Dee Snider

One of hard rock’s most commanding and singular vocalists, Dee Snider rose to prominence in the early 1980s fronting the New Jersey glam-metal outfit Twisted Sister. The outspoken frontman joined John Denver and Frank Zappa in 1985 to testify before Congress against the censorship efforts of Tipper Gore’s PMRC, and two years earlier the band had scored back-to-back anthems with “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock.” Following Twisted Sister’s 1987 breakup, Snider pursued an array of solo and band ventures along with acting and screenwriting assignments that extended well into the new millennium, culminating in the 2021 release of his fifth solo album, Leave a Scar.

He assembled the short-lived Desperado in 1988 alongside guitarist Bernie Torme, bassist Marc Russell, and drummer Clive Burr; the resulting album Bloodied But Unbowed remained unreleased in official form, although scattered copies surfaced abroad. That same year Snider made his first screen appearance in the horror feature Strangeland, for which he had also penned the screenplay. He then formed the heavier Widowmaker, keeping Russell on bass and adding guitarist Al Pitrelli and drummer Joey Franco, whose prior résumé included Twisted Sister’s final album. Widowmaker issued its debut, Blood & Bullets, in 1992 and followed it with 1994’s Stand by for Pain before calling it quits.

Snider subsequently concentrated on film work in the horror genre, ultimately writing, producing, and starring in Strangeland upon its 1998 release. He also performed intermittently with the SMFs, a project built largely around Twisted Sister material. His first proper solo album, Never Let the Bastards Wear You Down, arrived in 2000 with Torme again handling guitar duties; most of its tracks dated back to the 1980s yet had never appeared on an official recording. Acting and voice-over work continued through the 2000s on projects such as Celebrity Apprentice, Rock of Ages, and SpongeBob SquarePants, after which Snider returned to music with 2012’s Dee Does Broadway and 2016’s We Are the Ones, the latter containing a newly recorded acoustic version of “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

In 2018 he delivered his fourth solo set, For the Love of Metal, on Napalm Records under the production of Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta; guest contributions came from Howard Jones of Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God’s Mark Morton, Arch Enemy’s Alissa White-Gluz, Toxic Holocaust’s Joel Grind and Nick Bellmore, and Kingdom of Sorrow’s Charlie Bellmore. A live companion, For the Love of Metal: Live!, appeared in 2020, as did the holiday collaboration “The Magic of Christmas Day” with Lzzy Hale. Two years later the Billboard-charting Leave a Scar surfaced, propelled by the single “I Gotta Rock (Again).”