‘I was a real asshole in the ’80s’ admits Dee Snider

One of the most recognisable faces in hard rock and heavy metal in the 1980s, when he fronted the multi-million-selling Twisted Sister, Dee Snider admits he wasn’t always the nicest person to be around at the height of his fame.

““Ask my wife and my bandmates if I was always such a nice person!” he suggests in the new issue of Metal Hammer. “I was a real asshole in the 80s, but I feel much better now! There’s nothing like a good humbling to have it all taken away from you and nearly losing everything, which I did in the late ’80s and early ’90s. All the money was gone, the band was gone, my wife nearly left me. It woke me the fuck up.”

Elsewhere in the feature, which sees Snider facing questions from Metal Hammer readers, the topic of a decades-old feud between Twisted Sister and Manowar is addressed. The enmity between the two bands started when Manowar guitarist Ross ‘The Boss’ Friedman told the UK music press that he considered Snider’s former band “a joke” and said “Back in the States, Twisted Sister play wet T-shirt competitions and dollar beer nights”. Snider’s response to the guitarist was blunt: “My fist, your face.”

“There was a time when I wanted to punch Manowar,” he admits. “We told them to meet us in [London’s] Covent Garden, and we were gonna have fisticuffs. They didn’t show up because they knew I wasn’t kidding. I was in my 20s, I was crazy.”

“Would I do a Manowar cover? Probably not, even though we’ve patched things up and we’re not enemies, let’s not go crazy!”

For more of Dee Snider’s words of wisdom, pick up the new issue of Metal Hammer.

Also inside the latest issue are brand new features with Iron Maiden, Alien Weaponry, Employed To Serve, Carcass, Health, Dordeduh, Between The Buried And Me and much, much more. Order your copy now.

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Founded in 1983, Metal Hammer is the global home of all things heavy. We have breaking news, exclusive interviews with the biggest bands and names in metal, rock, hardcore, grunge and beyond, expert reviews of the lastest releases and unrivalled insider access to metal's most exciting new scenes and movements. No matter what you're into – be it heavy metal, punk, hardcore, grunge, alternative, goth, industrial, djent or the stuff so bizarre it defies classification – you'll find it all here, backed by the best writers in our game.