NOT TWISTED
JAY JAY FRENCH HAS A BOOK OUT, BUT IT’S NOT WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK, OR NOT EXACTLY.
FRENCH EARNED FAME IN THE 1980S AS THE LEAD GUITARIST FOR TRANSVESTITE METAL BAND TWISTED SISTER, WHICH PRODUCED SOME OF THE MOST RECOGNIZABLE—AND WIDELY LICENSED—ROCK MUSIC IN HISTORY: “WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT.” “I WANNA ROCK.”
These days, French stays busy in other ways. He has a podcast in which he chats with other musicians, members of the music industry, and miscellaneous folks. He’s a Beatles scholar with an impressive cache of Beatles records and memorabilia—he seems to have kept everything, in pristine condition—and writes a column about the Beatles for Goldmine magazine. He’s also a passionate audiophile.
The book—Twisted Business: Lessons from My Life in Rock’n’Roll—is not just another rock’n’roll memoir. It’s a business book, co-written with business guru Steve Farber. The bulk of the book, chapters 4–10, presents Jay Jay’s formula for success in words that spell out “T-W-I-S-T-E-D”—“T” for tenacity, “W” for wisdom, and so on, each element illustrated by stories from French’s life. I am not a regular reader of business books and have little interest in the topic, but this one strikes me as unusual for the genre, and in my opinion it does add up to something real and useful.
Really, though, that’s beside the point. What matters is that Jay Jay is busy promoting the book, which means he’s doing interviews and telling stories. I had the opportunity to sit down with him for several hours over two days in his modest (though very nice) apartment—which, it turns out, is just a 25-minute walk from my Manhattan one. I also got to listen to his excellent hi-fi system.
My exposure to Jay Jay convinced me that he’s one of those rare people who are born at the right time in the right place and then make decisions, even if unwittingly, that put them at the center of things and keep them there for a while. In some ways, his story is the story of his place and time.
Did I mention that he’s an audiophile?
Listening to records
Jay Jay French—born John French Segall—was born in New York City in 1952. The
