May 9, 2024 • 18 mins
Dee was best known as the lead singer and songwriter from the band Twisted Sister.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We couldn't get signed. We were rejected by every label
in the United States five times. Every five times. We
eventually went to England to get an independent record deal
and reverse broke like Joon Jett has done. Breakat did
Hendrix also went to England and broke out out of
the UK. We had to do that because as popular
(00:25):
as we were in the Tri State area, we could
not get a record deal. They would not sign us.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
This is the Taking a Walk Podcast with Buzz Night.
This episode, Buzz talks with one of the most colorful
figures in music history. D Snyder, was the frontman for
the legendary heavy metal band Twisted Sister. He also continues
to host the House of Hair radio show Joined Buzz
Talking with d Snyder. Next on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
D Snyder, Welcome to a virtual edition of the Taking
a Walk Podcast. I wish it could be in person,
but maybe you could add the huffing and puffin effects
in Well.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I'm in really good aerobic shape, Buzz, so I'll have
trouble faking that I'm winded.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Do you take walks though? I mean, do you do
you do that? Out in uh uh sunny California?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
You know what one of my favorite things. I grew
up in New York and my wife and I now
live by the beach in California and we have a
house on the Caribbean in Belize, and so walking on
the beach is one of my favorite things. Uh, which
is you know which I never you know? That's that's
(01:37):
definitely goes against the the pale, ghost whiteness of normal
rock stars who are vampires. But in my older age,
I want to be tan and healthy and happy.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
So what was it like growing up in those mean
streets of Astoria?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, you know, uh, families who go to New York
grant families. My family, my parents or children of immigrants,
they moved to Brooklyn, they moved to Queens Astoria. It
was where my parents lived and grew up in that area.
But then the dream is too as a dreams for
(02:15):
a better life. We're all always dreaming for a better
life for our kids. We all want it better than
we had it. And so back then, the better life
was to go out to Long Island, the suburbs, you know,
and live in the track housing and get away from
the mean streets of New York City and Queens and
you know, I'm it's just you said it. I didn't.
(02:35):
But they didn't realize that there was a whole suburban
gang scene going on where I lived, which I've written
about in my new novel called Fratce, which you can't
see when we're walking, but and I was. I was
in as much danger there as I was in Queens
And and if not more, because because they were called
(02:58):
fraternity's high school fraternities, they didn't exist anywhere else in
the world except in a small microcosm in South Shore
of Nasa County when in the in the seventies and
eighties they were. They had charters with the police department
and had Greek letters, and so the school viewed them
as as being, Oh, they're legitimate, they're like college fraternities,
(03:20):
but it's high school. They marched in the parades, they
would have their colored walk with their banners. Yet they
basically only did was fight and beat people up noticed gangs,
but they were allowed to roam the halls wearing their
colors and their jackets. And France is based on actual
events about that period of time in the seventies when
(03:42):
that existed.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So tell me about frats and what's going to happen.
That is a future evolution of that book.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So France is you know, I've been writing for many,
many years, and people, if you check it out, I
promise you I've been writing over thirty years, whether it
was screen plays or short stories or you know, or
just articles and memoirs, all kinds of things. I finally
decided to do a a novel and the reviews are excellent.
(04:16):
People are kind of stunned, but I said, it's a
craft and I've developed it and I can write. But
it was published because you know, when you when a
rock star writes book, people will take you seriously. So
it's on a small independent you know, read Penguin books,
available in stores anywhere you get books. But you know,
I didn't expect much more. But it's a very rich story,
(04:38):
and I got contacted by major studio can't name them.
Now we're putting a deal together who wants to make
a movie out of it? And trying I want to say, well,
what's it about? I just told you, but think Outsiders
set in the suburban seventies. You remember the movie Outsiders.
This is about gang violence in suburbia in the seventies
(04:59):
and anyway, so that was a really exciting meeting I
had earlier this week, and so I'm hoping it gets
bouts of the screen because the story is worthy. It's
a powerful story, it's a coming of age story. It's
also about male toxicity, you know, that whole thing that
I didn't realize I was writing about that, but it is.
