When Twisted Sister Was the Band Next Door

Success rarely looks glamorous when you’re standing next to it.

Sometimes, it’s a box truck, a basement, and people showing up again and again long before anyone is watching.

Sometimes the soundtrack of your childhood is heavy metal.

Sometimes it’s a lesson you only recognize years later.

When my parents split, my dad had to find a place to live that kept him close enough to Mineola High School, where he was the band director. That meant West Hempstead—the part of Long Island that’s nowhere near the beaches or the money. It’s the interior. The places you drive through, not to.

He found a rental in one of those old houses that had been carved into multiple units—three, maybe four. It wasn’t much, but it was what he could afford. That was the deal.

What he didn’t know was what would pull up next door.

The neighbor was a young guy who’d inherited his parents’ house and was connected to the Long Island music scene. One afternoon, my dad watched a big box truck rumble down that quiet West Hempstead street—already too large for the block—and the crew began unloading an entire band’s worth of gear into the basement — Dad was told they had a complete recording studio.

And not just any band.

Twisted Sister.

Before “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

Before MTV.

Before Dee Snider testified in Congress.

This was the sweat-it-out, weekend-warrior, Long Island club-circuit Twisted Sister.

Their routine was similar most weeks: load the box truck for the gigs, disappear for the show, then drag everything back into the basement afterward. The whole cycle played out right next door.

So every weekend I stayed with my dad, right about the time my head hit the pillow, the rock and roll started shaking the walls. The amps, the drums, the wailing vocals—rehearsals that didn’t care one bit about the bedtime of the kid next door.

And then one day, it stopped. They got famous. And once they did, the truck never came back. The house went quiet. The basement went dark. Twisted Sister moved on—to MTV, to arenas, to headlines, to history.

Success rarely looks glamorous when you’re standing next to it. Sometimes, it’s a box truck, a basement, and people showing up again and again long before anyone is watching. Sometimes the soundtrack of your childhood is heavy metal. Sometimes it’s a lesson you only recognize years later.