Jay Jay French has described the health problems that took Dee Snider off Twisted Sister's fiftieth anniversary tour, and drawn a careful line around them.
"He's not end-of-life ill; he's just end-of-career ill, like retired ball players or football players," the guitarist told Screamin' Scott Randall on 94.7 WCSX in Detroit. "He just couldn't perform the way he wants to perform, the way he believes that the fans want him to perform. So he respectfully resigned, and we said, okay."
French said his first question was simply whether the singer was all right, because of how much had been said about it. "If his doctors are telling him, don't do it, if his family's saying to him, please don't do it, you're putting yourself, your health, at risk, well, then you don't do it. It's that simple."
The conversation about a replacement started over dinner with Eddie Ojeda, and they both already knew the name. Sebastian Bach sang his first show with the band on 28 August at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville.
"Freddie Mercury was replaced by a guy from American Idol. And Steve Perry was replaced by a guy from YouTube. But we get a legitimate superstar."