So if you're wondering why we still have a lot
(05:21):
of very violent men in the world, it's because it
because many of us were raised like I don't know
what we were raised like, but we were raised like animals,
and you know, and and and we we continue to
It was very hard for me, being raised by a
cop VET, the heavy handed dad, to not inflict this
(05:42):
that of my child own children, because it turned me
into a tough guy. It made me colder, It made
me a guy who's you know, tear ducts dried up.
It made me that a hard person. And I didn't
want my sons to still to be affected by it,
but they still, to be honest, they still were. It's
hard not to be affected when your dad's a tough guy.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
So and mister tough guy was in the church choir,
wasn't he.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, yeah, tough guy was in a lot. I became
tough guy. You know, it was like I wasn't. I
was like an outcast. You know. In the book France,
it's about the fraternitys I am not one of the guys,
the guy who the books about Bobby, of the main character.
I'm not Bobby. I am one of the nerds that
(06:29):
is getting always in danger of getting their asses kicked
by the gangs. You know. I spent my life trying
to avoid him. I was a big nerd and I
was a big weird nerd, so they kind of said,
you know, I got to stay away from him. That
might just might go back, it might go you know,
go wildly wrong. But at the same time I did
that my moments of getting jumped, But I was not
(06:52):
that tough a guy. Growing up your life makes you
that way and you just sort of have to protect
your self and defend yourself. I mean, you live in
not you know, in the world that I grew up in,
and it just makes you stronger. Hey, if nobody bothered me,
a pick on me, i'd just be a I don't know,
I'd just be a geek crying watching sad movies or something.
(07:15):
I don't know. What but but that's not me.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taken a Walk Podcast. Well,
when Twisted Sister first really broke out big, I was
working in that period in Connecticut programming at I ninety
five and seeing you and the band at a number
(07:42):
of salty places like the Fore and Aft. Remember the
Fore and Aft.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
These are places that make you toss a goora a goora.
So many there was. There was Toad's Place, there was
a great American Music hall, there's there's so many legendary
clubs in the New York are four and a half
for sure.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
And so we saw you regularly there as you guys
were out playing all the time. We would do our
you know, station promotion nights there frequently. And then I remember,
you know, suddenly there's an explosion of Twisted Sister fame
over your music. Were you guys taken by surprise about
(08:25):
how quickly that all happened?
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, the band was the other for a long time.
And the reason why I ninety five, which, by the way,
my radio show House of Hair is on ninety five
still all these years later. The reason why you guys
came down to our shows is because they're always packed.
You knew the place there'd be a thousand kids there,
you know, you know, teenagers, so you knew. You know
(08:51):
what I'm saying, That's why people came to our shows.
We packed them in. People kept expecting us to move
on and leave, and we just were there for a
year after year. We couldn't get signed. We were rejected
by every label in the United States five times. Every
five times. We eventually went to England to get an
(09:12):
independent record deal and reverse broke like Joan Jett has done,
Dray Cats did. The Hendricks also went to England and
broke out out of the UK. We had to do
that because as popular as we were in the Tri
State area, we could not get a record deal. They
would not sign us. So when it finally happened, yeah,
(09:37):
it started, it's like when you finally broke through. It
just a wall came down and we plowed through. But
as a band, we had done so much experience, so
much it was like, I don't say too little, too late,
but it was like almost bit big whoop is not
the word either, But we had already played arenas, opening
up for people that were in the Tri State area,
(09:59):
but Ju and Blois to Coulton. We had been to
arenas we recorded in the top recording studios. Our demo
is an Electric Lady with Eddie Kramer and remember the
Rolling Stones doing some girls down the hall. I mean,
so we had we had bodyguards in the Tri State area,
we had thousands of thousands of fans, and we had
had in a microcosm, we were rock stars, but we
(10:20):
hadn't received it on an international level. So when it
finally happened, it was like, it's about time. That was
a feeling, It's about damn time.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I remember at the Episcopal Church that my wife and
I belonged to in Connecticut actually during that period, and
I know you ultimately turned to the Episcopal Church as well,
but I remember being called after a particular Mass to
a meeting almost of the church elders about the whole
(10:53):
PMRC thing that was going on, which was pretty awkward,
I might say. Can you describe what it was like
being there with John Denver Frank Zappa in the middle
of all of that fight.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
You know, at the time we were in the center
of the controversy. There was a list called the Filthy
fifteen and that you know, and well, we're not gonna
take it was on there for violence. We were it
was a violent song apparently, and we were dealing with
protests at our shows and picket lines, and especially down
(11:30):
in the Bible Belt. Shows canceled because our New York males.
