Original subtitles

Imagine being in the biggest band in America.

You've got platinum records, you've got sold out arenas, you've got millions of

fans, your own comic books, you're appearing on television, your faces are

on posters and toys, and yet, you're unhappy.

You're frustrated.

You're convinced that the other three members of the band don't understand

you, and you're beginning to wonder what you could do if you were allowed to make

a record entirely on your own.

Well, in 1978 Kiss decided to find out.

Four members, four personalities, four albums, released on the same day. It was

one of the most ambitious and bizarre experiments in rock history.

When we left Kiss at the end of June 1978, the band were at the height of

their commercial power.

But the four members were increasingly moving in different directions.

Gene Simmons was fascinated by Hollywood, celebrity and business.

His relationship with Cher was bringing him into an entirely different social

and entertainment world.

Paul Stanley remained intensely focused on Kiss, but increasingly wanted to

establish his own identity as a songwriter and performer.

Ace Frehley wanted freedom.

He wanted to make music without Gene and Paul telling him what to do.

And Peter Criss was increasingly unhappy with his place in the band, while

problems in his personal life were making everything even harder.

The irony was that Kiss had been built on four very different personalities.

That was part of the magic.

But the same differences that made Kiss interesting were now threatening to

destroy them.

And the answer, at least temporarily, was remarkably simple.

Let each of them make a solo album.

There are several explanations for why the four solo albums happened.

And as is so often the case with Kiss history, they're not mutually exclusive.

The first reason was contractual.

Casablanca Records needed product.

KISS were enormously valuable to the label.

But the band's increasingly demanding schedule made recording another

conventional KISS studio album difficult.

Four solo records could effectively satisfy contractual obligations while

allowing the members to work independently.

But there was another reason.

Appeasement. Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter were increasingly unhappy with the

internal balance of KISS.

Gene and Paul had become the dominant creative and organizational forces.

Ace wanted more freedom, and Peter wanted his musical personality

recognized.

And both Ace and Peter increasingly resented the feeling that Gene and Paul

were steering the ship.

So the solo albums became a pressure valve.

Give everybody a record.

Give everybody a chance to say, this is what I sound like when Kiss isn't

telling me what to do.

And there was a third element.

Bill O'Coin.

The band's manager had helped transform Kiss from a struggling New York club act

into a multi-million dollar entertainment operation.

O'Coin understood something that perhaps even the band didn't fully appreciate.

Individuality could be commercially useful.

If there were four Kiss personalities, why not sell four Kiss personalities?

And then there was Sean Delaney.

Delaney has become an important creative influence around the band, particularly

with Gene Simmons.

He helped Gene shape his solo project and became its co-producer.

The idea wasn't simply to keep KISS together, it was to give each member

enough room to breathe without allowing the entire machine to collapse.

It was a gamble.

And in September 1978, the gamble was going to be revealed.

but before we get to the albums kiss had another date with the marvel universe

august 15 1978 the second kiss marvel comic was released

officially it was marvel comics super special number five although the title

had been shortened to marvel super special and once again kiss weren't

simply musicians they were superheroes

The story saw the band battling the villainous Kallis Wu, or Dark Lord.

The issue also contained a four-page fold-out poster.

Think about the transformation here. In 1974, Kiss were trying to get people

into clubs.

By 1978, Marvel Comics were turning them into superheroes.

Hanna-Barbera were turning them into television characters.

And Mego were turning them into action figures.

And Casablanca were preparing to release four albums with four separate Kiss

identities.

Kiss were becoming less like a band and more like a fictional universe.

And that brings us to the biggest experiment of the entire year.

The incredible, outrageous rock group wants you to kiss your face.

Introducing Kiss Your Face Makeup. Just like the makeup worn by Gene, Paul,

Peter, or Ace. Kiss Your Face Makeup has all the equipment you need.

Professional makeup, brushes, and cream remover. With makeup diagrams so you can

look like Gene, look like Paul, look like Peter, or look like Ace. So kiss,

kiss, kiss your face, and get your act together.

Kiss Your Face Makeup is from Remco. Yeah.

September 18, 1978.

Four albums, one day.

Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss.

No band had attempted anything quite like this.

The marketing was enormous.

Casablanca reportedly shipped around a million copies of each album.

Four million KISS solo albums were suddenly sitting in record stores.

And here's where things get fascinating.

Because these weren't four versions of the same KISS album. They were four

windows into four completely different personalities.

And perhaps the greatest mistake was assuming that KISS fans would

automatically want all four.

You're watching a machine turn soft, hot plastic into cold, hard cash.

Breaking records by making records. More than four million of them. It's the

biggest single batch of new albums ever packaged in one day for worldwide

distribution. That tops even the Beatles at their best. And everyone else who

ever tried to turn a profit at 33 and a third revolutions per minute.

