"What do you want to do with your life?"
"I wanna rock."

Rock and roll has always pitted the parents against the youth. It started with Elvis and The Beatles and it continues to this day. And in the 80s, perhaps no band personified this rebellion better than Twisted Sister. With full manes of frizzed-out hair, glamish makup and wardrobe, and a collection of songs that pitted young against old, they were everything a rebellious kid could hope for in a rock and roll band.

Twisted Sister spent the 70s paying their dues as an up-and-coming hard rock act on the NYC club scene, in a time when disco reigned supreme. Led by outrageous frontman, Dee Snyder, the band, comprised of Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojeda on guitar, A.J. Pero on drums and Mark “The Animal” Mendoza on bass, quickly got noticed and began to build a solid underground following. With intentionally offensive lyrics and their over-the-top appearance, young fans loved them and it was only a matter of time before they garnered record label interest. The band proceeded to release two albums, Under the Blade in 1982 and You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll the following year. But mainstream success still eluded the band.

Then, a little channel came along called MTV and Twisted Sister used the new medium to its full advantage. With the release of 1984’s Stay Hungry (featuring Snyder on the cover, gnawing happily on a bloody leg bone,) the band quickly released two music videos to promote the album. With each playing up the “kid vs. adult” theme to the hilt, these two videos, “I Wanna Rock” and “We’re Not Going To Take It,” became two of the most entertaining videos to emerge from the new channel. The band, portrayed as anti-establishment heroes of youth, were quickly embraced by an emerging generation of headbangers and, as a result, the album proceeded to go double platinum.

In 1985, Twisted Sister followed the success of their previous release with Come Out and Play. One of the tracks, “Be Chrool to Your Scuel” made it to MTV briefly, before being banned. As a result, the album didn’t do as well as was expected (although it did go gold) and with the popularity of metal bands fading somewhat, the fate of the band was uncertain. After the unsuccessful release of a remixed version of their first album, Snider formed another band called Desperado and began hosting a radio program, while the other members pursued other projects as well. By 1987, Twisted Sister had officially called it quits.

But there never really is an end in the world of rock and roll. Eleven years later, the original members would get together to record music for a 1998 film called Strangeland (which Snider appeared in.) The band reunited for a New York City charity concert in 2001 to benefit the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Response to the reunion was positive and soon after, the band was scheduling more dates. They re-recorded the Stay Hungry album in 2004, renaming it Still Hungry and in 2006, recorded a collection of heavy metal holiday music, aptly titled A Twisted Christmas. The band continues to perform on occasion, still as reliably rebellious and entertaining as ever.