“It was Dr. Jeyll and Mr. Hyde with him.”
— Tom Werman on Dee Snider of Twisted Sister
Metal Sludge — In a brand new episode of Chris Akin Presents, the guest is legendary music producer Tom Werman.
Werman has been making the rounds promoting his newly released book Turn It Up!: My Time Making Hit Records In The Glory Days Of Rock Music (Featuring Mötley Crüe, Poison, Twisted Sister, Jeff Beck, Ted Nugent, Cheap Trick, And More).
The podcast is hosted by Chris Akin (also from The Classic Metal Show) and the one hour interview covers a lot of Werman‘s storied career working with the who’s-who of rock during the 70’s and 80’s.
Akin at some point asks Werman why artists often come out and hammer the producers (long after the fact) who often helped make them record and release multi-platinum records.
Werman quickly refers to this as the artist “whining” and details how he always had the band, or some representative from the band, “approve the record“.
Werman then brings up Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider.
Werman says: “You claim, in (Dee) Snider‘s situation, that I destroyed your 5 million seller (Twisted Sister “Stay Hungry”). Ahh, you know, he’s got issues. It’s not my problem. It bothered me for a while back then, umm, it was Dr. Jeyll and Mr. Hyde with him.”
Snider and Jay Jay French, both of whom have been out-spoken and vocal about issues they had with Werman going back to their biggest selling record, 1984’s “Stay Hungry”.
Neither of the Twisted Sister members are shy or stray away from a good debate.
In June of 2022, Ultimate Guitar ran a story and covered Werman and Snider‘s differences.
Ultimate Guitar wrote: “Producer Tom Werman recently stated how the former Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider “manufactured” the story of having to beg Werman to include the hit single “We’re Not Gonna Take It” on Twisted Sister‘s 1984 breakthrough album “Stay Hungry”. Werman also said that Snider became “beyond rude” after they had finished recording the album.”
Werman on recording “Stay Hungry” with the New Yorkers: “They were all reasonable, and we all got along, and then Dee turned.”
Werman continued on with Chris Akin Presents stating: “It’s revising history. There are things that have been said, about me, that were completely, ahh, lies. Fiction. I mean, they’d say, ‘Well he did this‘ or ‘I did this, because he wasn’t paying attention.’”
Watch the clip below and hear the full interview on Chris Akin Presents.
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