Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French had a chat with Daniel Sarkissian about the impact of grunge and how the genre wiped out a fair share of the popular ’80s hard-rock scene at the time.
Jay Jay singled out Guns N’ Roses as the only band that fully survived the impact, saying:
“The only band that leapfrogged and saved themselves was Guns N’ Roses, and my theory is that Guns N’ Roses was not perceived as a joke.
“They came out of LA, but I think that Axl [Rose], first of all, had a great voice; I think that they were perceived as real, not fake. Like, they were real junkies, not pretend junkies.
“So there’s authenticity. It’s all about authenticity, and grunge is all about authenticity. People wanted authenticity, so they got it with grunge.
“It wiped out the perceived frivolousness of hair metal, which is, ‘Hey, man. Let’s party. Let’s get the girls and drink.’ I think people just got sick of that, and they wanted authentic.”