Dee Snider
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Mr Dee Snider was born David Daniel Snider on March 15, 1955 in Massapequa, New York.
His father is Jewish but apparently left the faith at age 15, his mother is Catholic and Dee and his siblings were raised Episcopalians. This did not make for happy families as both immediate families opposed his parents marriage from the very beginning. All through his childhood Dee was different, he sang in the church choir and several other school choruses, he also developed a style of dressing different than his peers and was obsessed with the notion that one day he would sing in a make up band.
At age 20 he was in several rock bands, which he tried to change into glam rock bands but nobody really shared his passion for performing in make up and glitter.
In early 1976 Dee finally found where he belonged by joining the recently formed Twisted Sister, Dee took over from Jay Jay French, now the bands guitarist, as lead singer and became the bands only songwriter from thereafter. The band was heavily influenced by artists such as AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. According to wikipedia.com “Their work fuses the shock tactics of Alice Cooper, the rebellious mood of New Wave British Heavy Metal, the style of the New York Dolls and the extravagant makeup of KISS. Twisted Sister were classed as a Glam Rock band but Dee did not agree with this, he was quoted saying
“I dont think Twisted Sister is Glam because that implies glamour and were not glamorous. We should be called Hid because were hideous”.
Weather they were Glam or not really didnt matter, Twisted Sister were a huge success and by the summer of 1985 their album Stay Hungry sold over 2 million copies and went on to sell over 3 million in the years to come. It still remains the bands and Dees biggest success and is considered a classic among heavy metal fans.
In 1985 Dee was asked to host the first Heavy Metal show to feature nothing but metal videos on MTV, which was to be called Heavy Metal Mania, it aired in June of that year. It featured metal news, interviews with metal artists, in studio co-hosts, etc. The show rated well amongst metal fans.
In 1987 Dee embarked on a solo project, he got together with Clive Burr, the ex-drummer from Iron Maiden and ex-Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Bernie Torme and formed the band Desperado. The band only made one album called Bloodied But Unbowed, the album was never officially released although it was heavily bootlegged.
Then things turned sour for Twisted Sister. On October 12 1987, 2 months after their last album Love Is For Suckers was released Dee left Twisted Sister and the whole band fell apart. The public announcement of the bands demise came early in 1988.
In 1991, Dee along with Joey Franco (who played drums on Twisted last album), ex-Alice Copper guitarist Al Pitrelli and Mark Russel, the bassist from Desperado formed what some say as Dees most brutal band yet, Widowmaker. Dee says that Widowmaker has stayed independent “to avoid being forced to compromise their artistic vision”. But even with poor distribution and virtually no promotion or air-play,