Dee Snider Says He Made Fun of Jon Bon Jovi for How He Behaved at Twisted Sister Shows, Names Song Kurt Cobain Ripped Off on Nirvana’s ‘Teen Spirit’

“My wife says, ‘You’re just jealous because he’s better-looking than you and more successful,'” the frontman said.

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During an appearance on The Mistress Carrie Podcast, Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider talked about Bon Jovi, grunge, Nirvana, and more.

The musician commented (transcribed by UG):

“There’s a song that I say is the perfect song, and I wish I wrote it, and I can’t stand the fact that I feel that way about this song…

“‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ by Bon Jovi. I can’t deny it. My wife, on my motorcycle helmet there’s a Bon Jovi, it says ‘Bon Jovi’ and there’s a Ghostbusters sign through it.

“And my wife says, ‘You’re just jealous because he’s better-looking than you and more successful.’

“And again, she’s always right. I go ‘Yeah, you’re right. It’s jealousy.’

“He used to be out in the clubs watching Twisted Sister in New Jersey and I used to make fun of him because he would stand by the ladies’ bathroom – because that was the place where all the girls would actually have to go by.

“It was the move – every girl eventually would have to go to the bathroom, so he’d be like, ‘How you doin’?’

“And I would bust his balls. ‘What are you doing over there?’ I didn’t know who he was, he told me. But, ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ I wish I wrote, and it’s just so well constructed top to bottom, it’s great.”

We’re celebrating 30 years of all these grunge records. All of a sudden, ’80s fun metal became not-in-favor anymore, and you had to live through that…

“I believe it was a hand-delivered letter that I had to sign for, and it said, ‘We’re not doing what you do anymore, we’re not looking like you, we’re not sounding like you, we’re not performing like you, we’re not writing like you, it’s over.’

“And I turned around, and I saw my three children and my wife, and my bank account was running out quickly, and it was like, ‘What now?’

“I never thought that that moment could happen, but that is one of those moments, it was crazy.

“No one was more shocked I think by that reaction to their new music or whatever.

“Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam – they grew out of the hair metal era, and although they may have rejected certain aspects of it, they still, this was their inspiration.

“I was reading [Kurt] Cobain’s diary, and in it, he was just, he referenced the ‘Teen Spirit’ video as being a Twisted Sister video, you know, the high school, the whole nine yards.

“And he said corporate rock sucks, he goes, ”Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling.” Think about it people, that is ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.'”

We’ve learned recently that Dave Grohl ripped the drumline off from the ’70s disco era.

“And again, Grohl was incredibly respectful of all music and whatever, so it really wasn’t the bands that rejected wholesale things, it was first the critics who label things, ‘Oh, that was then, this is now – hair metal, grunge…’

“The grunge bands, early grunge bands hated being called ‘grunge,’ as did heavy metal bands, hair metal bands, jazz; these were all derogatory terms assigned by critics to try to diminish what was happening, to make it seem less than just great music.

“I was just watching a documentary about Bob Dylan, amazing, and I’m not a Dylan fan, but very curious, and he was getting labeled with ‘folk this, protest that,’ and he was just singing, he was writing songs.

“He did not view himself as some sort of game-changing prophet, he was very confused by all the labels that were being put on him.”