Legendary metal singer Dee Snider just released his new solo album, Leave a Scar. The Twisted Sister frontman has been one of metal’s most outspoken figures over the years, and in a new conversation with Heavy Consequence, he not only discusses the new LP, but also defends rock music against those who claim that the genre is “dead.”
As Snider told us in the video Zoom interview above, he didn’t think he would make another album after his previous solo effort, 2018’s For the Love of Metal. “I had quietly planned on walking away from live performing and recording in 2019. I told my band, my management, and my family that I was done with this part of my life.”
He continued, “But then COVID happened, the pandemic happened, and the world went crazy politically. … And I’m quoting N.W.A., ‘Hey Dre! What Cube? I got something to say!’ I hadn’t written a song or lyric since Widowmaker in the 1990s. I had walked away at that point from writing. But I felt I had to write. And I called up Jamey Jasta, and said, ‘Dude, I want to do another record.”
The first single from Leave a Scar was “I Gotta Rock (Again),” not only a nod to Twisted Sister’s classic hit “I Wanna Rock” but a refreshing celebration of rock music in a time when Gene Simmons has repeatedly declared that “rock is dead.” We asked Snider about the song, and about Simmons’ statement, to which he responded, “He makes me crazy! I mean, I love him, I love KISS, but I wish he would just shut the hell up with this. And he doubles down on it. This statement of ‘rock’s dead, there are no rock stars,’ all that shit, it’s so self-serving and self absorbed. It’s selfish!”
He added, “It’s like, ‘It’s not doing it my way, it doesn’t have value. It’s not the way it was when I was coming up, so it’s not rock ‘n’ roll anymore.’ Anyway, that’s bullshit!”
Snider goes on to talk about the song “I Gotta Rock (Again),” as well as the tracks “Down But Never Out” and “Time to Choose” (featuring Cannibal Corpse’s George “Corpsegrinder’ Fisher). He also discusses how he stays in great shape physically and vocally at the age of 66.
Watch Part 1 of our Zoom interview with Dee Snider in the video above, and order his new album, Leave a Scar, via Amazon or Napalm Records.
Trouble viewing the interview above? Watch on YouTube.
