Blabbermouth.net reports:
Former Whitesnake and Dio guitarist Doug Aldrich says that Dee Snider “didn’t know what he was talking about” when the Twisted Sister frontman questioned Aldrich’s relevance with his time with Whitesnake and the releases he appeared on.
On February 9th, Snider posed the following question for his 124,000 Twitter followers, “What Whitesnake album of importance did Douglas Aldrich play on? I’m just sayin’.” He added in a separate tweet: “I’m tired of musicians who joined famous bands after their heyday claiming they are from those bands. They had NOTHING to do with success!”
Aldrich responded with the following tweet, “Dee Snider, dude, I just did my best to keep the band moving forward. Was blessed to compose 30 tunes. You are a total jackass though. Haha!”
Aldrich then appeared on the February 16th edition of Eddie Trunk’s SiriusXM satellite radio show, Eddie Trunk Live, where he elaborated on his exchange with Snider and what he really thinks about the Twisted Sister singer.
Aldrich said, “We’ve done gigs together — Twisted and Whitesnake — [but] I never really met Dee that I can remember. We’ve done a couple of tribute things together where we did… I think we did [Ozzy Osbourne’s] Crazy Train for a tribute record together and it turned out pretty cool. But I’ve got no problem with the guy.”
He added that Dee’s original tweet “hit me out of the blue. I was up late scouring eBay, looking for old guitars, as I do at night a lot, and I got a message that Dee had posted something. And I went on there, and I was just, like, ‘That is just bizarre, man. What is up with that?’ Normally, Dee… Everybody knows Dee is a super-smart cat, he’s a huge star, and… I just thought, ‘This is weird.’ It was, like, he was not educated at all and just kind of spouted out this thing. So I just tried to educate him a little bit of where I came from with Whitesnake and then I just tagged it with a little smackdown quick.”
According to Aldrich, he is not looking to gain any publicity from a public war of words with Snider. He continued, “[After] the Dee thing happened, somebody said that he said that I was getting all this fame, or something, from his tweeting about me. And I don’t give a s–t. I don’t want that kind of press. I mean, I felt like I was in a tabloid for a second.
The thing of it is… Look, man, everybody knows what I’ve done with Whitesnake, I’m super proud of what I did with Whitesnake, and I definitely put my stamp on the band. It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t work it out schedule wise and I had to leave, but I’m very proud of what David [Coverdale] and I did, and David is my bro. It’s all good. Dee can talk about other guys to them, but he was talking about me and Whitesnake, and he didn’t know what he was talking about.”
Doug continued, “The bottom line is David is Whitesnake, and he’s always had great players, and he’s got new great players now. But the thing is, I get it, what Dee is talking about. [But] he could have called somebody else out. Calling me out was a mistake. And that’s where, if I was Donald Trump [real estate magnate, businessman and host of American reality game show The Celebrity Apprentice on which Snider was a contestant], I’d tell him, ‘Dee, you’re fired.’ [Laughs]”
Aldrich also defended his right to use the Whitesnake name when promoting his current projects. He explained, “You look at sports, and you look at, for example, the [New England] Patriots, and [quarterback] Tom Brady, and what he’s done… I’m not comparing myself to Tom Brady by any stretch — it’s nothing to do with that — but it’s, like, an example… Okay, in a few years, maybe Tom Brady goes away and they get a new guy. Listen, man, the Patriots were famous before Tom Brady, and the Patriots will be famous after Tom Brady, but when Tom Brady goes to do a signing, he’s gonna go, ‘Tom Brady of the Patriots,’ right?! And that’s exactly what I do.”
He adds, “I love [Dee’s] singing, I love the early stuff he did. I was just rocking out with my boy in the car to ‘I Wanna Rock’ and those videos are classic. But, I mean… I get the point that he’s saying… It’s businesss, man. All these guys… There are a lot of guys out there that are not like Dee, and they are guns for hire. They’ve gotta do what they’ve gotta do, and they may use a name. But I definitely do no take liberties with… I pay full respect to David and what he’s done, but I also know that most people who know me know me ’cause of David and Whitesnake. So that’s what I would say: I’m formerly of Whitesnake.”
