It’s with great sadness that I must announce that drummer A.J. Pero of Twisted Sister and Adrenaline Mob has passed away. Reports are minimal at the point of this writing since it is absolutely a recent occurrence but the bands brief official statement can be found below:
“The members of Twisted Sister are profoundly saddened to announce the untimely passing of our brother, AJ Pero; The band, crew and most importantly the family of AJ Pero thank you for your thoughts and prayers at this time”.
The members of Adrenaline Mob who AJ was currently touring with added their own statement which I am putting in the memorial as well.
“We write this with tears in our eyes & our hearts broken to pieces.. our beloved brother AJ Pero peacefully passed away in his sleep this morning on the bus. We are in complete shock & our hearts & prayers go out to his family. It has been nothing short of an honor to have shared the stage with such a beautiful soul & legend! We love you AJ, rest in peace. We will cherish this last picture we all took together on tour forever! What a great night we had… we’ll miss you buddy!”
A.J. was born Anthony Jude Pero in 1959 and was a longtime Staten Island resident. He joined Twisted back in 1982 and was responsible for the drumming on some of the bands most influential works. Speaking personally, Pero was one of my own favorite drummers when I was learning the craft as I found his power and solid manner of playing to be right up my alley. One of my favorites to do in his style was “What You Don’t Know”, and this song actually helped me firm up interest in a band that I had no idea I was auditioning for at the time. Sigh. Pero would not be a part of the Sister lineup when he briefly rejoined Cities. Sister activity would be light for many years after until their 2001 return to recording and performance and it was awesome to hear the pounding thunder of Pero back on the kit for their reunion shows and eventual Twisted Christmas gigs. Over the years I was fortunate enough to meet him for a hot second after shows and he seemed quite the cool cat who was very interested in the support he was being given. When Twisted Sister performance activity slowed down based on various reasons and projects, Pero joined up as the latest member of Adrenaline Mob alongside Russell Allen and Mike Orlando. His input worked with the ever changing sound of the band for sure. Continue reading Shocking!!! Twisted Sister’s A.J. Pero Passes Away (3/20/2015)→
It seems like only yesterday that I was raising a pair of horns to the “Stay Hungry” album here as a Music Milestone on the PiercingMetal Blog but wow that was five years ago and here we are at the thirtieth anniversary of the release. I wonder if you diehard fans are still yelling as loud as this album does at this point in time. I know that I cannot muster the strength sometimes so I figure I am not alone but I digress. In the milestone for year 25 I said “Let me hear you say “I’m a sick Mutha F**ka”!!!!” and I know that a handful or more of you just yelled at your computer screen. It’s alright, that is allowed these days. Now since most of my thoughts about the album are exactly the same, I have repurposed my views from the 25th anniversary and added a thought here and there. “Happy Anniversary” to this incredible release.
Historically speaking this is the third full on album by those bad boys of Rock and Roll and I am proud to say that by the time that it was released I was already a fan for a few years. I had picked up a copy of “Ruff Cuts” at the local record shop after seeing them on a late night variety program. I was also one of the select few Rockers in my high school so bands like Twisted Sister would come up in discussion since they were a NYC focused group much like KISS and the NY Dolls were. Anyway, that being said, despite this being the third album, this was the album that truly put Sister on the map. I remember being in my Dad’s car and the popular Rock station started playing “We’re Not Gonna Take It” which immediately got turned up to fifteen (exaggerating) and found me singing along with the oh so catchy chorus only seconds into hearing the tune for the very first time. It was a great time to be a young fan into the Metal and Hard Rock. Now back in this bygone era we also had the power of MTV and they played a LOT of Rock and Metal videos. My family didn’t have it yet in our area so a friend that lived in NJ called me up and pretty much described scene after scene to me so I would get a better idea. When I finally saw the hilarious video I knew in my heart that I was prouder than ever to be a fan of Twisted Sister. I was nineteen years old and a musician who had some rebel against the authority frame of mind in his head and while today that might be a terrible thing, you should know that back then all we did was have Rock and Roll attitude and being steadfast in our plans for greatness. If you were in the same age group as I was back then you will likely know exactly what I am talking about. Continue reading Twisted Sister’s “Stay Hungry” – A Growing Metal Appetite @ 30 Years (1984-2014)→
Artist: Twisted Sister Title: “Live At Wacken: The Reunion” (re-issue) Label: Eagle Vision Release Date: 10/25/2010 Genre: Hard Rock Rating: 4/5
Originally released in 2005 as a “dual disc” meaning one side was the DVD while the other the audio CD, Eagle Rock Entertainment has re-issued the Spitfire Records album by Twisted Sister entitled “Live At Wacken: The Reunion” as a double disc set. This time around the release comes housed in a clamshell DVD case and offers you both a DVD disc and the separate audio one and I think that they should have done this in the first place. Of course they very well might have, but I only saw the one that was a dual disc when I was shopping for my Metal. Since the content is exactly the same as the original issue, I decided to use most of my words from that review but bear in mind some of the thoughts have been modified to remain a little more current. Dig in.
