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“I absolutely approve of Ukrainians using ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ as their battlecry,” Snider tweeted. "My grandfather was Ukrainian before it was swallowed up by the USSR after WW2. This can’t happen to these people again!”
Snider, the 66-year-old frontman of Twisted Sister (the heavy metal pride of Bergen County), got initial blowback for using the hashtag #F***RUSSIA while condemning all of Russia for the actions of President Vladimir Putin.
"Mr Snider, please, hear us out," read one tweet. "I'm a Russian girl born in 1999, barely having a voice in this mess until now. I hate this war, I'm protesting against it & today I got arrested for it. I'm sorry for the pain my country brought upon others. But the young are trying to make a change."
“I know you are,” Snider replied. “And change will come from the young and young at heart. It’s never easy. ALL RIGHT...I will change my hashtag.”
It became #F***PUTIN.
Snider originally got riled when anti-maskers made the 1984 anthem a battle cry while storming a Target during the pandemic 18 months ago, calling them "selfish ass*****" who didn't have his "permission or blessing" to use it "for their moronic cause."
He doubled down this past weekend:
It wasn't the first time Snider tangled with those who'd pervert the intent of the defiant crowd-pleaser he wrote for the former Ho-Ho-Kus band.
"I'm from the Alice Cooper school of 'School's Out,' 'I'm Eighteen,' you know?" he once told NPR. "And Alice was very big on these anthemic songs."
"We're Not Gonna Take It" gave fans the opportunity to raise their fists "in righteous anger," said the Queens-born Snider, who grew up in Baldwin, Long Island.
He was cool with the song's use in the "Betty White's Off Their Rockers" reality series, as well as in commercials for the United Way, Extended Stay America and several movies -- including "Charlotte's Web," "Corky Romano," "The Emoji Movie" and "Gung Ho."
Snider says it wasn't intended, however, for people like onetime vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan or one-term former president Donald Trump to co-opt for their own purposes.
Snider said he asked Trump to cut it out "and he said 'OK.'
"He never used it again."
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