Tough Love from Twisted Sister's Jay Jay French
Love Music More · hosted by Luke F. Walton (Scoobert Doobert)
Guest: Jay Jay French
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Host note
Jay Jay French brings tough-love business clarity to a band story most people only know from the hits. Before Twisted Sister broke globally, the band logged thousands of 45-minute club sets: he cites 3,245 shows in the first 30 months alone as the real answer to "how do you get good?"
We talk through why they famously didn't need CBGB, how an evolving business model (and occasional "nuclear option") kept a volatile lineup functioning, and what it feels like when success immediately becomes "great, where's the next record?" He also walks through the unglamorous math of touring life and why he still finishes a song a week decades later, the same "boredom of excellence" frame from his book *Twisted Business*.
Selected moments
- 3,245 shows, how you get good 0:45 Opens with the pre-fame grind count and the 9,000-show arc to global stardom.
- The boredom of excellence 16:11 Gold-medal skiing as metaphor, daily practice nobody sees until the win.
- Too big for CBGB 18:40 Selling out 5,000-seat rooms vs. playing Manhattan clubs for credibility.
- Business model that evolved 26:00 Not predetermined, shaped by alcoholism, lineup churn, and survival instincts.
- The nuclear option 40:00 Crisis management when popularity outruns sleep and the phone rings at 8 a.m.
- When to move on from a band member 48:07 Reform, creative control, and the line between dysfunction and end of band.
- ~52 finished songs a year 59:12 Post-Twisted Sister output, mixed, mastered, out the door, every week.
- What have you done for me lately 61:09 Platinum success and the immediate pressure for the next record.
Selected excerpts
In the first 30 months of the band's career I played 3,245 forty-five-minute shows. If the question is how do you get good at what you do — you got to do it.
I talk about the boredom of excellence — the person who wins the gold medal for skiing downhill has been doing it since they were eight or nine, up at five in the morning almost every day practicing.
When people said, why didn't you play CBGB's — I say we're too big for all those places. We're selling out 5,000-seat bars.
The entertainment business is a tough-ass business. It is because it's a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business.
For any business — I don't care what it is — you go to the best restaurants in the world. You don't want to know how the chef is cooking it. You want the best damn dish on your plate.
FAQ
What does Jay Jay French say about Twisted Sister's early career on Love Music More?
He emphasizes thousands of club shows before breakthrough, including 3,245 forty-five-minute sets in the band's first 30 months, and frames sustained repetition as the path to excellence rather than overnight luck.
What is the 'boredom of excellence' Jay Jay French discusses?
From his book Twisted Business, the invisible daily practice behind visible wins (like an Olympic skier's years of 5 a.m. training before a gold medal). He applies the same idea to songwriting discipline after Twisted Sister.
Curated notes only — no public transcript. Listen on the links above.