Fully vaccinated Dee Snider contracts COVID-19

Snider blames a recent Disney trip his wife and grandkids took

Former Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider has contracted COVID-19, despite being fully vaccinated. The rock star blames a recent Disney World trip his wife and grandkids took as the culprit.

“My wife decided [to take the grandkids] to Disney World [because they wanted to go]. ‘Okay, I’m going to take you to Disney World.’ She looks online – reservations only, limited [number of] people in, social distancing, masks, must be vaccinated, if not vaccinated, must be tested. So, okay, great. She gets all of the tickets, $1,000 worth of tickets and goes there. No one checks vaccination, no one checks tests. No one’s enforcing masks. It’s packed and they’re all in lines waiting for an hour,” he tells Ultimate Classic Rock.

“They came back and brought it back with them. There was zero enforcement. And then, you know, once you’re through that gate. They say, ‘Well, why would you take your kids there?’ They’re through the gate and the kids are just running for fuckin’ Minnie Mouse, and it’s non-refundable. They don’t give you a thousand bucks back for all of the tickets you bought. It’s like, ‘C’mon grandkids,’ they’ll be hating Grandma for the rest of their lives. ‘Oh, but I saved you from getting COVID.’ Yeah, that will matter to them.”

Snider believes his vaccination status prevented him from having severe effects.

“I’ve been having problems with my home studio and got COVID in spite of the fact that I’m fully vaccinated. It happened a few days ago. This is about day five. It was really minor, like, nothing that Advil and Sudafed [couldn’t handle]. But … I don’t want to bring my studio guy into fix my technology. I told him to stay out of here. Even though I feel fine, I don’t want to take a chance. Hopefully, I’ll be super-immune. Like I said, I’m fully vaccinated, plus [I got] COVID,” he says.

“I won’t say that I had no effects. It was a little aches and pains, a little stuffiness. But like I said, a Sudafed and a couple of Advil and I was just doing everything, business as usual. You know, I said, “Maybe I’ll get tested just for the hell of it.” I got a home test and I’m like, “What the fuck?” But they’re saying that they think a lot more people who are vaccinated have gotten it. And because it’s minor, they’re not going to the doctor or the hospital, so it’s not being reported. Because I’m hearing a lot of people saying that they caught it. It’s not knocking them on their ass or hospitalizing them, but they’re definitely getting COVID, even with vaccinations.

“I know a good number of people that it’s the same thing, they’ve been vaccinated and they’ve gotten it.”

After the news surfaced, Snider shared on social media that his symptoms subsided after a few days.

“FOR ALL WHO READ I GOT COVID…I’m fully vaccinated so my symptoms were minor. Advil and Sudafed totally managed them. Didn’t miss a beat business wise (did 10 interviews on first day I got it). All symptoms gone in three days. I feel totally fine now. GET THE DAMN VACCINATION!”

Poison drummer Rikki Rockett also tested positive for COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated a couple of weeks ago during a camping exhibition with his son, who’s too young to be vaccination. He also fully recovered a few days later.

Snider is set to release his next solo album, Leave A Scar, on Friday (July 30th) featuring 12 tracks. He plans to support it with a concert stream and some live performances, but is concerned the delta variant will cause more havoc on live performances.

“I think I got a window on this livestream that we did. We filmed it already. It was odd and it was great. It was filmed about a month ago and when I first planned it, it was in January or February – a long time ago. [I did it] to coincide [with the release of the new album], because the record company was saying, ‘You’re not touring right now; can you do something?’ I hated the idea of the limited audience, but I’m like, ‘Alright, I’ll do one of those fuckin’ social-distanced bubble shows at a club,” he shares.

“It was 200 people and as the months progressed, COVID started dropping and things started opening and we went to 300, 400, 500. By the time we filmed it in June, doors are open wide, lines are around the block, shoulder to shoulder and it was packed. I did a meet-and-greet at the end, and everything was fine. Then, all of the sudden, the variant hit and that’s why I think we found the window.

“So yeah, it does weird me out. I’ve got an in-store booked in August, which is only a few weeks [from now] and I told him, ‘Listen, they’re talking now about September being the peak of the new spike, if this thing keeps going. I may be cancelling this thing or doing it behind Plexiglas or something like that.’ It’s advertised as meet and greet, sign, photos, the whole nine yards – because people thought, ‘Oh yeah, this thing is behind us,’ but it looks like it’s not.”

Leave A Scar is the follow up to his 2018 full-length, For The Love Of Metal. Once again produced by Jamey Jasta, with co-production, mixing and mastering by drummer Nick Bellmore, Leave A Scar sees Snider & Co. continuing in the invigorated direction of For The Love Of Metal, infusing a dose of classic heavy metal flavor that longtime fans will rush to embrace. Like a scar itself, Leave A Scar is an illuminating plentitude of angst etched in time – serving as a musical refuge and expressive output for Snider. But in turn, this auditory time capsule written to express the anger, unease and pain he experienced during lockdown emerges as not only blisteringly heavy, but relentlessly powerful.

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: info@themusicuniverse.com