The things we said on stage got me arrested down
in Texas. So I was very much in the middle
of it, and it felt we were twisted. E Fing's
sister man. I mean, I kind of expected it, and
when they asked me to go to Washington to testify,
(11:53):
I viewed it as carrying the flag into battle. I said, wow,
you know, I'm gonna lead the army into battle. I
didn't know until well later that it was that John
Denver and Frank Zappa, both by the Rest in Peace,
were both going to be there, neither who was on
the list, neither who was a targeted band or artist.
(12:14):
And to their credit, they stepped forward at a time
it turned out not many people did. Not many people
stepped up as a matter of fact, after those Senate hearings,
and I was I was pretty much canceled. It was
before they called the canceling, but I became public enemy
number one, and I was portrayed, and it really hurt
Twist's career that I stepped forward like that. You know.
(12:37):
Alice Cooper once said to me, why'd you do that?
He said, you should have just said it's all true.
It's all true, you know, and just you know, because
if what they were accusing us of fed the rock
and roll ethos, if I fed the image of rock
and roll me stepping forward and showing them they were wrong.
And I was intelligent and I didn't drink, and I
(12:59):
didn't do drugs, and I was married, and I was
a Christian, and I had a child that was not
rock and roll. And it was damaging to my image
because unknown to me, people want lifestylers. They didn't. They
want not just people who were rocking on on stage.
They want you doing the same thing off stage. And me,
I was just recovering from every show, so I would
(13:19):
I didn't, you know, I didn't live the rock and
roll lifestyle. I was rock and roll, but be that
as it may too. I didn't know what Frank and
John would be about. Frank, of course, is always fucking
disdainful of anything normal. So and and meeting him was
(13:39):
amazing and uh, and he went in there and kicked ass.
John Denver was a big surprise at that point. He
was so mom and apple pie with his annual Christmas
special and and we thought he might turn on rock
and roll, but he didn't. And Frank and I were
cheering in the back room when he did, and when
he said, I like him. These this censorship hearing to
(14:02):
Nazi book burnings. Wow, people don't remember. They know John
was there, but he hid the power of his words.
What a much greater effect on those senators because they
liked him and they thought he would be on their side,
which he was not.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Isn't it sort of chilling thinking about the world we
live in today and certainly how books and stuff are
being banned, and about the fight that you know that
you led.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
It is and the you know, look, censorship has been
a thing since the beginning of time. If it really
stepped back from it, and if I really step back,
I almost feel sorry for Puritan people. Puritan's a general
word meaning people have very conservative belief system because they
(14:53):
keep trying to stop the treep, trying to draw a
line is to stop you know, like things like and
and and every time they give an inch, the people
on the other side keep stepping over the line and
try to push it further. If we go to television
at a time when a husband and wife couldn't be
in the same bed together on TV, eventually you have
(15:14):
shows like Friends on primetime TV, where everybody's sleeping around
and the whole thing's about you know, sexual inter relationships.
Not everything's about it, but it was open like that
was just acceptable thing. That's a far cry from, you know,
from from where things started on TV, and and it's
always been like that. They've always tried to the conservative
(15:35):
people try to control expression, beating expression, and every time
they give a little bit, we keep pushing more and
more and more. The odd thing about the pendulum is
that now we're seeing the censorship coming more from the
left than the right, even though they're getting back to it.
