tonight on this program we have psychic body scanner janet brennan
we have comedian jeff altman and my first guest tonight he is the lead singer with
what he calls a dirt bag rock and roll band known as twisted sister all right i have a
copy here of their current million selling album called stay hungry please welcome dee snyder
hi dee how are you good to see you
all right i'm bumped out already what's the matter but i thought they were gonna play we're not gonna
take it when i came out or something like that they forgot i didn't play anything my real my
real dream though is to have we talk about in the band all the time to have at halftime
or the marching bands play we're not going to take you're like
you know you made it when a marching band plays it i don't know they could have done
it yesterday i think uh i think miami could have used a little about that too
did did you see the halftime show yesterday the second one wheel was because i could not
believe it yeah my favorite part was the guy flying around the uh the stadium i bet if it's
sold though that's all remember the man from glad commercials long time ago i know i'm dating myself
but remember man from glad used to fly around on that white thing i don't know i've been dreaming
about getting one of those things now they they ought to make those things they ought to make them
available to civilians like you and me i know every day just think of the traffic situation
that could be just straightened out overnight it would be great what you just got back from japan
is that right recently i recently went there on a promotional tour you know we're going back there
are you hugely popular in japan yeah we're pretty popular i don't know you know they don't have too
many people that look like me over there i was really shocked because i was you know i
was walking on the street and pete i stood out you know i didn't blend in i was there's nobody
look like me over there how do the people react to you when they see you on the street do they
approach you or they just godzilla no i don't know that kind of you know they look kind of
now they are they're very actually they're very very polite in japan you know they uh there's
a homicide i mean i have your autograph and that kind of thing most of them speak english but the
thing i'm really excited about is going there and bringing back real japanese what do you call um
paraphernalia things things that are definitely from that country yeah i mean everybody comes
back with kimonos what's going on there everybody comes back with kimonos you get a kimono japanese
paraphernalia you know things that are just from japan that prove you're in jail what can you get
to prove that i was in japan i got it you ready yeah from japan ladies and gentlemen godzilla
merchandise let's hold it up to the camera get in close there now keep that camera on not only
this is for my office this is a wall plaque i mean you can't get this anywhere national hero
is this happening let's hear from godzilla
you see hey you don't you don't see craftsmanship like this in the states dude
he just don't and i got a godzilla lighter and i got godzilla 1985 count poster
it tells you nationality japanese and uh has all pictures of destroying cities and i brought you
some there's a new godzilla movie they don't release him here anymore though that's the
problem you know mothra all those good things i brought you in a godzilla bed because i knew
that you would probably be a big fan of uh japanese horror movies
there it is look at that impress your friends with real japanese paraphernalia now what are
you uh are these huge concerts how many how many folks show up when you play a concert in japan
seven eight no we haven't no we never played there before you've never played there no we're going
there in march it was a promotional visit and they went there and it looked like things were
going really great are you selling a lot of albums yeah we're selling it looks like we'll probably go
gold in japan yeah what is gold in japan what is gold there's a lot of people in japan tokyo is
the closest thing i've ever seen in new york city any place i've been it's very much except big city
uh now tell me about the name of the group twisted sister what does it mean what is the origin
where do you come from uh well twisted sister
you know i know you have cable so i know you said no not for long i'm fed up with you
wait a minute wait a minute i've been hearing about your cable for so long and now you're fed
up what's going on well i will go into it now but what's your seats here for a minute let's talk
it's the same nonsense over and over and over again i know i know that's a problem that's
important well cable is dead this is 85 it's over what do you think it's uh satellites now you don't
go for the i think no just back to commercial television the way the good lord intended it to be
like this all right now
the name twisted sister came from the way we looked okay we had the way we looked at the
makeup and the costumes first then we tried to find names and it's like what you must have been
in other bands or other versions of the band you're in now what was the the first name that
you had for the group that's now twisted sister no we never had her name brand new band it was
a brand new band we tried to think of names you know you when you're trying to a lot of people
have been in band everybody sits around and you like throw anything a microphone on its things
you know leprosy yeah they grow on you they grow on you yeah what about leprosy they rot you know
i mean it wasn't a band that had a secret name it was this uh-huh they wouldn't tell me for a
month so i got the band name the band cause it was so cool i said what's the name of that said this
i felt like who's on first you know this this
this yeah this is great this is happening this is a wild what about this sucks
uh all right we have to make a new commercial we'll be right back with dee schneider
all right now so uh from this to uh how did you get twisted sister was a sister well twin
sister was a name given to us by an alcoholic oh and uh he called up his name is michael i
don't give his last name because i think he's in a coma and uh i'm serious and uh he's got problems
anyway and he called up jj at four o'clock in the morning was this helpful name you know yeah well
that's our guitar player jj welcome up and said jj i got the perfect name for the danger michael what
we talked twisted sister yeah you know it's a real drunk's name you're all the s's and things like
that you know so and twisted sister was born did you pay this guy for the name hell no i thought
