Dee Snider

Daniel Snider (born March 15, 1955) is an American musician, best known as the lead singer and songwriter of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister.

The band's song "We're Not Gonna Take It" reached No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and was ranked No. 47 on 100 Greatest 80's Songs.

Snider later formed and was the lead singer in the heavy metal bands Desperado, Widowmaker, and SMFs (Sick Mother Fuckers).

He also released several solo albums.

Snider was ranked #83 in the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time.

Born in Astoria, Queens, New York City, Snider was raised in nearby Freeport, New York and Baldwin, New York, both on Long Island.

His father, Bob, is a retired New York State Trooper and Nassau County court clerk, and his mother, Marguerite, is a retired art teacher.

His father is Jewish, whereas his mother is from a Catholic family of Swiss descent.

He is also of Ukrainian descent from his grandfather.

Snider and his siblings were raised as Episcopalians after his mother joined the church.

As a child, he sang in a church choir, several school choruses, and concert choir in high school.

Snider was selected for the All-State Chorus for singing.

He was graduated from Baldwin Senior High School in 1973.

In early 1976, Snider joined Twisted Sister and became the band's sole songwriter.

During the mid-1980s, before the premiere of Headbangers Ball, the first MTV program to consist entirely of heavy metal videos was Heavy Metal Mania.

The group released their first studio album, Under the Blade, in September 1982 and developed a following in the UK.

Less than a year later, Twisted Sister released their second album, You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll.

Their third album, Stay Hungry, hit shelves on May 10, 1984.

This became the band's most successful record with the hits "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock".

"We're Not Gonna Take It" reached No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and was ranked No. 47 on 100 Greatest 80's Songs.

To emphasize the "twisted sister" image, Snider adopted a trademark persona of metal-inspired drag with long blond curly hair, an excessive amount of eye shadow and rouge, a beauty mark, and bright red lipstick.

The first episode aired in June 1985 and was hosted by Snider.

It featured metal news, interviews with metal artists, and in-studio co-hosts.

That same year, in November, Twisted Sister released Come Out and Play, which sold more than 500,000 copies in the USA.

In 1985, Snider was involved in a Senate hearing instigated by the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), which sought to introduce a parental warning system that would label all albums containing what they considered offensive material.

Prior to the appearance by PMRC in Congress, they had singled out a list of songs entitled the "Filthy Fifteen" to demonstrate the dangers of such material to youth, with "We're Not Gonna Take It" featuring on the list alongside Prince's "Darling Nikki", Madonna's "Dress You Up", and Venom's "Possessed", among other titles.

The PMRC proposed a system involving letters that identified the types of objectionable content they determined to be found in each album (e.g., "O" for occult themes, "X" for sex and profanity, "D/A" for drugs and alcohol, "V" for violence, etc.).

Snider, John Denver, and Frank Zappa all testified against censorship and the proposed warning system.

The system was never implemented, and the music industry had already adopted what is now the generic "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" label.

The PMRC involved prominent public figures such as Tipper Gore, the then-wife of Senator Al Gore (D-TN), and Susan Baker, the wife of then-Secretary of State James Baker.

Tipper Gore and Snider had a publicly antagonistic relationship as a consequence, with Snider accusing her of having a "dirty mind" for alleging that the lyrics of "Under the Blade" contained sadomasochistic undertones, when in fact, they were about medical surgery.

Snider also alleged during the Senate hearing that Tipper Gore had fabricated evidence concerning merchandise sold by the band when she stated that "the t-shirts that kids wear" featured "Twisted Sister and a woman in handcuffs sort of spread-eagled".

Snider challenged her to produce such a shirt, to which Al Gore clarified that "the word 't-shirts' was in plural, and one of them referred to Twisted Sister and the other referred to a woman in handcuffs".

The fifth Twisted Sister album was Love Is for Suckers (1987).

The record was originally planned to have been a Snider solo effort, but Atlantic Records encouraged a release under the Twisted Sister name.

Touring lasted only into October 1987, and on October 12, 1987, Snider announced his departure from the band.

It was during this time that Snider formed Desperado, a band featuring ex-Iron Maiden drummer Clive Burr, ex-Gillan guitarist Bernie Torme, and bassist Marc Russel.

The group's only album, Ace, has never been officially released, but was heavily bootlegged on CD under the title Bloodied, but Unbowed.

In the 1990s, Snider formed Widowmaker with guitarist Al Pitrelli, bassist Marc Russel, and former Twisted Sister drummer Joey Franco.

The quartet recorded two albums with limited underground success, titled Blood and Bullets and Stand By for Pain.