(15:56):
The right is getting back to it with their you know,
was there certain things that they're doing. Won't get into that,
but the PC cancel cancel culture. That is censorship. We
were talking the other day and Buzz you. You know,
there's a movie, one of the legendary comedy movies of
all time by mel Brooks Blazing Saddles in the seventies.
(16:18):
This thing, man, it pushed everybodon offended everybody, and it
was a hit, and it was hysterical. And you could
make that movie. Today you could not make a movie
openly using the N word, and and and was and
everybody and talking about rape and as a joke and
talking about you know, all groups, all religious groups, all.
(16:39):
It's just nobody was safe in Blazing Saddles. But but
now you can't make a movie like that because it
offends people. You don't want to offend people, you know.
And that's that is that's another extreme of a censorship.
You know, that's extreme of censorship. Wanting to ban records
and blot and label records. That was one side of censorship.
(17:01):
Another is saying, well, you can't say those things because
they hurt people's feelings. These are offensive. You know. I
was writing a song on my last album, Uh Leave
a Scar, called into the Kill and at some point,
and it was metaphorical, it was about going for it.
You know that that that moment I'm into the kill,
fire fire at will. You know, I've been waiting my
(17:23):
whole life for this moment. I'm not gonna my time
is now and I and I found myself going, oh
wait a second in for the kill fire at will
Let's I don't know, are they gonna can I say that?
And I was like, holy crap, I'm the Snyder. I
fought censorship and I'm sitting here censoring myself from saying
(17:44):
words because I might offend somebody with a metaphor. Needless
to say, the songs on the record leave a scar.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I admire your tenacity, your resilience, your creativity. The book,
congratulations on it, and the future film, congratulations on it.
Thank you, and it's so great to reconnect with you.
D Sneyder on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Buzz a pleasure as always, look forward to talking to
you again. We ain't finished, brother, We got a lot
more to say.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We couldn't get signed. We were rejected by every label
in the United States five times. Every five times. We
eventually went to England to get an independent record deal
and reverse broke like Joon Jett has done. Breakat did
Hendrix also went to England and broke out out of
the UK. We had to do that because as popular
(00:25):
as we were in the Tri State area, we could
not get a record deal. They would not sign us.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
This is the Taking a Walk Podcast with Buzz Night.
This episode, Buzz talks with one of the most colorful
figures in music history. D Snyder, was the frontman for
the legendary heavy metal band Twisted Sister. He also continues
to host the House of Hair radio show Joined Buzz
Talking with d Snyder. Next on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
D Snyder, Welcome to a virtual edition of the Taking
a Walk Podcast. I wish it could be in person,
but maybe you could add the huffing and puffin effects
in Well.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I'm in really good aerobic shape, Buzz, so I'll have
trouble faking that I'm winded.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Do you take walks though? I mean, do you do
you do that? Out in uh uh sunny California?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
You know what one of my favorite things. I grew
up in New York and my wife and I now
live by the beach in California and we have a
house on the Caribbean in Belize, and so walking on
the beach is one of my favorite things. Uh, which
is you know which I never you know? That's that's
(01:37):
definitely goes against the the pale, ghost whiteness of normal
rock stars who are vampires. But in my older age,
I want to be tan and healthy and happy.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
So what was it like growing up in those mean
streets of Astoria?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, you know, uh, families who go to New York
grant families. My family, my parents or children of immigrants,
they moved to Brooklyn, they moved to Queens Astoria. It
was where my parents lived and grew up in that area.
But then the dream is too as a dreams for
(02:15):
a better life. We're all always dreaming for a better
life for our kids. We all want it better than
we had it. And so back then, the better life
was to go out to Long Island, the suburbs, you know,
and live in the track housing and get away from
the mean streets of New York City and Queens and
you know, I'm it's just you said it. I didn't.
