The Senate committee room was packed, cameras clicking, politicians shifting in their seats. They had brought him here to humiliate him, to parade the wild-haired rocker in front of America and prove how ridiculous his music was. They saw the makeup, the big blonde curls, the ripped denim vest, and they thought they had an easy target. They were wrong.
Dee Snider of Twisted Sister walked in looking like a cartoon character, and then he opened his mouth. He didn’t stumble. He didn’t mumble. He laid out his case with the precision of a lawyer, and the room started to realize they had made a terrible mistake.
The hearing was about the Parents Music Resource Center, the PMRC, a group of senators’ wives led by Tipper Gore. They wanted warning labels on albums, claiming that rock music was corrupting the nation’s children. They had brought in John Denver and Frank Zappa to testify. Zappa had been sharp and angry.
Denver had been measured. But Snider was the one they were certain would embarrass himself. He didn’t. Snider was invited to testify before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on September 19, 1985.
He knew exactly what they expected from him. So he showed up in his full stage persona, a sleeveless Twisted Sister shirt, a studded belt, a ratty jean vest, and a towering head of blonde spiral curls. He looked like he had just stepped off the cover of a heavy metal album. And then he spoke like a statesman.
He later admitted that he planned the whole thing. He could have worn a suit like the others, but he knew his message would carry more weight if he stayed true to who he was. He didn’t want to meet Congress halfway. He wanted them to look past his appearance and hear what he had to say.
Snider told the committee that he didn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. He was a Christian. He was a parent himself. And he was tired of being misrepresented.
One of his biggest victories came when he took on Senator Al Gore directly. Tipper Gore had claimed that Twisted Sister’s song “Under the Blade” was about sadomasochism and bondage. She pointed to lyrics about hands being tied and legs being strapped. Snider calmly explained that the song was written for the band’s guitarist, Eddie Ojeda, who was about to have surgery to remove throat polyps.
The song was about the fear of going under the knife. Tipper Gore had read something dirty into it because she wanted to find something dirty. Snider looked at Al Gore and said, “Miss Gore was looking for sadomasochism and bondage, and she found it. ”
The room went quiet for a second.
Then the cameras clicked faster, and a ripple of laughter moved through the crowd. Gore seemed thrown, mumbling a simple “Yeah” before moving on. Snider later told reporters that he enjoyed the raw hatred he saw in Al Gore’s eyes when he suggested Tipper had a dirty mind. It was exactly the reaction he wanted.
But the PMRC’s main complaints weren’t even about Snider’s lyrics. They were about his videos. Specifically, the video for “We’re Not Gonna Take It. ” The PMRC claimed it was violent.
Snider pointed out that the violence was no more serious than a Bugs Bunny cartoon. In fact, that was his inspiration. The video was meant to be a live-action cartoon, a tribute to the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.
There was no actual violence in the lyrics at all. The PMRC had confused the video with the song itself. He also called out Tipper Gore on an outright lie. A few days before the hearing, she had claimed she was repulsed by a Twisted Sister t-shirt that showed a woman in handcuffs in a spread-eagle position.
Snider told the committee that was not true. They had never sold such a shirt. They had always been careful to avoid sexism in their merchandise, their records, their stage show, and their personal lives. He challenged Tipper Gore to produce the shirt.
She couldn’t. When Al Gore tried to clarify that his wife had seen two different shirts, one with the band name and one with a woman in handcuffs, Snider stuck to his guns. He knew what she had claimed, and it was false. The committee even tried to question his parenting.
A member of Congress asked how Snider would know which music to keep away from his own son. Snider gave three simple answers. First, look at the album cover. If it had a severed goat’s head in the middle of a pentagram between a woman’s legs, he wouldn’t want his son listening to it.
Second, read the song titles. If a title was sexually explicit, that was a clear sign. Third, listen to the album. Most stores would allow a parent to return an album they found inappropriate.
It was a clear, concise, common-sense answer. Another win for the rock star. Then came the moment that could have undone him. Snider had identified himself as a Christian, and Senator Gore latched onto that.
He asked about Twisted Sister’s fan club, which was called the SMF. Gore wanted to know what SMF stood for. Snider looked him in the eye and said, “The sick mother friends of Twisted Sister. ”
Gore pounced.
“Is this also a Christian group? ”
Snider didn’t flinch. “I don’t believe that profanity has anything to do with Christianity. ”
Gore tried to push further, suggesting the name was an interesting choice for someone so wholesome, but Snider had already won.
He had turned the question on its head and walked away without losing an ounce of credibility. The fallout from the hearings was ironic. The PMRC wanted warning labels to hurt sales. Instead, the stickers became a badge of honor.
Bands hoped their albums would earn the parental advisory label because it meant more sales and higher chart positions. Sebastian Bach of Skid Row later admitted that his band actively hoped for the sticker. And as for the people who tried to censor rock and roll? Dee Snider is still married to his wife, together for over 40 years, with four children who have all built successful careers in the entertainment industry.
Al and Tipper Gore separated years later, after vague rumors about growing apart and not seeing eye to eye. They remain legally married, but they date other people. The record industry that caved so easily to the PMRC’s pressure is now a shell of its former self. Physical albums are novelties in a world of downloads.
But the warning labels they demanded are still there, attached to individual track listings and albums online. Snider walked into that hearing looking like a cartoon character and walked out as the man who outclassed the United States Congress. He never compromised who he was.
He made them come to him, made them see past the hair and the makeup, and he proved that rock and roll could be smarter than the people trying to destroy it.