Aldrich left Whitensake in May 2014, explaining in a statement that he “had several recording and live commitments, so [he] needed a more flexible schedule to conclude these before going full force as normal.” He added: “Unfortunately, my schedule was not workable.”
The guitarist is currently in band with bassist Jack Blades (Night Ranger, Damn Yankees) Deen Castronovo on drums/vocals (Bad English, Journey, Ozzy Osbourne) called The Revolution Saints. Their self titled debut album will be released on February 24th. To listen to the song Turn Back Time click here and to listen to the song Back On My Trail, click here.
source: blabbermouth.net
17 Responses
I think I understand the point Dee Snider was trying to make, but to say that Doug Aldrich didn’t play on any Whitesnake albums of importance? So because “Good to be Bad” and “Forevermore” didn’t sell 10 million copies and put the band in constant radio or MTV rotation (does MTV even play music videos anymore?) they aren’t “important”? Is he saying that any of these bands still creating new music and carrying on after their “heydays” don’t matter? Because of those albums, I’m still interested in hearing what Whitesnake comes up with next. As a casual Whitesnake fan, I’d say that’s pretty important – and for the band from a business perspective they kept a customer interested. Aldrich wrote and played on those albums, toured with the band, and was a member for somewhere around 10 years as far as I can tell. So yeah, he definitely has the right to say he was part of Whitesnake! If the Whitesnake Wikipedia page is accurate, look at the timeline of members (40 people!). It looks like Doug Aldrich and Reb Beach have the longest continuous stretch out of any of them except David Coverdale! I know – the band hasn’t produce as much in their tenure, but Doug didn’t just drop in for a few gigs and then split saying “I’m from Whitesnake”. He invested a significant chunk of his career with them.
I Have dee snider on a VHS tape I recorded on MTV interviewing the scorpions in 1985 and said to them I heard the scorpions are saying bad things about twisted sister ,and he paused and said I know its not true.i was like why did you say it then.klaus just laughed. I bet he was blown away.
I like dee snider,but c’mon man.we gotta stick together
Dee is one of the best frontmen in the history of hard rock music. And he wrote some very good songs. However intelligent he is, he is also one of those guys that opens that hole under his nose before he thinks sometimes. Case in point, during the PMRC hearing, he sounded like a smart guy that had a vague idea of what he was talking about. When the PMRC questioned Dee’s Christian values with his onstage vulgarity, he replied, “I don’t believe there’s anything in the bible about vulgarity”, or something to that point, when in fact, there is a scripture that states “keep that filthy language out of your mouth”. Now I’m not a bible thumper and am not preaching. It’s just an example. Dee rattles on about certain things that he should just be quiet about. Frank Zappa and even John Denver were much better representatives for rock music at that hearing than Dee could ever hope to be. Dee, stick to doing what you do best, please, and that’s rocking the crowd. Twisted Sister had a few hits and went away. You are not the rock god you may think you are, and blasting other people is something I would not expect from a 2nd or 3rd rate “rock legend”. Sometimes I think that Dee thinks he’s on some upper scale in the history of rock that he just simply is not.
You know, Dee’s comment about how he’s tired of these guys joining bands whose heyday is gone and them claiming those is off base. I mean, what band whose heyday was in the 80’s is STILL having that level of success now? It’s next to none of them: Not Ratt, not Dokken, not Whitesnake…NOT TWISTED SISTER. Doug gave his all to Whitesnake, he’s an incredibly gifted world class guitarist and he has the right and deserves to claim Whitesnake. I’m a guitarist and a HUGE fan of John Sykes’ playing and his work with Whitesnake but Doug became very important to that band as well, maybe more so because he was in the band much longer than John was. Forget what Dee said, all I can say is John Sykes left Whitesnake and went on to make one of the best, even if criminally underrated, albums of all time with the first Blue Murder album and I believe a big part of that was due to him feeling free to spread his wings and soar after being kicked out of the Whitesnake nest. Perhaps Doug will feel that same freedom and follow John’s lead.
Doug Aldrich played on two of my favorite (and critically acclaimed) Whitesnake albums Good To Be Bad and Forevermore. He also was on many live releases and co-wrote the material with David, so Dee chose the wrong individual to single out to make his point. Doug is one of the best axemen in rock music and that last Burning Rain album was killer. Good thing they squashed it soon and it didn’t turn into some drama like with Kiss.