Dee Snider Says Performing on ‘The Masked Singer’ Is a ‘Sensory Deprivation Experience’ and ‘Disorienting’
Despite being a famed rocker and performer, Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider said performing on The Masked Singer was an entirely different kind of experience.
Snider has never shied away from a costume, and in fact, he has embraced flamboyance throughout his career. But performing inside a heavy costume confined to a mask was a new challenge, one he described as being “disorienting.”
After ‘The Masked Singer,’ Dee Snider says viewers should appreciate performers
Snider was revealed as being Doll on The Masked Singer, which he said was not his finest moment. “I’m glad to give people the opportunity to see that this is what my hair looks like,” he joked on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast. “Not the nutty professor, that when you take the damn mask off, it’s even under a mask I had a helmet on. And also my hair’s everywhere. I’m sweating. Makeup’s worn off. So it’s not my best look.”
But Snider said performing under The Masked Singer conditions was no joke. “Very, very different. I’ve been doing interviews and trying to impress upon the audience, appreciate the performers,” he said. “It is really disorienting. It is almost like a sensory deprivation experience. Some of these costumes are unwieldy.”
How did Dee Snider describe Doll costume?
He described the costume as “Gayle King’s body, a giant head, and I had on seven-inch pumps, which was my idea,” Snider said. “Cause I used to wear ’em back in the day, but I forgot. But you’re not just gonna be in pair spandex running around a stage. You’re gonna have this big giant head and a view, a little area like this and you’re looking out. I couldn’t see my feet. So it’s very difficult.”
Snider said sometimes he has to fake it will he makes it. “I mean, that is the magic of life of performing. It’s our job. We’re not supposed to look like we’re miserable,” he said. “And, this goes for performing in general. And believe me, I’m not griping about my life choice. If you make it to the level where you get the tour and it’s night after night and you’re singing 25 songs a night, and you’re doing it well, you’re doing it right.”
“It’s at the end of your show, you feel pretty beaten up. ‘Cause you just gave your all,” he said. “But the next night, that new audience deserves the best you got. So as tough as it was wearing those shoes and that head and that Gail King body, I wanna give people a great show and I want people to have fun. And I would never ever show that I’m dying in here.”
Why did Dee Snider do ‘The Masked Singer’?
Snider told Entertainment Weekly why he did The Masked Singer. “Well, actually, to tell a secret, I was asked season 1 to be on the show,” he shared. “And I said, ‘No, this show will never work.’ [Laughs] Nine seasons later, they said, ‘Will you be on it now?'”
“‘Yes, I’ll be on it now,'” he recalled telling producers. “I did the same thing with Sharknado by the way. They asked me to be in Sharknado 1, and I go, ‘Oh, this will never work.’ And then Sharknado 6 there I was in Romania dressed as a sheriff. And apologizing to the director. ‘You were right. You were right.’ So you gotta imagine I said no and all of a sudden this show it’s just like, blowing up. Well, that was really a bad call. So I was glad to get asked to have another chance.”
