The album that forced Twisted Sister to split
Hair metal often gets a hard time, and I’ve always been against that. Sure, there might be something inherently silly about it, but that’s the point. We can look for deep meaning in a lot of the music we listen to, but we can also submit to it, allow it to be one of the most wonderful forms of escapism. And what are bands like Twisted Sister if not that? They are music at its most fun and kickass.
There was a period in the ‘80s when exciting guitar music was around every corner you turned, and with that came a hair metal band. Bands like Deep Purple, Van Halen, and Iron Maiden were topping the charts, which meant there was great scope for hair metal bands to swoop in and make a name for themselves. They took the eccentric rock sound that everyone obsessed over so much and provided equally eccentric live shows and music videos. No one was doing this better than Twisted Sister, which is why when they sat down to record their second album attached to a major label in 1984, they knew it was make or break.
“Every record label seemed to have their own hair-metal band lined up like jets on the runway,” recalled guitarist Jay Jay French, “Every month a different jet would head off and strike its target. We were in the right place at the right time, with the most dynamic frontman around. There were so much hairspray above Los Angeles in 1984 it was pretty intoxicating.”
Stay Hungry was a success. It didn’t do as well in the UK as their previous album did, but in the United States and Sweden, the power of the movement skyrocketed it to six million copies sold. Not bad going for a second album; however, the band weren’t satisfied. Whether they knew it at the time or not, the making of Stay Hungry had marked the beginning of the end for them. There were two main reasons why this was the case: the first was their producer, and the second was themselves.
The success of Stay Hungry masked deeper tensions
When their record label signed them, it’s safe to say Atlantic didn’t have a lot of faith in Twisted Sister. They knew that hair metal was in, and they knew the band were gaining traction, but they weren’t huge fans of the music themselves. As a result, when it came to making the second album, they wanted to get one of the hottest producers in the world alongside the band to help them make the album. This was Tom Werman.
The band weren’t overly pleased with this move, as though Werman was successful, they didn’t think he would be right for their sound. They wanted to work with artists who had credits with the likes of Alice Cooper and Judas Priest, but Atlantic Records were persistent. There was tension right from the off, as Twisted Sister played Werman songs that would be hits such as ‘I Wanna Rock’ and ‘We’re Not Gunna Take It’, which he decided weren’t good enough and should be binned.
“I spent my days in the studio fighting with Werman, trying to keep some semblance of who we were. I had to beg him to include those songs,” said singer Dee Snider, “On the first day he brought in Saxon’s ‘Strong Arm Of The Law’ and ‘Princess Of The Night’ and told us we should record them instead. I replied: ‘Yeah, they’re great songs – I heard them last week when we did a show with Saxon‘. He thought that because nobody in America knew them, we could get away with recording them.”
The ongoing dispute with their producer also trickled down into the band. While they went on to make more music after that album, there was ongoing tension that got in the way of their productivity. Twisted Sister were never the same after that album, and the underlying tension that came with their album led to the eventual split.
In the noughties, when they decided to regroup and re-record the album in the way that they wanted to do it, the band were asked to talk through the original record process. French stared at the original album, and his response tells you everything you need to know about the haphazard recording process.
“You know what?” He said, “The band was starting to disintegrate – the rot set in and it never got better. So I don’t feel particularly comfortable trying to talk you through those songs.”
