Where You At, Baby: Dee Snider

December 17th, 2008

Dee Snider truly has one of the best comeback stories I have ever heard; he went from one of the most recognizable rock stars in the world to literally placing flyers on cars for his wife’s makeup business. Now, because of hard work, a new career in radio and Celine Dion, he is back on top.

The Celine Dion thing blows my mind and the jury is still out on if she knows that Dee wrote the song she sings (The Magic of Christmas Day (God Bless Us Everyone)). We tried to get her on the show but c’mon, I mean it’s Celine Dion. I did ask David Foster (who produced a lot of the tracks on that Christmas album) but he did not produce Dee’s song and had no idea that Dee wrote it….he definitely did see the irony in it, however!

Some of the conversations we had that didn’t make the show that were interesting to me:

1. The time Twisted Sister actually had shit thrown at them on stage – we continued on in length about how much someone ACTUALLY has to hate you to actually throw a piece of shit AND we also discussed in detail about how difficult it would be to actually do that…anyway, you can use your imagination.

2. Dee wrote and starred in the cult horror flick Strangeland that also stars Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger). He has the sequel written and ready to go with Englund attached but has been caught in red tape with it. It was actually green lit back in 1998 but the company was indicted by the federal government and all its properties were seized…including Dee’s movie. He spent 7 years in court trying to get it back and FINALLY has it and is now just trying to get the thing made.

3. Dee is a healthy guy and we actually went shopping for all the goods (which we later made into burgers) at his favourite health food stores in Long Island. Healthy or not – he prefers sliced cheese over proper cheddar and he doesn’t check the expiration date on milk or bread – these are things Dee and I differ on and it made for some funny moments in the grocery store…..it was just kinda surreal to be with the singer of Twisted Sister in a supermarket talking cheddar vs. sliced.

4. Dee has a Bon Jovi sticker on his motorcycle helmet with a line through it. He says back in the day Jovi were the “happy metal’ band and we then kinda made fun of the band for a bit which was fun. The lovely Mrs. Snider, however, tells Dee that he’s just jealous that he’s not as good looking as Jon Bon and that’s why he pokes fun.

5. Dee’s wifey is the artist who created the original TS logo, and the one you see on the Stay Hungry album cover is the EXACT one she drew…it’s not even a touched up version. She literally made it in a couple of minutes just as an idea of what she was thinking…..she later HATED the idea that her rough sketch was being used as the official logo and that she didn’t get to make a proper version.

6. Dee wrote the Stay Hungry album, the entire thing; music, melodies and most lyrics in about 45 minutes. Suzette went out to run some errands; he picked up a little tape recorder and with his voice laid down all the riffs, melodies and words.

Check out this brand new episode of Where You at, Baby! on MuchMoreMusic Sunday @ 9:30pm ET and Tuesday @ 7:30pm ET.

=matt

Posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 2:33 pm by Matt Wells and is filed under We <3 TV.