As a Metal fan for a number of years, I remember the initial sense of excitement when Twisted Sister’s Reunion was announced for the “NY Steel 9-11″ Benefit Show” that was put together by radio deejay Eddie Trunk. They had been one of my very favorite bands for a long time and getting to see this classic N.Y.C. band perform again would be a treat for everyone who would be smart enough to catch them at this show since it also featured Ace Frehley, Overkill and Anthrax. This performance was followed up by the appearance of “Bent Brother” at L’Amour and this was a band that featured all the members of the classic lineup of Twisted Sister who would be using this name to rehearse a set of music for an upcoming world tour as Twisted Sister. My Friends and I attended this show en masse at the famous and now shuttered club and that makes me happy to proclaim that this CD/DVD is perfect way to recapture the reunion stuff the band has done since that time along with hearing some previously unavailable live music from the bands personal archives. Obviously the main highlight is the reunion footage that was held at the fabled Wacken Open Air festival and it does find the band hungry for blood once again. The DVD is exciting when you take it as a concert piece but one issue I had with it and failed to bring up the first time was how the live footage breaks back and forth between interviews with the band and that is annoying as hell. Granted the interviews are good to have but an option to watch the full concert would have been awesome instead of the way it was delivered. In terms of the set list performed its clear that all of the songs that you want to be there are present and as expected there is a strong concentration from the “Stay Hungry” album which gets six songs in full. As you watch it you are reminded of just how much of a kick ass band Twisted Sister is on the stage and it’s easy to see how they have remained so even this many years later. Once again wearing their signature makeup the group rockets through their most killer material from the seminal album and even knocks you out with songs like “You Cant Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “The Fire Still Burns”. Dee Snider is clearly the most energetic of the entire group, and one would expect this of the outspoken and impressive front man. The concert showcases his and the bands excitement and enthusiasm for Hard Rock and Metal music and it’s truly a must have for any Traditional (I mean “Old School”) fan and newbie alike. Continue reading “Live At Wacken: The Reunion” (re-issue) by Twisted Sister→
Artist: Twisted Sister
Title: “Big Hits And Nasty Cuts”
Label: Atlantic Records
Release Date: 3/17/1992
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 4/5
I had read somewhere that Twisted Sister was planning on releasing remastered editions of their Atlantic Records catalog in 2010 and since the year is drawing to its inevitable close and I’ve not yet seen them; I had to wonder if the initiative has been pushed back or shelved altogether. With that in mind I started filtering around in my personal collection of Twisted Sister music and felt like listening to the bands first ever hits compilation, the cutely titled “Big Hits And Nasty Cuts” which was originally released in 1992. I remembered that when I bought it (way back when it had just come out) how the only motivating factor in my purchase had been that the release was not only going to feature the bands songs of note but also bring to the surface some vintage live material that had never been heard before. That statement is not entirely correct because the diehard Sister fans or the SMF’s as they were called, had always managed to find Import EP’s and radio recordings that were passed from fan to fan on cassette tapes. You younger fans might not remember blank cassette tapes but they were a powerful means of sharing music back in the day and I guess in some sense the original Napster. You see, long before the days of downloading tunes, the fans used to copy and copy and copy their vinyl to cassette tape and then trade with their friends for stuff they desired. We also used to have a lot of radio broadcast live shows and if you were not at the location that it was happening at, you sat in front of your tape deck pressing pause during the commercial breaks. Now where were we? Oh yes, the Twisted Sister hits package. Continue reading “Big Hits And Nasty Cuts” by Twisted Sister→
At the beginning of the week I decked the halls with New York’s own Twisted Sister who had once again set out to deliver their “Twisted Christmas Holiday Extravaganza” and this festive hoedown too place at The Nokia Theatre in Times Square. We documented all the fun from that night HERE, and that evening’s happenings were part of the reason that we were on point for this special occasion down on Wall Street today.
