In a deeply personal and candid new interview, Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider has revealed that the band’s upcoming 50th-anniversary reunion was his idea, born from a moment of personal reckoning upon turning 70 and a desire to challenge himself “one more time” to get back into fighting shape. Speaking on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, he also confirmed that longtime bassist Mark “The Animal” Mendoza will not be part of the reunion due to “irreconcilable differences.”
After years of vowing he would “Never. Ever.” return to the Twisted Sister stage, Snider explained that hitting two major life milestones—his 70th birthday and the band’s 50th anniversary—forced him to reflect.
“I realized, wow, next year is 50 years since I joined Twisted Sister,” he said. “And the offers kept coming in… And I called the guys up and said, ‘What do you think?’ I mean, almost as a challenge to each of us to say, ‘One more time. Can we do it one more time?'”
A major part of that personal challenge, he admitted, is the grueling physical reality of being Dee Snider. He recounted how, after the band’s 2016 farewell tour, he happily gave up the strict regimen required to maintain his iconic stage presence.
“People were crying in the audience, because I’m saying, ‘This is really it, guys. We’re done,'” he recalled. “I go, ‘Listen, I want a pancake. Look at me. I’m ripped to shreds. I want a carb. I’m gonna re-record ‘I Wanna Rock‘ [as] ‘I Want A Carb.’… You know what it takes to look like this? It’s painful. It sucks.’ And I was 60 years old… And I was miserable.”
After “enjoying life” and falling out of his workout pattern during the pandemic, the reunion is now his motivation to return to elite form. “I’ve got like a year to get in shape,” he said. “It’s gonna be a challenge. But I sure don’t wanna embarrass myself… I promise I will make some 20-year-olds feel really badly about themselves.”
The reunion, however, will proceed without one key member of the classic lineup. When asked about bassist Mark Mendoza‘s absence, Snider was firm but unwilling to go into detail. “I can only simply say irreconcilable differences and leave it at that,” he stated. “I can’t get into the weeds… But things have happened that I don’t see being reconciled, hence the term ‘irreconcilable differences.'”
Taking his place will be Russell Pzütto, a familiar face in the Twisted Sister camp who has served as Mendoza‘s bass tech and even filled in for him at one show at the Graspop festival in Belgium. Guitarist Jay Jay French, in a separate statement, noted that “almost all bands with a 50-year history have gone through realignment.”
Ultimately, Snider insists the motivation for this final run is pure. “We’re doing it for all the right reasons. It’s not about money… It’s ’cause we want to do it one more time,” he said.
