Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider has spoken about the band’s absence from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, refuting the idea that the band deserve the honour.
Back in the ’80s, one of the most prominent and well-known bands in the world of rock was Twisted Sister. Having first formed in 1972, the group rose to mainstream popularity in the ’80s thanks to songs such as ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’, ‘I Wanna Rock’, and their accompanying music videos.
In fact, the group’s frontman Dee Snider also played a pivotal role in ensuring that rock music is free from censorship, appearing before the US Senate in Washington back in 1985 to testify against a proposed system that would have given an arbitrary warning system to new releases.
With John Denver and Frank Zappa also testifying alongside him, both Dee Snider and Twisted Sister were considered one of the main reasons this system was never implemented, though we did get those ‘Parental Advisory: Explicit Content’ stickers as a sort of compromise.
However, in the eyes of Snider, this isn’t enough for the group to be honoured with a place in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, speaking to US radio station SiriusXM (via Blabbermouth) about the group’s absence from the Rock Hall.
“People go, ‘Oh, you think you should be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame?’ ‘No’. ‘What do you mean no? Everybody thinks…’ ‘No.’,” Snider stated bluntly.
“I’m honest enough to say, yeah, we had a moment. But it seems like that moment, and maybe what I did in Washington – that moment – and maybe when I created what became Headbangers Ball, which was an important show in the metal community.”
“It was originally called Heavy Metal Mania. It was my idea,” he explained. “I called MTV, pitched them, they bought it. 18 months I hosted it till I asked for money, and they said, ‘We don’t pay money.’ I was, like, ‘Well, I’m not doing this for free anymore.’ And then it became Headbangers Ball. So a respect, over the years, has come, and it’s nice that people are appreciating me.”
While Twisted Sister broke up back in 2016, the group’s legacy is clearly enough for fans to request their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Rock Hall rules, bands are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first album.
While this means that Twisted Sister have been eligible since 2007, there’s nothing to say that they won’t still be inducted down the line. After all, some bands, such as Deep Purple and KISS, spent a combined total of 38 years waiting between becoming eligible and actually being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Who know’s what the future holds?
Check out Twisted Sister’s ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’:
