Dee Snider Admits He Owes A Lot To Lemmy Kilmister

Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider recently spoke to Kerrang! and recalled when Twisted Sister was the supporting band for Motörhead. He also emphasized the late frontman Lemmy Kilmister’s great contribution to the band’s career.

As you might know, Motörhead’s Wrexham Rock Festival took place in Racecourse Ground on July 24, 1982, and many bands such as Tank, Raven, Orion, and Twisted Sister joined them during their concert. The bands’ performances in the festival, especially Twisted Sister’s, attracted great attention thanks to Lemmy Kilmister.

During his interview, Dee Snider revealed that they were able to join the concert with the help of their manager, who was friends with Motörhead’s. Twisted Sister hadn’t released an album yet, and their style was very different from their contemporaries. Therefore, Snider knew that the audience wouldn’t want to watch them and might interrupt the performance with harsh reactions.

However, Motörhead icon Lemmy Kilmister also foresaw this possibility and that’s why he wanted to present Twisted Sister. After his presentation, the band was able to perform their show without any negative reactions. Thus, Snider still appreciates Kilmister’s contribution to their career. Also, he stated that he owed a lot to the Motörhead legend who helped British people recognize them.

Snider recalled these times saying:

​”That was like a mercy gig. Our management had become friends with Motörhead​’s management, and they put us on the bill – we didn’t even have an album out yet. If you look at the bill, we were like fifth down. But somehow, with someone canceling and a couple of billing shifts, we were special guests, going on right before Motörhead at a football stadium gig.

This is ​’82, so there’s no Mötley Crüe or Poison yet. Anvil got canned off the stage at Reading because Lips had fishnet sleeves on and was playing guitar with a dildo. People freaked! And at our show, we had to go on in the daytime, so it was a pretty terrifying experience that turned out to be one of those flashpoints in our career.

I owe that all to Lemmy, who intervened. He knew how they were gonna react to us. So he said, ​‘I’ll introduce you,’ which was one of the most magnanimous gestures any headliner has ever done – to come out of the dressing room to introduce an unknown band.

That gave us enough of a window to show who we were and what we did. By the end of that, it was one of the greatest ovations of my life. We had just crossed over and been welcomed by the British crowd. That was a godsend for us.

Consequently, Dee Snider highlighted that Twisted Sister’s style was very unusual for metal lovers until bands like Mötley Crüe and Poison emerged, which made people find these kinds of looks and performances normal. It is clear that the band survived that concert and gained confidence thanks to Kilmister’s great presentation.