During a chat on Full in Bloom, producer Tom Werman talked about working with Twisted Sister on 1984’s “Stay Hungry,” where he also mentioned the feud with singer Dee Snider:
“With all of these guys, all the bands that I’ve worked with – Ted Nugent, Cheap Trick, Molly Hatchet, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, KISS, L.A. Guns, Poison, I did the same thing with all of them, really.
“I didn’t make the same record with all of them, I didn’t see the songs the same way, but I produced the stuff so that it caught your ear, you’d sing it in the shower.
“I produced it so it would be a commercial hit. If I hadn’t, gee, just think what Dee would have said about me then. ‘Not only did this guy destroy our album – it didn’t sell.’ So that’s it.
“The rest of the guys were great, Jay Jay [French, guitar] was good, sorry to see A. J. [Pero, drums] die so young – but these were good guys, they were really nice guys and funny.
“Dee was a two-faced backstabbing conman. Dee Snider was there for the mixes. Dee Snider approved every single mix, so really, if he doesn’t like the album, it’s just as much his fault as it might be mine.
“He blames somebody else. Who else blames somebody else for everything that’s happening?
“There’s no question that my approach to music was more pop, but that’s what worked, that’s what got people on the radio, that’s why ‘Surrender’ was a hit, that’s why ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ was a hit – that’s why I made hit singles.
“That was the only way to sell millions of albums, which would’ve been confined or restricted to FM play only.
“He’s got one of the most licensed songs in the history of recorded music probably, and he’s bitching and bitching – ‘He’s this and he’s that.’ I don’t know, I mean, it is mysterious to me. […]