Twisted Sister formed in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, coming together in late 1972 as a glam-influenced cover band before settling on the name Twisted Sister in early 1973. In 1972, Jay Jay French formed a glam-rock cover band modeled after the New York Dolls, and an apprenticeship on the local Long Island club scene followed. The band went through years of grueling club work and numerous lineup shuffles before finding stability. By early 1976, French hired Dee Snider and, along with fellow guitarist Eddie "Fingers" Ojeda, gave the band's glam sound a harder edge, and bassist Mark "The Animal" Mendoza joined in 1978, which also made the band much heavier sonically. Early on, the group built a reputation as a relentless live act, blending glam rock theatrics with the raw aggression of heavy metal.
The band's breakthrough arrived after a decade of paying dues. Twisted Sister evolved from a band called Silver Star and went through numerous lineup changes before establishing a stable formation in 1982 consisting of Jay Jay French, Eddie "Fingers" Ojeda, Dee Snider, Mark "The Animal" Mendoza, and A. J. Pero, a lineup that recorded the band's first four studio albums. After early UK success with "Under the Blade" and "You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll," the band's true commercial peak came with 1984's "Stay Hungry." Twisted Sister went from an overnight sensation, though one that was a decade in the making, to a band fractured by internal strife, and the breakthrough triple-platinum album Stay Hungry, issued on May 10, 1984, actually provided a hint at the turmoil to come. The album produced the anthems "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock," with the former peaking at #21 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Twisted Sister's first and only top 40 single. The record's memorable, comedic music videos turned the band into MTV fixtures and made their heavily made-up, glam-metal image iconic.
The years following "Stay Hungry" proved turbulent. Their follow-up albums "Come Out and Play" (1985) and "Love Is for Suckers" (1987) failed to achieve the commercial success of "Stay Hungry," leading to tensions within the band, and Twisted Sister disbanded in 1988. Former members scattered into other projects, with Dee Snider forming Desperado, Widowmaker, and SMFs, and also writing, directing, and starring in the movie Strangeland. The band would periodically reunite over the following decades, including a notable comeback in the 2000s, and in 2006 they released "A Twisted Christmas," the most successful heavy metal Christmas album in history. Tragedy struck in 2015 when drummer AJ Pero passed away and was replaced by legendary Long Island drummer Mike Portnoy for the band's remaining live performances. The band then staged a farewell tour before officially closing that chapter, though the surviving members reunited in January 2023 to perform at their induction into the Metal Hall of Fame. Twisted Sister's legacy rests on the enduring power of "We're Not Gonna Take It" as a rallying cry of rebellion, a status cemented by its inclusion in the Parents Music Resource Center's "Filthy Fifteen," a list of songs with alleged violent lyrical content back in the mid-1980s. That controversy only fueled the band's outsized cultural footprint, and decades later "Stay Hungry" remains a touchstone of the genre, having been ranked #76 on Rolling Stone's 2017 list of the 100 greatest heavy metal albums. The band's flamboyant look, anthemic choruses, and defiant attitude influenced a generation of hard rock and metal acts, and its songs continue to soundtrack sporting events, films, and celebrations of rebellious spirit worldwide. Even with the band's stops and starts, Twisted Sister's place in heavy metal history as one of its most theatrical and instantly recognizable acts remains secure.
This archive holds a small but meaningful piece of that story. Wayne Dennon photographed Twisted Sister at one show in 2008, and the 91 photographs from that night remain part of his collection, viewed by archive visitors 84,096 times over the years. As with so many of the acts Wayne captured through his lens starting in 2002, this glimpse of Twisted Sister on stage stands as a lasting tribute to both the band's raucous legacy and Wayne's own dedication to preserving live music history.