(02:35):
But they didn't realize that there was a whole suburban
gang scene going on where I lived, which I've written
about in my new novel called Fratce, which you can't
see when we're walking, but and I was. I was
in as much danger there as I was in Queens
And and if not more, because because they were called
(02:58):
fraternity's high school fraternities, they didn't exist anywhere else in
the world except in a small microcosm in South Shore
of Nasa County when in the in the seventies and
eighties they were. They had charters with the police department
and had Greek letters, and so the school viewed them
as as being, Oh, they're legitimate, they're like college fraternities,
(03:20):
but it's high school. They marched in the parades, they
would have their colored walk with their banners. Yet they
basically only did was fight and beat people up noticed gangs,
but they were allowed to roam the halls wearing their
colors and their jackets. And France is based on actual
events about that period of time in the seventies when
(03:42):
that existed.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So tell me about frats and what's going to happen.
That is a future evolution of that book.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So France is you know, I've been writing for many,
many years, and people, if you check it out, I
promise you I've been writing over thirty years, whether it
was screen plays or short stories or you know, or
just articles and memoirs, all kinds of things. I finally
decided to do a a novel and the reviews are excellent.
(04:16):
People are kind of stunned, but I said, it's a
craft and I've developed it and I can write. But
it was published because you know, when you when a
rock star writes book, people will take you seriously. So
it's on a small independent you know, read Penguin books,
available in stores anywhere you get books. But you know,
I didn't expect much more. But it's a very rich story,
(04:38):
and I got contacted by major studio can't name them.
Now we're putting a deal together who wants to make
a movie out of it? And trying I want to say, well,
what's it about? I just told you, but think Outsiders
set in the suburban seventies. You remember the movie Outsiders.
This is about gang violence in suburbia in the seventies
(04:59):
and anyway, so that was a really exciting meeting I
had earlier this week, and so I'm hoping it gets
bouts of the screen because the story is worthy. It's
a powerful story, it's a coming of age story. It's
also about male toxicity, you know, that whole thing that
I didn't realize I was writing about that, but it is.
So if you're wondering why we still have a lot
(05:21):
of very violent men in the world, it's because it
because many of us were raised like I don't know
what we were raised like, but we were raised like animals,
and you know, and and and we we continue to
It was very hard for me, being raised by a
cop VET, the heavy handed dad, to not inflict this
(05:42):
that of my child own children, because it turned me
into a tough guy. It made me colder, It made
me a guy who's you know, tear ducts dried up.
It made me that a hard person. And I didn't
want my sons to still to be affected by it,
but they still, to be honest, they still were. It's
hard not to be affected when your dad's a tough guy.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
So and mister tough guy was in the church choir,
wasn't he.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, yeah, tough guy was in a lot. I became
tough guy. You know, it was like I wasn't. I
was like an outcast. You know. In the book France,
it's about the fraternitys I am not one of the guys,
the guy who the books about Bobby, of the main character.
I'm not Bobby. I am one of the nerds that
(06:29):
is getting always in danger of getting their asses kicked
by the gangs. You know. I spent my life trying
to avoid him. I was a big nerd and I
was a big weird nerd, so they kind of said,
you know, I got to stay away from him. That
might just might go back, it might go you know,
go wildly wrong. But at the same time I did
that my moments of getting jumped, But I was not
(06:52):
that tough a guy. Growing up your life makes you
that way and you just sort of have to protect
your self and defend yourself. I mean, you live in
not you know, in the world that I grew up in,
and it just makes you stronger. Hey, if nobody bothered me,
a pick on me, i'd just be a I don't know,
I'd just be a geek crying watching sad movies or something.
(07:15):
I don't know. What but but that's not me.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taken a Walk Podcast. Well,
when Twisted Sister first really broke out big, I was
working in that period in Connecticut programming at I ninety
five and seeing you and the band at a number
(07:42):
of salty places like the Fore and Aft. Remember the
Fore and Aft.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
These are places that make you toss a goora a goora.
