Twisted Sister

Born in the early 1970s in New Jersey and quickly tied to New York’s club scene, Twisted Sister developed a heavy metal sound tinged with hard rock and glam aesthetics, featuring shouted choruses, straightforward riffs and a deliberately theatrical presentation. After several lineup changes the band stabilized around Dee Snider, Jay Jay French, Eddie Ojeda, Mark Mendoza and A.J. Pero — a lineup that accompanied their move from the local circuit to international labels. Twisted Sister released Under the Blade in 1982, You Can’t Stop Rock ’n’ Roll in 1983 and Stay Hungry in 1984, an album that cemented their identity between metal energy, radio-friendly rock formats and outrageous imagery. Their subsequent releases included Come Out and Play (1985) and Love Is for Suckers (1987), before they split at the end of the decade. Reformed in the early 2000s, Twisted Sister returned to the road, played numerous festivals and recorded A Twisted Christmas in 2006; their style remained rooted in muscular, unifying hard rock and live performance culture. After A.J. Pero’s death in 2015, Twisted Sister undertook a farewell tour and played their final concerts in 2016.