Never in a million years did I ever think I’d be sitting in the same room with hair metal god Dee Snider. Of course, I said the same thing when I was hobnobbing with Tia Carrere or having dinner with Danny Glover.

While I’m not exactly a fame whore, I certainly do have my fair share of meeting celebrities. They’re really more like mere brushes with greatness. In Dee’s case, he’s going to be shaking hands and eating babies, er, kissing babies at an upcoming conference my company is hosting. There’s big money to be had on the corporate circuit—ask any rocker who isn’t currently on tour. If you want to make the big $$$, find an aging executive with deep pockets. Believe me, if I had the money, I would hire Pat Benetar to sing at my birthday in a white-hot minute.

While Dee has found success in his screaming siren song, he’s as down to earth as they come. He has a large, looming presence. Polite, but still with a prince of darkness aura about him. I asked him if he wanted to rehearse his lines before we got started. He looked at me blankly (well, as blankly as you can look while wearing sunglasses) and said, “Just roll camera.” He was right—he was a one-take wonder.

He is revered, nay worshipped, by generations of hair metal aficionados. While bands like Trixter and Cinderella have faded into obscurity, his group Twisted Sister remains popular. They rocked their street cred in ’85 and continue to do so 25 years later. Dee wasn’t the slightest big rockstar-y. He made a slight comment about his “crazy hair,” which looked pretty tame in comparison to the 400lb coif he used to sport in his heyday.

The whole shoot—from the time Dee walked in, did his lines and walked out—took about 20 minutes. Impressive. It would have taken under 15 minutes, but, of course, I had to have pictures. I mean, when am I going to be around rock royalty again?