So many there was. There was Toad's Place, there was
a great American Music hall, there's there's so many legendary
clubs in the New York are four and a half
for sure.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
And so we saw you regularly there as you guys
were out playing all the time. We would do our
you know, station promotion nights there frequently. And then I remember,
you know, suddenly there's an explosion of Twisted Sister fame
over your music. Were you guys taken by surprise about
(08:25):
how quickly that all happened?
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, the band was the other for a long time.
And the reason why I ninety five, which, by the way,
my radio show House of Hair is on ninety five
still all these years later. The reason why you guys
came down to our shows is because they're always packed.
You knew the place there'd be a thousand kids there,
you know, you know, teenagers, so you knew. You know
(08:51):
what I'm saying, That's why people came to our shows.
We packed them in. People kept expecting us to move
on and leave, and we just were there for a
year after year. We couldn't get signed. We were rejected
by every label in the United States five times. Every
five times. We eventually went to England to get an
(09:12):
independent record deal and reverse broke like Joan Jett has done,
Dray Cats did. The Hendricks also went to England and
broke out out of the UK. We had to do
that because as popular as we were in the Tri
State area, we could not get a record deal. They
would not sign us. So when it finally happened, yeah,
(09:37):
it started, it's like when you finally broke through. It
just a wall came down and we plowed through. But
as a band, we had done so much experience, so
much it was like, I don't say too little, too late,
but it was like almost bit big whoop is not
the word either, But we had already played arenas, opening
up for people that were in the Tri State area,
(09:59):
but Ju and Blois to Coulton. We had been to
arenas we recorded in the top recording studios. Our demo
is an Electric Lady with Eddie Kramer and remember the
Rolling Stones doing some girls down the hall. I mean,
so we had we had bodyguards in the Tri State area,
we had thousands of thousands of fans, and we had
had in a microcosm, we were rock stars, but we
(10:20):
hadn't received it on an international level. So when it
finally happened, it was like, it's about time. That was
a feeling, It's about damn time.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I remember at the Episcopal Church that my wife and
I belonged to in Connecticut actually during that period, and
I know you ultimately turned to the Episcopal Church as well,
but I remember being called after a particular Mass to
a meeting almost of the church elders about the whole
(10:53):
PMRC thing that was going on, which was pretty awkward,
I might say. Can you describe what it was like
being there with John Denver Frank Zappa in the middle
of all of that fight.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
You know, at the time we were in the center
of the controversy. There was a list called the Filthy
fifteen and that you know, and well, we're not gonna
take it was on there for violence. We were it
was a violent song apparently, and we were dealing with
protests at our shows and picket lines, and especially down
(11:30):
in the Bible Belt. Shows canceled because our New York males.
The things we said on stage got me arrested down
in Texas. So I was very much in the middle
of it, and it felt we were twisted. E Fing's
sister man. I mean, I kind of expected it, and
when they asked me to go to Washington to testify,
(11:53):
I viewed it as carrying the flag into battle. I said, wow,
you know, I'm gonna lead the army into battle. I
didn't know until well later that it was that John
Denver and Frank Zappa, both by the Rest in Peace,
were both going to be there, neither who was on
the list, neither who was a targeted band or artist.
(12:14):
And to their credit, they stepped forward at a time
it turned out not many people did. Not many people
stepped up as a matter of fact, after those Senate hearings,
and I was I was pretty much canceled. It was
before they called the canceling, but I became public enemy
number one, and I was portrayed, and it really hurt
Twist's career that I stepped forward like that. You know.
(12:37):
Alice Cooper once said to me, why'd you do that?
He said, you should have just said it's all true.
It's all true, you know, and just you know, because
if what they were accusing us of fed the rock
and roll ethos, if I fed the image of rock
and roll me stepping forward and showing them they were wrong.
And I was intelligent and I didn't drink, and I
(12:59):
didn't do drugs, and I was married, and I was
a Christian, and I had a child that was not
rock and roll. And it was damaging to my image
because unknown to me, people want lifestylers. They didn't. They
want not just people who were rocking on on stage.
