DEE SNIDER And Photographer MARK WEISS .....

DEE SNIDER And Photographer MARK WEISS Discuss The Making Of TWISTED SISTER's Stay Hungry Cover Shot In New Interview




TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider and legendary photographer Mark "Weissguy" Weiss recently sat down with Classic Rock Revisited founder Jeb Wright to dicuss the legendary cover art for the band's classic album, Stay Hungry. An excerpt from the interview appears below.

Jeb: It has been 25 years since Stay Hungry was released. In addition to being a great album, it has a classic album cover shot by photographer Mark Weiss. How did you come to use Mark?

Dee: "I don’t quite remember. Mark remembers it as me insisting on using him. I don’t recall. My recollection is of the shoot and showing up painfully early in the morning in Mark’s studio in New York City."

Mark: "Dee called me up and told me that he had been checking out my credits and asked me if I wanted to shoot their album cover. The record company wanted them to use a famous photographer but Dee wanted a rock photographer. By this time I was shooting covers for Circus Magazine of Ozzy Osbourne, Ritchie Blackmore and VAN HALEN. I was not just a live photographer, by this point; I was well established."

Jeb: Was the cover with you holding the bone Mark’s idea or was it the record companies?

Dee: The cover requires a whole different explanation because it became the cover purely by accident. The original vision for the album cover was quite different. We spend the first part of the first day shooting no makeup, cover shots of the bands with a variety of different backdrops. Once we were done with that, we went in and put our makeup and costumes on. We came out and did a whole range of photos with the makeup on. We did all the promotional shots and we did the cover shot, with makeup, for the original album cover concept. We wrapped and the sun was coming up the next day and we got out of there about 9am.

Jeb: Tell me about the original album cover idea.

Dee: "The album cover was originally envisioned by our bass player, Mark Mendoza. This was at a point where the band was feeling like I was controlling and doing everything. I had, actually, always done that, but now that we were starting to get a little fame and fortune, they wanted to get involved. I told them, 'Come up with great ideas and we will use them.' Mark said, 'What about a shot of the band sitting in a squatters rooms, around an electrical spool for a table. On the table is nothing but a bone with no meat on it. The album will be called Stay Hungry.' He wanted it to show that we were struggling, and starving musicians, which we were in many ways. Super imposed behind us, was us in make-up and costumes with glasses of champagne. It was The Dream. We were staying hungry and we were dreaming of rock stardom. I told Mark, 'That is a good fucking idea, man. Go with it.'

Mark: "I put together a team of people to build the set. The reason I made the set small is because I wanted the band to be close to each other. I didn’t want them spread out all over the room. We never really talked about how big the room was going to be. When they walked in, it was like one of those SPINAL TAP moments. They were expecting this big room. Meanwhile, I had a budget to work with. To make the room three times as big, like they would have wanted, would have taken a week longer and cost a lot more money. I would not have made any money as it would have all gone to the set."

Go to this location for the complete interview.