Dee Snider has broken his right shoulder playing basketball with his own children, and the 71-year-old TWISTED SISTER founder announced it in a video message with the black humour you would expect.
"Fathers, mothers with kids, when they're young and we play with them, we tend to dominate them," he began. "It's a fun thing. We tower over them, we let them win, but they know we're letting them win because we're so much bigger. There will come a time they are our size or bigger than we are. They will dominate us. This will be their revenge."
Then the incident itself: "We were playing basketball on the basketball court, and I got checked, I got knocked over, and I went down like a ton of bricks. Slammed my whole right side. I could've sworn out of the corner of my eye I saw one of my sons doing a victory dance. Broke my shoulder, broke the bone in my shoulder."
The practical consequences are not trivial. Snider is right-handed and broke the right shoulder. "Sleeping's a bitch if it's the hand you favor," he said. "That switchover is a bitch on every level — the good, the bad and the ugly, let your imagination run wild."
He will be in a sling for roughly eight weeks, followed by physical therapy, and then surgery: a shoulder replacement. The recording itself was a workaround. "That's one of the reasons I'm doing this, is because typing on social media has become really tough. So, I decided to do some audio stuff as well."
He signed off in character: "Don't cry for me, Argentina. Other than that, I'm doing great, all things considered, and it's just a real pain in the ass, a.k.a. shoulder."
The injury lands on top of an already difficult year. Snider announced his departure from TWISTED SISTER in February, citing degenerative arthritis that leaves him able to "perform a few songs at a time in pain", and said decades of physical performance had taken a toll on his heart. "I don't know of any other way to rock," he said then. "The idea of slowing down is unacceptable to me. I'd rather walk away than be a shadow of my former self."
TWISTED SISTER have continued without him, with Sebastian Bach handling vocals alongside guitarists Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojeda. Russell Pzütto replaces bassist Mark "The Animal" Mendoza. Joe Franco, who played briefly with the band in the mid-eighties, was slated for drums in place of the late A.J. Pero, but is unavailable for the autumn 2026 shows; Joey Cassata, who played on Ace Frehley's "10,000 Volts", steps in.