By Jeb Wright
Most rock fans instantly
recognize Twisted Sister's Dee Snider, with or without his
whorish, ghoulish and downright scary makeup. Anyone who was
watching MTV in 1983 remembers Dee and
Neidermeyer
from Animal House going at it over Dee's rocker lifestyle.
After all, it was Snider who bellowed, "I WANNA ROCK"
when simply asked, "What do you want to do with your life?"
Aside from Twisted Sister, Dee is
famous for taking on Tipper Gore and the Parent Resource Center
and testifying in front of Congress, as well as hosting numerous
rock related shows on VH1 and VH1 Classic. However, there is
more to the iconic rocker than just music. It was Snider who
wrote, produced and starred in the movie
Strangeland,
a twisted tale of Internet seduction and murder. Now, over a
decade down the road, Dee is back with a new script and a sequel
to Strangeland
titled Strangeland: Ritual.
I talked to Dee in-depth about
the concept behind the movie, the writing of the script and the
casting. However, before jumping into the interview, I had to
find out what was up with Twisted Sister. Snider was quick to
admit that a 25th Anniversary; remastered release of
Stay Hungry
is on the way. "There are going to
be a ton of extras on there, as these things always tend to
have," Dee admits. Originally produced by rock's preppiest
producer, Tom Werman, Dee states that Werman was not allowed
near the controls of the remastering of
Stay Hungry.
For 25 years, Snider has let his feelings be known that he does
not like the sound of the original release, putting the blame
squarely on Werman's shoulders. "Tom Werman didn't do the
remastering but we did allow him to be interviewed for the liner
notes. Werman gets beat up pretty good from time-to-time, so we
decided to give him his side of the story. There are three
sides to every story and we recognize that. We gave Tom a
voice. I am sure he has got a lot to say."
Dee reveals a big change is in
store for the band in 2009. "We have a new song that the band
recorded-it is the first new song we have recorded since the
Strangeland
soundtrack. We are planning to do
some shows in the US, which will be the farewell to the
makeup." When asked if TS will change their name to Bent
Brother once the makeup is off, Snider laughed and said, "When
Twisted Sister takes off the makeup, Bent Brother, in
disapproval, will put on the makeup."
Jeb: Let's talk about the return
of Captain Howdy.
Dee:
Strangeland
finally, after ten years of
struggle, is getting a sequel made.
Jeb: You came up with the plot
fifteen years ago.
Dee: As far as the original
script goes, you are talking about fifteen years ago. You can
go back to Twisted Sister's "Street Justice" and "Captain
Howdy," which is the essence of the thing, and that was 1983.
It goes way back.
Jeb: You wrote the first
script. Did you write this one as well?
Dee: I wrote the script and I
will be co-producing and starring in the movie.
Jeb: It had to be great to get
the initial movie off the ground but to fight for the sequel for
all these years-it has to be a real high to get this going. The
story sounds totally twisted too.
Dee: It was a quest. It has been
so hard fought to get this project off the ground. My wife
tells me that it is the story of my life. I have had a lot of
success but it is not like I just go party and somebody gives me
money. It has always been a fight.
Right after we did the first one
in October of 1998, we got the green light for the sequel from
The Shooting Gallery. We were working on the script when the
government swooped in and seized all of The Shooting Gallery's
property. They put padlocks on all the doors. It turns out the
CFO was cooking the books, Enron-style. That started an
eight-year process in the courts fighting for my creative
rights.
The government is really heavy
handed with things of this nature; they just want to dissolve it
and get it done with. A year and half ago, eight years down the
road, I finally secured the creative rights and the prequel and
sequel rights for my characters and for
Strangeland.
It was torturous. It was a great expense. It is not like I
became a rich man off the first movie, as it was an independent,
limited release film. I believe in the franchise, the
characters and I believe in the artist's right to control his
property and not just have it ripped out of his hand because
some selfish, self-centered Wall Street guy tries to make
himself rich at your expense. It became the principal of the
thing at some point.
