Jay Jay French expressed his doubts about if the success he achieved in his career with TWISTED SISTER was worth the sacrifices he had to make.
To back up his point, the guitarist gave the examples of George Harrison and David Bowie to illustrate how, in the world of rock music, there is rarely a ‘happily ever after’.
“You know when they tell little girls at Disneyland that when you get married to your prince, it’s happily ever after?” French asked Kylie Olsson in a new interview (watch below). “That bulls**t they just give you when you’re young – it’s the same bulls**t in the music business… It ain’t happily ever after, motherf**ker. The price I paid for that s**t – I don’t even know if it’s worth it.”
“The music business is a f**king horrible business, and you have to have a certain ability to withstand the bulls**t of this business in order to succeed in it,” he continued. “It’s not just that you want to be a ‘rock star’. F**k that, you know? If that’s all that it was supposed to be – it was never that.
“So if… one day I said, ‘Oh, I want to become famous and a rock star!’ And then someone said, ‘No man, to go there, you’re going to be exposed to more crap than you could possibly imagine; meet more f**ked up people than you can possibly imagine; [hear] more lies than you could possibly imagine; deal with more rip-offs than you could possibly imagine; deal with mob guys, be threatened… all the stuff that has nothing to do with playing guitar in a band.
“If it was just playing guitar in a band, that would be one thing. But man, all of this is because of way bigger things. And the price one pays is huge.”
Jay Jay continued his speech by referencing George Harrison, the former member of THE BEATLES: “George Harrison – he was the most unhappy guy in the world. He was in the biggest band in the world, right? He hated it, the whole thing. He’s why we’re here – and he f**king hates it. And he hated stardom. And he hated the interpersonal bulls**t, and he hated the business and… So, it is what it is.”
The musician ended his performance with a pessimistic statement from David Bowie, which he believes encapsulates the lifestyle of being a rock musician: “You work hard, and you accomplish certain things, and… I think David Bowie has a quote about fame… that I happen to agree with.
“What [he] said was, ‘The only tangible value that fame has is that you could get a reservation in a restaurant when you need it, and if you need a good doctor, you can pretty much get them right away…that is about the sum of f**king value of rock and roll celebrity.”
