Dee Snider Reveals How Motorhead Helped Twisted Sister Break Through Overseas: Book Excerpt

Dee Snider‘s autobiography ‘Shut Up and Give Me the Mic’ is filled with fantastic, informative stories about the Twisted Sister frontman’s life in rock.

One of the best, which we’ve been generously allowed to share with you in full here, reveals how Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead played a crucial role in helping Twisted Sister break through in the U.K. — by uttering just 12 simple words!

The tale takes place in July of 1982, as the band, completely unknown overseas at the time ( Snider: “Nobody in the country had even heard one of our songs or seen us perform”) were offered a prime slot on the bill at a heavy metal festival headlined by Motorhead at a Football (Soccer) stadium in Wrexham, North Wales.

Making things even more daunting, the band’s makeup-heavy image was widely out of fashion in the U.K. at the time. As Snider explains, “Any band that showed even a hint of glam had been brutalized by the notoriously hostile British metal fans.”

So how did the unknown Twisted Sister win over the crowd, and what magical dozen words did the mighty Lemmy speak to help make their dreams of overseas success a reality?

We’ll let Snider take over the story from here…