Jeb: You are known as a guy
who stands up for his principals.
Dee: I don't like being told how
to do things. It is not to the point of stupidity, mind you.
If you can make sense and explain things to me in a way that I
can understand about a situation, then I may compromise my
position. I am not a complete moron. But when you have the
Federal Government, who for no apparent reason, other than
because it is there, tries to sell off your property and kill
your creativity, it becomes a mission. It has cost a lot of
money to fight this and it is not like I have the money to spend
either. Certainly, I hope it takes off but it is going to be a
personal achievement to get this done. I will be proud to get
the sequel done and to win another fight.
Jeb: I think that is what your
fans love about you...
Dee: I hope so. I do hear that I
have inspired people to fight hard and to stick with something.
It is very rewarding to hear that your words and actions have
inspired someone to be strong, stand up, believe in themselves,
and have it pay off.
Jeb: With
Strangeland,
you created using the Internet for
sick and twisted things.
Dee: I have two sides to my mind;
one is very bright and one is very dark. Early on, when I was
writing Strangeland,
it was the early days of the Internet. You really have to go
back more than fifteen years--I hate to think of how many years
it has been. Maybe it was fifteen-whatever is it, I remember
that Captain Howdy was using a dial-up, 2800 bit modem. This is
back when it used to screech at you and if you wanted to
download a picture then you would start to download it, go
upstairs, eat lunch and maybe it would be done downloading when
you got back.
As I started to explore the
Internet I said, "Holy shit, this could really be misused and
abused. I was looking at the whole AOL profile and Friends
Network at the time and you could literally search for people by
their age and sex. Not only could you read and find out all
about them, you could match your profile to theirs and then have
AOL notify you when they are online. I wondered if I could get
someone to hook up with me using this new modern technology. I
remember sitting in my basement, typing away and I got this girl
online and I matched her profile exactly. She was really
thrilled to meet some young buck from the next town over. I hit
the famous words, "Do you want to go to a party?" and she sent
back, "Where and when?" I panicked and ripped the chord right
out of the wall. I shit myself and said, "That is fucked up. I
am in my 40's and I just hooked up with a fifteen-year-old." I
then thought, "It works" and that started the Captain Howdy
modus operandi.
I remember when I was pitching
the script, a news item came out that some Columbian University
upperclassman had got a girl, through the Internet, to come to
his dorm room and he was holding her captive and torturing her.
I called my wife and I said, "Fuck! Some fucking bastard stole
my idea!" She said, "What are you talking about." I told her
what happened and I said, "That was my idea." My wife, who is
the voice of reason said, "Do you really want to be known as the
guy who invented that? Do you want the media to get a hold of
that and say that the crime was inspired by Dee Snider and his
movie Strangeland?
They might even name it after you
and then all future Internet crime will be called 'a Snider.'" I
agreed with her that it was probably a good thing that someone
did that before the movie came out.
If you watch the first movie now,
it is so dated. Technology has grown so rapidly that even my
new script had to be updated. This movie does not wallow in the
Internet but it is still there because of how Captain Howdy
works. The instant messaging that I used when I wrote the
script is no longer. Now it is Facebook and MySpace and all
these other technologies. I have to change the script to
reflect the modern technology.
Jeb: With this movie, you are
not exploring the newness of the Internet but you are uncovering
the underground, fetish scene.
Dee: The thing that is freaky about
it to Joe Blow is that it is right there, just below the
surface. You can be walking past a business or an apartment in
New York City that looks very normal and on the other side of
the door is The Nutcracker Suite. The Nutcracker Suite is an
ultra expensive fetish place where guys pay a lot of money to be
tied up and have catheters put in their dick. I am talking
hardcore stuff. You walk past it, as Joe Average, and you don't
see anything out of the ordinary, but a few feet on the other
side of the door, some guy is down on all fours barking like a
dog.