maybe to help him out of his condition there you give him a couple of bucks if he comes out of
the coma maybe we'll throw him a couple bucks he went in before he went platinum so we're gonna do
hey it's a mercenary world no is this the the band the twisted sister that originally wore lingerie
on stage or is that another well actually says you used to dress funny on stage that's what it
says there yeah i used to dress funny yeah funny yeah well yeah we wore some pretty weird stuff
see like i mean now we have a costume maker we've had her for a few years and i married her so
priced it down i met them yeah i met him a very lovely woman she didn't carry jack neither did
the rest of america it was nothing to do it was just something silly it was something silly but
anyways but before that you know you had one to get a reaction out of people the cheapest way
to go go to the big and fat women's shop and you know they have big and fat women active in fact
i thought you could go to a mall barry white sisters women's shop kind of thing
that's it come on live did it barry white you know big and me yeah now big women's shopping you go in
there and you find something really disgusting uh off the rack you know lingerie or something
floral and you know blousey and you wear it on stage if everybody went uh it was a success you
know that's that's that's how you do you go you try to get a reaction that was the whole thing
what was your family's reaction when you when you were do you have uh no no my family they really
were sort of you know sort of anti uh rock and roll for many years matter of fact that you know
the whole we're not gonna take a thing was based like my father myself you know that was typical
confrontation with the rock and roll ruining my life but and when i got the twisted sister
they finally gave in to the fact that this is what their son was gonna be and then when they found it
their son was gonna wear makeup and weird clothes as well they sort of gave me the old you know it's
okay we we're behind you all the way on my 21st birthday they bought me a samsonite makeup case
the first year of the band it was the top of the line you know they went all the way the train
really nice little name a d on the side and uh and this was their way of saying we're behind you
you may be you know weird but we love you anyway and go out there and kill him so yeah nine years
later that's right so they're supportive in this in a certain way recently the more famous they
get the more supportive they are now you uh it's a convenient world folks wouldn't you agree that in
a certain respect you are every american parent's worst dream come true it's only me or no no no
but you know you know what i'm saying they have they have a a little baby girl they raise her
she gets to the point where she's dating all of a sudden she comes home with you you know
all right all right all right we're talking about really i but i mean this in a good way you know
oh and it looks good on you yeah uh yeah a matter of fact my wife's father threatened to kill me the
first date well she was 15 i was 21 so multiple reasons how do you get along with your in-laws
is that all cool no money changes everything somebody said you know they love me now
uh now tell me about uh uh maybe you don't even talk about this it was uh in texas you
were playing a date and there was an arrest is that true well it's out in the open now dave
try to keep it hush-hush in nbc millions of people watching oh my and it's out in the open
yeah amarillo texas hi amarillo and what was the what was the george was profanity abusive language
whatever that is what is that somebody's actually physically injured from the words you say not sure
oh so and uh disorderly conduct very general this was during the performance well anyway
it's like out of stage they don't want to rise no no i mean you were arrested
for what you were doing on stage on stage yeah i i i curse a bit uh on stage i'm known to you
see i didn't i didn't realize that they could they could go in and arrest you just because
you were saying bad things on stage and amarillo texas i guess they can but somebody wasn't the
police they didn't want to do it because they knew it was just going to be an empty position
somebody's mother was there this is the problem with success there's a lot of little kids out
there who must think i'm like a muppet or something because they start coming out of
the shows their mothers and fathers little jokes muppet okay they're supposed to laugh there and
they bring down their parents and their parents the first thing we open this show we go hi you
know this we're twisted blanken sister that's the opening you know effing i said that's not a curse
no no we got the picture okay and uh and uh i but the woman hung out for an hour
and a half and listening to the whole show every abusive word i said and then
press charges had me arrested i think she was going off so so now what well i was saying oh
oh did you hear what you said oh my god so now now what happened but where does this stand now do you
have to you have to go back there for trial where the charges dropped as i know it's what they call
it's pending and you know that the whole thing is pending it's it's a word for not guilty but not
not guilty not on trial but not off trial and sort of what do they call that when it's not heaven or
hell the catholics have a place you go it's kind of like that uh what was it and it captures it
purgatory it's kind of like purgatory for courts no but did you get the sense that the charges
will be dropped uh i get the sense that they don't want to have their addresses published on national
television or anything like that you know which i'll be sure to do if i'm guilty and the officer
lives out and you know and the woman who pressed charges in trouble in any other concert well you
get a little i mean people are a little get a little excited that we use profanity on stage
it's not really a big thing we just really speak the way people speak to each other but
the hearing it on stage over like a 70 000 watt pa system kind of shakes people up a little bit
your mother isn't you know one of those things yeah yeah uh now uh we're out of time but now do
you do any of this stuff on on the show eating bones oh that was it was just imagery come on
your art class and all that see i mean i was supposed to stay hungry i'm like a trapped
animal in a room and it's a leg human leg bone okay and uh listen thank you very much
for being here and i'm glad you're doing something i love this good luck in amarillo
nice to see you dude we got to go here for station identification we'll be right back