Interviewed by Brian Rademacher
Date: August 2010

Jesse Blaze Snider : Hey Brian this is Jesse Blaze Snider good to talk to you man.

Brian Rademacher: Same here, everyone knows Rock The Cradle and you came in second place! Do you feel in any way that it helped you in your career?

Jesse Blaze Snider : It did and it didn’t. There was a really big circumstance with Rock The Cradle. It was a show where you did covers and I picked my covers with a really wide breathe of music I liked and people got a certain vibe from me and a lot of that was by my looks and not what I was really doing. When it came time to see what I did as a musician, they were expecting something very different than BAPTIZED X FIRE and I think it threw everybody for a loop. There’s this movie I use for a reference called Adventureland. Adventureland was sold as a comedy and when people saw it they said it wasn’t funny. Saying it wasn’t funny was a great injustice to the movie because it wasn’t meant to be funny, it was a coming of age film and it was an awesome film and if you keep asking questions their answer still would be "it wasn’t funny" because they were told it was going to be funny and that’s what happened to me. "They" said he’s not BON JOVI.

(Brian Laughing)

Jesse Blaze Snider : I know I’m not BON JOVI but was it good? People would say, "Yeah… it was really good, but you weren’t BON JOVI!" and that really killed the momentum coming off the show. People were expecting a much more "poppier" and driven towards women person. I’m really not that guy I’m not a crooner and I never wrote songs to make girls panties wet, it’s just not in me! That was really frustrating. That really surprised everyone and stopped my momentum I had coming off the show. But you know it was for the best because I was doing music I love, but a very small part of music I love. I wasn’t allowed to play all the songs I was writing. I wrote a song for our wedding called "A Girl Named Story" and my wife would come down to our show and say can you play "A Girl Named Story?" I would say, "Sure!," and tell the guys we were going to be playing that song and they would look at me and say, "Are you crazy? We’re going to play "A Girl Named Story" with this set playing punk, rock, metal songs? I don’t think so..." In re-launching everything, going solo and I was able to play a wider breathe of music. A little lighter, but I can still play the upbeat rockers and the cool punk rock tunes. Plus I can also throw in these songs I wrote for my wife or my daughter which I like and are more personal to me than "Get Over It" is. I’m happy where I am now and Rock The Cradle helped immensely.

Brian Rademacher: When I saw you at Dingbatz in 2007, you really were more punk than anything else and you did throw in some "poppish" tunes and one of those tunes is still one of my favorite "Juggernaut", that’s a phenomenal song.

Jesse Blaze Snider : I love "Juggernaut"… that’s my battle cry! I wrote that in high school and I was playing football and I had a coach telling me I wasn’t going to make the varsity team and I was on varsity the previous year. Then a new coach came in and laughed at me because I was too small and I got really pissed off and wrote that song… it has been my battle cry forever! I think it needs a little coat of polish to cross over but I’m going to be letting it sit for awhile. I will go back and polish it up and I feel it will get the reaction it deserves.

Brian Rademacher: Can you tell me anything about the Radio Blaze?

Jesse Blaze Snider : I was doing a show on Talkshoe for a while called the Radio Blaze and I eventually brought in one of my good friends Kevin Scott to help co-host it with me and I was really doing it for fun for a while. It was two hours of entertainment news advice and "Dear Jesse" letters. I was so overwhelmed with my MySpace and Facebook mail, so instead of those venues, you can come on the air and ask me directly! I felt it would be much easier just to talk to these people directly. I had to cancel the show because it was every Sunday night and it was killing my family time. I wasn’t doing it to make any money, it was me trying to be good to the fans but I had to go in every Sunday at 8pm when I wanted to spend time with my wife and daughter. We have talked about bringing it back at some point. I just have to find a better time slot than Sunday nights.

Brian Rademacher: I know you collect comic books is there anything else you collect?

Jesse Blaze Snider : Action figures. I have every single super hero action figure in a six to seven scale in a city that I have been building since I was eleven that’s in my office. I’m also a big Muppet fan and I have all the statues and every book by Jim Henson and lots of comic book statues. I have about 5,000 DVD’s and about the same amount of CD’s.

Brian Rademacher: Do you remember your first job?

Jesse Blaze Snider : Yeah, I sold PAL raffle tickets for about a week. It was one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had. It was my first job… I was under sixteen. That’s why I had that job because you couldn’t get a job that young legally. The only way to get a job that young is to work for a charity organization. In my first week I sold more tickets than anybody and the more raffle tickets you sold the more money you got and they can pay you less than minimum wage because you were under the limit to work a regular job. I worked a forty hour week and made $100.00 and I was like, "I’m never going to do this again." I was like, "Fuck this!" (Laughing) I went back to work the next year which was my first real job at 7-11 for the whole summer.

Brian Rademacher: When I’m looking for pictures for interviews and go to Google images can you tell me about one of the top pictures which is "Jesse is Gay?"

Jesse Blaze Snider : (Laughing) That thing comes up all the time! I think it’s a website that does custom stickers. Some people when they see a new celebrity they will immediately jump on stealing their domain names or a T-shirt company will make a shirt with your name on it and tell you to buy it. I went on their one day saying, "What the fuck is this?" I’m married and have a baby it really don’t mean anything to me. I thought it was really funny. The only thing that bothers me is that it has Blaze in quotes and I checked it out and it has absolutely no activity. I went on there and it said "I love This Douche bag… buy a sticker." It has no comments, nothing.

