES NEW LIVE ALBUM
There is no denying that Dee Snider is one of the more identifiable figures in all of hard rock and metal. He happens to be the first person I ever interview at the age of 19. I was at a small college radio station in New Jersey, I was a record sorter.
He was promoting the first Widowmaker album Blood And Bullets. We had a resident interviewer, but she was sick and there wasn’t a backup in place. So I lobbied for the opportunity to interview him. Being the music nerd that I was/am, I threw out what Twisted Sister trivia I knew and convinced the station manager to let me do the interview.
This was, again, my first interview. I sounded like a kid going to puberty initially, with my nuts in my throat. Dee asked me how I was doing, and I said “nervous”.
I settled down and we talked for about an hour on the phone. At the end, he says to me, “Do you have a show on the station?” I responded, no. To which he said, “you will now”. A day later, Dee’s prediction came true.
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Widowmaker was such a great project, the second album Stand By For Pain was so heavy, and crushing. It is an album that I still listen to all the time.
Both of those albums were really good, but the project was short-lived. After Dee got back together with Twisted Sister, I kept thinking, please release something like Stand By For Pain.
But the only new song was “Heroes Are Hard To Find”. Although the track was good, it was kind of a fluff piece, a let’s get back on radio-type song. Unfortunately, a lot of bands have been cursed with this over the years. They crave that radio hit and release a song that’s geared towards airplay that never comes.
Never Let The Bastards Wear You Down was an album that was certainly written to recapture his old audience. It’s as if this was a long-lost Twisted Sister album.
It could have easily come out after Stay Hungry and would have probably been a more fitting follow-up than Come Out And Play. Although that album still has some great material on it, so I’m not complaining.
But then came the missteps, I mentioned above how much I love Standby For Pain. Up next was 2012’s Dee Does Broadway, who was actually clamoring to have Dee revisit classic show tunes? I get it, it was probably a passion project of his, but to most this is a novelty album, that you spin a few times, and kind of forget. But the next album, We Are The Ones, is the album I wish I could truly forget.
FOR THE LOVE OF METAL LIVE COMES OUT ON JULY 31ST
This album not only has the I want another radio hit vibe on it, but it also has the I want to be hip to young kids feel to it too. There are bands that come back and release modern classics, like Ratt’s Infestation, or Van Halen’s A Different Kind Of Truth.
But a piano version of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, the millionth and one cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like A Hole” or music that sounded more like Sum41 or Fall Out Boy than anything we’d remotely want from Dee. It made me honestly give up on him.
I wanted something heavy like Stand By For Pain, and all I kept getting was one pitfall after another. He might as well as release Lulu. In my eyes and ears, it was about the same.
When I heard he was working with Jamey Jasta, Howard Jones, Alissa White-Gluz, I was like, I’m not even going to bother. He’s let me down so much with these last few releases, what’s the point?
Is this another stab at getting on Alternative Press, or some other popular publication? Then I heard “Tomorrow’s No Concern”, and it was like a left hook out of right field.
Bam, it was finally what I had hoped for all these years. The heaviness I wanted to hear, and a good majority of his fans wanted to hear was finally back. 2018’s For The Love Of Metal has not left my rotation since then. It was one of my favorite releases of that year, and of the last decade.
FOR THE LOVE OF METAL LIVE COVERS SOLO WORK WIDOWMAKER AND TWISTED SISTER
For The Love Of Metal Live comes out almost two years to the day of the release of For The Love Of Metal. The album will be released in three versions, digital, CD, and DVD/BluRay.
It has Dee covering all eras of his career. Obviously Twisted Sister, his solo work, but also doing AC/DC, and to my surprise “Ready To Fall” off of Stand By For Pain. The album also features a new track called “Prove Me Wrong”.
This is what Dee had to say about the track:
“‘Prove Me Wrong’ are words that I’ve thought in my head since the day I began rocking. I had a monster chip on my shoulder and dared the world to knock it off… nobody ever could. At this point in my career, I thought I’d let everybody in on what has kept be going all these many years. Prove me wrong!”
About the live album:
“The response to For the Love of Metal was so strong, and my new band so good, that I wanted to capture ‘Dee Snider’ for the new millennium. All of my other live concert releases are all about the past. And while my past is represented here, it is presented along with my new music, played by my new band, and is very much ‘in the now’. The included interviews give insight into my world, my journey, and my evolution since I started nearly 50 years ago.”
Check the video out for “Prove Me Wrong” here:
The track is beyond great, it is a continuation of what he did on For The Love Of Metal. Heavy, punishing metal, exactly what I wanted from Dee.
Article by Victor M. Ruiz of Mars Attacks Radio & Podcast, and Galaxy Of Geeks Podcast. Connect with him on Twitter: @vmr907
