DEE SNIDER Says Performing All-New Material At RIOT FEST Was 'Not That Cool'

TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider was interviewed last week by Jim Kerr on the Q104.3 radio station in New York City. The 12-minute chat can now be viewed below.

Speaking about his cover of NINE INCH NAILS‘ “Head Like A Hole”, which is featured on his forthcoming solo album, “We Are The Ones”, Dee said: “I just got to perform this for the first time with my new band at Riot Fest in Chicago, and it really lit the place up when I went into this song. It was pretty cool.”

He continued: “[The audience at Riot Fest was] seeing this now-classic-rock guy walk out in stage — in phenomenal shape, I might add — and I played all new material, which was really… I haven’t done that in thirty-five years, I’ve gotta say. Not that cool… I mean, it’s so tough. You go out there, and the audience is an all-new audience, and they’re looking at you, going, ‘Impress me,’ and you’re playing all new music, nothing they’ve heard. But it was great when I went into ‘Head Like A Hole’, and everybody was, like, ‘Yeah!’ ‘Cause that’s a classic song at this point; it’s twenty years old, really.”

Dee previously said about “Head Like A Hole”: “I always thought it was a great song, a powerful song. Like ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ is iconic, ‘Head Like A Hole’ is iconic for that era.”

“We Are The Ones” was produced by Damon Ranger and is described by Dee as “an album that is think part FOO FIGHTERS, part IMAGINE DRAGONS, part THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS.” He added: “Forget anything from the past. Most of my heavy metal fans are gonna hate it; I’ve abandoned my past to move forward.”

Regarding the decision to make a contemporary rock record, Dee told Salon: “[Damon is] the one who approached me and said, ‘Dee, I think there’s an album for you, a contemporary album, a mainstream rock record, a metal-rock record that will speak to people today…’ I said, ‘Really. Me. This guy? A 61-year-old guy.’ He says, ‘Absolutely, Dee. You’re timeless. And you represent something, a spirit, and I think the right songs…” And I heard his stuff that he’s worked on before and I said, ‘There are songs out there that are inspirational.’ You see that sometimes they just get lost, and one of the things that gets lost is the fun of rock and roll. Don’t forget, rock and roll, first and foremost, it’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be [an] escape. It shouldn’t be super-heavy. At the same time, as ‘Louder Than Words’ is showing, it can be inspirational.”