Brian Rademacher: Yeah there was one Quote which I guess you missed

Jesse Blaze Snider : Really?

Brian Rademacher: Yeah it says Jesse Blaze Snider is probably our greatest hope to Save Rock N Roll.

Jesse Blaze Snider : Hold up let me check… (Laughing) You’re right! It says, "I love this douche bag and Jesse Blaze Snider is the great hope for Rock N Roll." Maybe you think the gay part means festive? Awesome! The gay sticker site loves me. I won them over WooooooW!

Brian Rademacher: When you go shopping for stage clothes where do you go?

Jesse Blaze Snider : When I was doing Rock The Cradle out in L.A., I was going to The Congregation of Forgotten Saints on Melrose. I use to go to a shop in Manhattan and would give them a plug but they pissed me off how they treated my mother so I’m not going to mention them. Fender Guitar actually has a clothes line called "English Laundry" which is excellent and we pick stuff up there and since my mom is a seamstress she does a lot of the work.

Brian Rademacher: When you go out to enjoy yourself with your wife and daughter and your sitting down to eat and someone comes up and asks for an autograph does it piss you off?

Jesse Blaze Snider : On Long Island it’s more of a communal thing. My dad’s been playing here so long and for me people see Dee Snider. He’s a local guy, and when they see me, "that’s Dee son." People have been very respectful and I appreciate that. Some people do get overly excited and annoying but a majority of people are pretty cool about it. I’m sure things will change once our A & E special Growing Up Twisted has a season under its belt. Right now, I got so much mail on MySpace I have to drop it and just do Facebook. MySpace got ridiculous because I had the filters where I can go on and ghost myself and do the work I have to do on there but MySpace keeps changing things and you would have to fix all your filters. I would go on and people would bombarding me with instant messages and all I wanted to do is answer my mail and ghost myself and when they turned off the filters, I got so many Instant message saying, "What… you’re too fucking cool for me?" (Laughing)

Brian Rademacher: What do you do to relax?

Jesse Blaze Snider : I haven’t been doing too much to relax lately. I would read comics and watch movies but I have been writing the ongoing "Toy Story" comic book for Disney and Pixar and the "Muppet Snow White." To relax, I spend time with my family or my wife’s family. Recently my mother in law and father in law played Spades and went out and got "Snotbacks." My family time is the most important for me… taking my daughter Logan to the park and things like that.

Brian Rademacher: What are some of the most important morals your parents instilled in you?

Jesse Blaze Snider : My parents always instilled in me that I could be anything I want to be and when I was in kindergarten my teacher said the same thing so, I believed her. I looked at my parents, one wanted to be a designer and the other wanted to be a musician and both did exactly what they wanted to do. For me, I’ve been able to look to my parents every day of my life and say, "They did it so why can’t I?" I can do anything I put my mind to. They also instilled a thought of never quitting. One of the more interesting things they passes on to me was awhile back I told them I didn’t like my middle name, I didn’t think Blaze was cool. You know in high school people would bust your chops, they think it’s a made up name. People think it’s about getting stoned and there were all little problems with it. My parents said, "If you don’t like it, change it. If you think it’s cool, others will think it’s cool." So if I think it’s cool it will be and others will think it’s cool. So it was ok… That was a great lesson.

Brian Rademacher: So where did the name Blaze come from

Jesse Blaze Snider : My dad’s favorite ghost rider is Johnny Blaze and even thou he said it didn’t come from there where else did it come from. We are all named after cowboys Shane, Cody, Chevenne and Jesse. I think it fits my personality.

Brian Rademacher: Musically what have you’ve been doing?

Jesse Blaze Snider : I have been writing with a lot of different people and gearing up to put out a solo album. One of the songs I wrote for my daughter is "Go With Me" which is on my Facebook right now. Another song is called "Rock & Roll Ain’t Dead" and my father heard it and said if I’m not going to record it, he would like to have it which was extremely flattering because he never said that to me before. I told him "Absolutely!" and he’s doing that song justice! You will be hearing a full studio album by the end of this year.

Brian Rademacher: With Growing Up Twisted, is any of that stuff scripted?

Jesse Blaze Snider : No, not really. It’s guided a bit but the production company would like to know what we are doing when they are filming. We give them a list of what we are doing that day and the stories develop. There is a small amount that we recreated to a certain extent. My family loves each other. We bust each other’s chops and have a good time together. All these other reality shows are so made up and bullshit. They all have writers and crap… what reality show has a writer? The ones you don’t want! We have four writers in the family. My mom is no slouch and my sister are both "indirectly" directing the show. I think people will find the show way more reality than any other show on TV… maybe except for the Osbournes’.

Brian Rademacher: What do you feel is you’re biggest accomplishments in this world?

Jesse Blaze Snider : Beside my gorgeous daughter? She’s pretty amazing... Outside of my girl, my Hulk marvel comic opened a lot of doors for me as a comic book writer and I got to dedicate it to him and give it to him on his birthday. That was cool and big for me.

Brian Rademacher: Would you like to say anything in ending?

Jesse Blaze Snider : Watch Growing Up Twisted! I know you hate reality shows, I hate reality shows, EVERYBODY hates reality shows but our show is for people who HATE reality shows. We’re a nice family and a funny as fuck family. We are the anti reality show. Give it a shot. I hate reality shows but this is a great show! Check out my new single called "Go With Me," and unlike my father… my daughter will come on tour with me!