They want you doing the same thing off stage. And me,
I was just recovering from every show, so I would
(13:19):
I didn't, you know, I didn't live the rock and
roll lifestyle. I was rock and roll, but be that
as it may too. I didn't know what Frank and
John would be about. Frank, of course, is always fucking
disdainful of anything normal. So and and meeting him was
(13:39):
amazing and uh, and he went in there and kicked ass.
John Denver was a big surprise at that point. He
was so mom and apple pie with his annual Christmas
special and and we thought he might turn on rock
and roll, but he didn't. And Frank and I were
cheering in the back room when he did, and when
he said, I like him. These this censorship hearing to
(14:02):
Nazi book burnings. Wow, people don't remember. They know John
was there, but he hid the power of his words.
What a much greater effect on those senators because they
liked him and they thought he would be on their side,
which he was not.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Isn't it sort of chilling thinking about the world we
live in today and certainly how books and stuff are
being banned, and about the fight that you know that
you led.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
It is and the you know, look, censorship has been
a thing since the beginning of time. If it really
stepped back from it, and if I really step back,
I almost feel sorry for Puritan people. Puritan's a general
word meaning people have very conservative belief system because they
(14:53):
keep trying to stop the treep, trying to draw a
line is to stop you know, like things like and
and and every time they give an inch, the people
on the other side keep stepping over the line and
try to push it further. If we go to television
at a time when a husband and wife couldn't be
in the same bed together on TV, eventually you have
(15:14):
shows like Friends on primetime TV, where everybody's sleeping around
and the whole thing's about you know, sexual inter relationships.
Not everything's about it, but it was open like that
was just acceptable thing. That's a far cry from, you know,
from from where things started on TV, and and it's
always been like that. They've always tried to the conservative
(15:35):
people try to control expression, beating expression, and every time
they give a little bit, we keep pushing more and
more and more. The odd thing about the pendulum is
that now we're seeing the censorship coming more from the
left than the right, even though they're getting back to it.
(15:56):
The right is getting back to it with their you know,
was there certain things that they're doing. Won't get into that,
but the PC cancel cancel culture. That is censorship. We
were talking the other day and Buzz you. You know,
there's a movie, one of the legendary comedy movies of
all time by mel Brooks Blazing Saddles in the seventies.
(16:18):
This thing, man, it pushed everybodon offended everybody, and it
was a hit, and it was hysterical. And you could
make that movie. Today you could not make a movie
openly using the N word, and and and was and
everybody and talking about rape and as a joke and
talking about you know, all groups, all religious groups, all.
(16:39):
It's just nobody was safe in Blazing Saddles. But but
now you can't make a movie like that because it
offends people. You don't want to offend people, you know.
And that's that is that's another extreme of a censorship.
You know, that's extreme of censorship. Wanting to ban records
and blot and label records. That was one side of censorship.
(17:01):
Another is saying, well, you can't say those things because
they hurt people's feelings. These are offensive. You know. I
was writing a song on my last album, Uh Leave
a Scar, called into the Kill and at some point,
and it was metaphorical, it was about going for it.
You know that that that moment I'm into the kill,
fire fire at will. You know, I've been waiting my
(17:23):
whole life for this moment. I'm not gonna my time
is now and I and I found myself going, oh
wait a second in for the kill fire at will
Let's I don't know, are they gonna can I say that?
And I was like, holy crap, I'm the Snyder. I
fought censorship and I'm sitting here censoring myself from saying
(17:44):
words because I might offend somebody with a metaphor. Needless
to say, the songs on the record leave a scar.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I admire your tenacity, your resilience, your creativity. The book,
congratulations on it, and the future film, congratulations on it.
Thank you, and it's so great to reconnect with you.
D Sneyder on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Buzz a pleasure as always, look forward to talking to
you again. We ain't finished, brother, We got a lot
more to say.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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