Shut Up and Give Me the Mic (28 page)

NINETEEN EIGHTY-TWO TURNED OUT
to be one of the most tumultuous years of my life. It started as a continuation of the career downward spiral that was 1981 and finished on the highest of highs with some crazy-ass peaks and valleys in between.

A. J. Pero officially performed his first live show with Twisted Sister on April Fool’s Day. The difference in our sound was tangible. You could feel it as well as hear it. We had always been a sledgehammer of a band live—now we were a twenty-pound sledgehammer! The work of preparing A.J. to step in, and the subsequent break-in period as with any new player (although A.J. was amazingly prepared for rehearsals and shows), did take time and effort. I definitely feel this helped divert our attention from the reality that after
six years
we still did not have a deal. Keep in mind, for Jay Jay it was
nine years
since he joined the band.
Yowza!

That all changed when Martin Hooker of Secret Records made good on his word and negotiated a deal to sign Twisted Sister.

Secret Records’ roster consisted then of one band, to my knowledge, neo-punks the Exploited (there may have been more, but I didn’t know of them). The Exploited made quite a bit of noise in the UK. Much like Twisted Sister, they refused to allow their favorite music form to die. Hence the name of their first album,
Punks Not Dead
. In truth, punk—if not completely dead—had suffered a genre-ending injury (for the time being), and most punks and skinheads were looking for a new musical home. Thanks to crossover bands such as Motörhead, heavy metal was fast becoming a haven for the working-class youth of the world.

Martin Hooker saw what was going on and, in an attempt to create a “one-stop shop” for said youth, signed a heavy metal band, so Secret Records could serve all facets of the aggressive rock market. Smooth. Back then, Twisted Sister had genuine punk appeal.
³
Our first shows in England were attended by a mishmash of metalheads, punks, and skinheads. (Having Mark “the Animal” Mendoza of the seminal punk band the Dictators in our band didn’t hurt).

The only problem was, in signing Twisted, Secret Records had bitten off way more than it could chew. We weren’t some local minimalist punk band. Twisted Sister was a larger-than-life heavy metal monster from America, which brought with it a whole range of issues, as Martin Hooker would soon find out.

To capitalize on the growing buzz on the band in the UK and set the stage for our album release later that year, Martin wanted to release the demo tape that had turned him on to our band in the first place, as an interim EP—a four-song album—and call it
Ruff Cutts.
Happy to get any product out into the marketplace, we readily agreed.

On April 15, 1982, on the sidewalk in front of Eddie Ojeda’s apartment building in Queens, Eddie, Jay Jay, Mark, and I met and signed our contract with Secret Records. Why we weren’t invited in to Eddie’s apartment I have no idea. Next up, we needed to find a
producer for our record, and Martin Hooker had an idea: Pete Way of the band UFO.

UFO was a favorite band of Mark and mine, and Pete Way—the bass player and one of UFO’s songwriters—was legendary. Pete had recently done a nice job of producing the album
The Wild Ones
for the UK Oi!
⁴
band the Cockney Rejects. We were recording a low-budget indie record album. Pete Way’s price was right and he brought quite a bit of credibility with him, as well. He and UFO were full-fledged legends in the UK and Europe. Having Pete produce us was like getting a pope’s blessing. Now we just had to meet with him to seal the deal.

As luck would have it, UFO was currently on tour in the States. Pete Way was interested in working with the band and agreed to fly in to catch one of our New York–area shows.

To say Pete traveled light would be an understatement. He stepped off the plane, a drink in one hand, wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, with sneakers, and that’s it. No carry-on, no luggage—I’m not sure he even had a wallet. (This was the early eighties, when all you needed to fly was a valid ticket.) Pete was brought straight to the club to see the band. He was (and still is) an extremely likable guy, whom I can only describe as a rock ’n’ roll version of Dudley Moore’s “Arthur,” but without the money. Not that Pete was poor; he just never seemed to have any actual money on him and was always looking to cash a dog-eared check he carried around that his wife had given him.

Pete and the band immediately clicked and a partnership was formed. Pete Way would be our producer, and we were ready to rock.

22

I
n June of 1982, Twisted Sister played its farewell tristate-area show at the North Stage Theater in Glen Cove, Long Island. Fueled by the fire of knowing we were finally making good on our promise of heavy metal glory, and with our loyal fans giving us a hell of a send-off, we gave one of the greatest live performances of our careers.
¹
Three days later, we were on a jet to England.

I reluctantly left a very pregnant Suzette. Six months into her term, my petite wife had been overstuffed by her mother and grandmother (“You’re eating for two now”) and looked about to burst. There was never a question of
if
I should go; Suzette never uttered a word of negativity or protest. It was just understood. This was what we both had been working for for so long, and it was finally coming together. Besides, I would be back in August, in plenty of time for the birth of our first child, who was due in September.

Leaving A. J. Pero—temporarily—behind to marry his first wife, Joanne (he joined us a few days later), after six and a half years of waiting (eight-plus for Jay Jay), we finally headed off to England to take a giant step in our musical careers.
Twisted Sister was recording its first album!