Captain Howdy's connection to
this world is not what people think it is. The original title
to this movie was called
The Personality. It was
an explanation of how society and the media blows up serial
killers and makes them famous. People become fans of these
people's work. That is why we called it
Disciple.
You will see imitators and people
who cheer when Captain Howdy does what he does. Captain Howdy
is not even a hero to himself. The character, Carleton
Hendricks, loathes his alter ego and it is nightmarish for him
to think that if he is off his medications that he reverts back
to his other self. I think people will find the story very
unique and pleasantly disturbing.
Jeb: Do you ever sit back and
go, "How did I come up with this shit?"
Dee: I didn't until the first
time my wife read my first script. We have been together 32
years now, so I had her read it first. She went upstairs and
read it and she came downstairs and said, "Is there something
you want to tell me?" I said, 'what do you mean?" She said,
"What the fuck is this? Who am I living with?" She was really
freaking out. I went, "Baby, these are my fears, not my
dreams." Even Captain Howdy's demise was the worst way I could
think of to go. My biggest fear is to burn alive.
The inspiration for Captain Howdy
in the first place was an article that I read about some scumbag
who had molested some kids and got off. I was so pissed off as
a parent that I wrote those two songs, "Captain Howdy" and
"Street Justice." I am not Captain Howdy; I am the father who
is trying to avenge his daughter.
Jeb: There is a lot going on
in your head, Dee.
Dee: My wife asked me one time,
"When you are working in the office, how come you never listen
to music?" I told her that it messed with the voices in my
head.
Jeb: Are you really doing an
open casting call for the movie? Are you skipping big names and
trying to find new talent?
Dee: We are doing both. We have
got Robert Englund; he is returning in an even bigger role than
he was in before. Linda Cardellini, who is quite a big actress
now, played Genevieve in the first one. I am knocking on her
door. After being Thelma in Scooby-Doo, and a single mom on ER,
maybe she wants to do something that will make people think
twice if they think they know what she is about. I am going to
call her and see if she wants to revisit the character.
We are looking for new people as
well. There is a degree of a publicity angle to it. We have
more money than we had last time but we are still in the realm
of independent movie making. Anywhere I go in the world, any
guy or girl with a lot of tattoos and big holes in their ears
tells me that they want to be in the movie.
A key element in the movie is an
underworld place called The Torture Garden. The Torture Garden
is the deepest, darkest, hardcore fetish scene. I thought, "Why
hire actors? Why not hire the real deal?" Why should we fake
it when there are real people out there, who are also fans of
Strangeland?
If you go to
www.screentest.biz,
which is a website, all of the available roles are posted. You
don't just have to be a tattooed dude to get a part. This
website is basically an online casting agency. I think that is
kind of cool. You no longer have to go to LA or New York to get
discovered. Some talented kid in Nebraska can upload an
audition and be discovered. I think that is one of the beauties
of the Internet; you are no longer out of touch with the rest of
world if you live outside the urban centers.
Jeb: Last one: The soundtrack
was a big part of the first movie. Tell me what music will be
included in this movie?
Dee: Music is at the core of my
existence. I love heavy music. We sold over a quarter of a
million copies of the first soundtrack, which was totally
unheard of for a million dollar movie. It had Pantara, Megadeth
and Twisted Sister on it but it also had a guy nobody had ever
heard of named Kid Rock. On that song, "Fuck Off," there is
someone named Eminen on there. Coal Chamber and Sevendust were
on the album. System of a Down begged us to be on the album,
and wrote an original song for us... I didn't get them. My
fifteen-year-old son said, "Dad, this stuff is cool." I figured
that he was more in touch than I was. The whole next realm of
hard bands was on there-they were not born from us but we
certainly helped champion them.
This movie will have some big
names on there but we want some cutting edge new bands on there
as well. I am a huge fan of heavy metal-I don't know what my
fucking parents did to me but it hasn't gotten better. I am a
champion of the music form so the soundtrack will be a very
important part.
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