Twisted Sister vocalist Dee Snider recently discussed his lack of songwriting contributions to his new solo album, “For the Love of Metal.”
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Chatting with Mitch Lafon, Snider explained that crafting “straight-ahead rockers” isn’t a problem to him; however, writing “genuine, contemporary metal music – even though I’m a fan of it” doesn’t come as easy. He said (via Blabbermouth):
“I can’t get it to come out of me naturally without being forced or trying too hard. And music shouldn’t be like that; it needs to be genuine.
“And that’s why having these great younger musicians and artists writing for me [on ‘For the Love of Metal’] was just amazing, because they come from that genuine place where they’re just writing from their souls, and they’re writing for me, which was great.
“People say, ‘How can that be?’ Hey, Elvis didn’t write one of his own songs. Frank Sinatra didn’t write his own songs. And guess what? I’m not gonna name names, but some of your favorite metal artists don’t write their own songs – even though they put their name on it and buy out the people who write the songs.
“I’m not gonna say who it is. But the fact of the matter is – not everybody writes. It’s, ‘Can I deliver the songs? Can I believe the songs? Can I execute?’
“And from this album, one thing [producer and songwriter] Jamey [Jasta] did is we spent a lot of time talking about where I’m at, what I wanted to say on this record, what I feel strongly about, my passions and my feelings.
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“So these songs were very much tailored to fit Dee Snider. People go, ‘Man, it sounds as genuine as it could,’ ’cause I believe every freakin’ word. And if there was something in there that wasn’t resonating, I would tell Jamey, ‘You need to change that,’ or, ‘How about we say this instead?’
“And someone said to me, ‘Oh, but why wouldn’t you take credit?’ You don’t take credit for a line or a few words. That’s not fair to the true creator of the entire thing; that’s just an arrangement. So it sounds real because I believe everything I’m saying. And Jamey was very careful to make sure that I could stand behind every song that he was bringing me.”