We were booked to record at Kitchenham Farm studios, in Ashburnham, England, where Def Leppard had just taken a year to record
Pyromania
and Paul McCartney had finished his latest record. This place was the real deal! Our agreement with Secret Records was that they would provide the studio, housing, and meals. The studio and hotel were in the English countryside, which was absolutely beautiful in July. Our hotel was this amazing old place, originally built by William the Conqueror in the Middle Ages.
We’re talkin’ the eleventh century!
In the States, we call things that are seventy-five or a hundred years old “antiques.” In Europe, that’s considered “relatively new.” We couldn’t have been more blown away. The studio, on the other hand, was a different kind of surprise.

Kitchenham Farm itself was pretty cool, but we weren’t recording there. I can’t remember if it was purely a budgetary thing or if it was thought to be “more metal” (that was probably our justification for the budget issues), but it was decided we would record our basic tracks and guitar overdubs in a local barn, using a mobile recording unit. Amps and drums were set up, bales of hay were used as sound baffles, and the recording truck was parked right outside the emptied barn, in the middle of a working farm. Things were going well until the first time we asked our engineer to play something back in the mobile unit. The condescending, arrogant asshole (that was how he acted to us) refused to turn up the volume. Apparently he had tinnitus or something like that and couldn’t listen to playback loudly, and by loudly I mean anything greater than normal speaking volume. Was he freakin’ kidding!? We were a damn heavy metal band for God’s sake! We were loud by definition!

Needless to say, my reaction to this guy’s “condition” didn’t endear the band to him, or the rest of the people working at the studio. Screaming at a guy with tinnitus tends to be counterproductive. Talk about your ugly Americans.

AS A RECORDING ENVIRONMENT
, the barn did the trick. We were able to get some kind of sound out of “the room,” but the local residents seemed none too pleased with us. And by
local residents
I mean farm animals. I remember being outside looking at a cow while Mark
“the Animal” Mendoza was getting ready to test his equipment. The minute he started playing his bass (blisteringly loud, of course), the cow started uncontrollably shitting. That poor bovine didn’t know what hit her. Maybe it was commentary on Mark’s playing?

The songs we were recording for our first album were ones we had been playing in the clubs for years, so there was no wasted time writing, creating parts, or even discussing what we needed to do. It was pretty much just laying down what we did live. Regardless, any recording process is long and pretty boring. Like movie- and video-making, the industry mantra is “hurry up and wait.” Now, I’m sure that “partying” bands have a lot more fun, adding friends and girls and booze and drugs when recording. That wasn’t for me. I was on a mission, and I’d finally been given the keys to the kingdom.

I already had a cassette full of song ideas for the next album, which I had worked on in the months before we left. On the seven-hour flight to England, I went through the ideas and selected the best twenty or so. Now, while the guys were in the barn getting sounds, recording tracks, or just fooling around, I sat alone in the band van—or in a spare room or in my hotel room; whatever was available to me—developing those song ideas. When I wasn’t actually working on the recording and mixing of our first record, I was writing lyrics and/or further preparing the songs for our second, so they’d be ready for the band when the time came. This is how I worked for the first three albums. We didn’t even have album one out and I was ready for number two. I was that sure and committed. Remember Tony Robbins’s “luck is preparation meeting opportunity”? I knew this instinctively. Nothing was going to stop me.

With Mark Mendoza working by Pete Way’s side (Mark was interested in the art of recording) and the engineers assigned to our record (Craig Thomson, Will Gosling, and Dave Boscombe), we made our way through track after track, pretty much live to tape, with the exception of vocals. Those were recorded at various available studios.

Pete Way, though his rock ’n’ roll heart was definitely in the right place, wasn’t much of a producer. His greatest value was the credibility he brought to a bunch of relatively unknown, crazy Yanks. Fans and musicians loved Pete, and to have his seal of approval opened a lot of doors for us.

Motörhead had recently gone through an ugly “divorce” with Fast Eddie Clarke, their lead guitarist, leaving the former band members on terrible terms. As bad as the breakup had been, the media were making it ten times worse, pitting the band members against each other in the press. It was sad to see. Pete was good friends with all of the Motörhead guys and put in a call to Fast Eddie asking him if he would play some lead guitar on one of our songs, “Tear It Loose.” Fast Eddie didn’t have a clue who we were and didn’t have to. His pal Pete asked and that was good enough.
²

The legendary Fast Eddie Clarke arrived at the barn with a guitar in one hand and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 in the other. It was only midafternoon, but Fast Eddie was ready to get his game on. The plan was for Jay Jay and Fast Eddie to exchange lead guitar licks with each other on the track. Even though Jay Jay’s hard-partying days were behind him, he stood toe to toe with Fast Eddie Clarke in that barn, trading guitar licks and hits on the bottle of Jack, one for one.

I don’t know when I felt prouder of Jay Jay.