The Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French is not only known for his musical skills but also for being quite sincere about everything. In an interview with Dean Delray (Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), the musician called the legendary Bob Dylan “indecipherably bad” when playing live.
The reason why he said that is because Dylan usually doesn’t perform his famous tracks just like they were recorded
Jay Jay French says Bob Dylan is “indecipherably bad” live
“Look, you go see Dylan. Dylan is indecipherably bad. You don’t even understand it. But if you’re a deep Dylan guy, and Dylan’s like so esoteric, you go, ‘He’s an interpretive artist! He does it the way he wants to!'”
“But you know what? The average person doesn’t give a shit. They want to hear ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’ They want to hear ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ [sound like] ‘Like a Rolling Stone.'”
“They like to hear a song that sounds kind of like the record because that’s how they remember. So, Dylan doesn’t do that game,” Jay Jay French said.
He had criticized Dylan before
This is not the first time Jay Jay talked about Dylan. Back in 2021, in an interview with The Metal Voice, he had already said that the Folk Rock musician was horrible live.
“Dylan’s indecipherable. I went to see Dylan a couple of years ago with one of his producers because I heard he was so horrible live you couldn’t understand what he was singing. And I wanted to be able to understand what he was singing because I’m a huge Dylan fan. And never saw Dylan, and he was playing down the street from my house.”
“I actually bought a ticket to that show with my wife and was sitting with one of his producers. He [Bob] never turned around to the audience, he played with his back to the audience, never talked to the audience, and was indecipherable in his songs.”
“It was almost comical, almost like he was saying, ‘Fuck you, you’re idiots, you’re just paying to see a god, and I don’t care.’ And half the audience bought into it because he’s Bob Dylan. Hey, man, it’s an artistic statement, he doesn’t turn around, he doesn’t talk to you and you can’t understand what you’re singing, that’s great.’”
He continued:
“And half the people went, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?! I can’t understand what he’s singing and he sucks.’ But Dylan doesn’t care because he’s 83 years old, and millions of people want to see him. Frankly, I sat there, and I know the Dylan songbook, and he was halfway through one song, and I’m going, ‘What the fuck?’”
“And I hear, ‘Oh, that’s ‘Highway 61,’ OK.’ Or he sang another song *mumbles* but that was about it. Listen, Dylan didn’t always do this, although there are people who say he’s been terrible live for years. He didn’t always suck live. Watch [1978’s] ‘The Last Waltz,’ which is one of my favorite movies – I’m sure have seen that – one of the greatest concert movies ever made,” Jay Jay French said.