The place is a pressing plan in Los Angeles, center city of the rock music

world. The group is KISS, the label's Casablanca, and the ultimate payoff, a

staggering $40 million.

Pure platinum.

But more than that, almost a sure thing going in, because KISS, like a handful

of other top groups, never sell less than a million albums.

And because no matter who performs, today's incredible demand for rock

always seems to outrun that available supply by a big money mile.

The full impact comes home here at the retail counter. In just two weeks, each

and every one of these 4 million albums are bought and gone.

And as fast as the machines in L.A. can stamp them out, there are 4 million

second editions and 4 million more after that. And on and on and on.

But there's more to all this than money-making machines and mass-produced

music. There's hard marketing, too.

In the case of Kiss, each member of the four-man group competes alone with his

own solo album, and that's unheard of in any business other than this.

But here's the bottom line.

The Kiss vs.

Kiss gimmick is an unqualified runaway success.

Each album is well past the million mark and headed for two, maybe even three,

before it's over.

And all the projections show that the rock album boom has only just begun. Not

only for Kiss, but for everyone else in the rock music business.

From Los Angeles, I'm Chuck Ashman.

Let's start with Gene.

Because unsurprisingly, Gene Simmons approached the project like Gene

Simmons. He didn't just make an album.

He assembled an event.

He wanted famous people.

Lots of famous people.

The album was recorded between April and July 1978 at studios including The Manor

in Oxfordshire, England, Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles and Blue Rock

Studios in New York.

Gene produced it alongside Sean Delaney.

And the guest list was ridiculous.

Joe Perry from Aerosmith, Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick, Jeff Skunk Baxter,

Donna Summer, Bob Seger, Helen Reddy, Janice Ian, Cher,

and among the backing singers was a then relatively unknown woman called Katie

Segal.

Yes, Peg Bundy, long before married with children. She was part of Gene Simmons'

vocal ensemble in 1978.

Gene's album was effectively a who's who of the music and entertainment industry.

The songs also told us something about Gene.

Some weren't new.

Burning Up With Fever, Man of a Thousand Faces, True Confessions.

These had been demoed during the Destroyer period, but rejected by Bob

Ezrin.

Gene was effectively reaching into his own archive, dusting off songs that Kiss

had previously rejected, and then there was See You In Your Dreams.

Gene wasn't happy with the original Kiss recording from Rock and Roll Over.

So he re-recorded it. Same songwriter, different environment, different sound,

different Gene.

Then there was Radioactive, a brand new Gene Simmons statement.

And he filled it with the kind of swagger that you'd expect.

But Gene's album also revealed something that many Kiss fans weren't expecting.

Gene Simmons loved melody.

He loved pop.

He loved the Beatles.

He loved theatricality.

And he loved old movies.

Which brings us to the most unexpected song on the album.

When You Wish Upon A Star.

A song from Disney's Pinocchio.

Why would the demon of Kiss record that?

Because Gene Simmons had a deeply sentimental relationship with the song.

He had encountered it as a child when English wasn't yet his first language.

and he connected with its message about dreams and possibility.

For Gene, it wasn't a joke.

It was genuine.

And that's important, because behind the fire-breathing demon was a man who had

been shaped by movies, comic books, fantasy and popular culture.

The song closes his album.

The guest appearances on Gene's album became almost as famous as the songs.

Donna Summer and Bob Seger both sang backing vocals.

Joe Perry and Rick Nielsen played guitar.

Cher contributed a spoken telephone part to Living in Sin.

And the presence of Cher is particularly interesting, because Gene's relationship

with her was no longer simply a private romance.

Gene's world was increasingly overlapping with Hollywood, and that was

becoming another source of tension within Kiss.

Gene was building a life outside the band.

A very visible life.

And the more independent Gene became, the more difficult it became for the

other members to believe that Kiss was still his only priority.

I think it's a great question and initially I was going to title the album

Man of a Thousand Faces and then all four of us decided and agreed that each

one of the albums was going to be called Kiss and the name of the group member.

to show everybody that we are certainly not breaking up and that we're getting

along better than we ever have before and that, you know, we're just doing

this just to show everybody that you can do, that we can do anything we want to

do. And the big secret about these songs is that I've been

writing these songs all along.

And in fact, on the album, I'm not playing bass at all.

The bass player is a name, is a guy, is a name whose man is a guy whose name is

Neil Jason.

and I'm playing all the electric and the acoustic guitars on the album. In fact,

when I do demos, I play the drums and keyboards and bass and guitars.

But most people are aware of Gene Simmons simply as the winner two years

in running of the circus bass player's poll. You know, just weird stuff like

that. I'm not humble. You won't find me humble at all.

So I think...

It's an album about me. I think since the album is called kiss Gene Simmons.

It's a song it's it's songs and an album about me In early

April I went over to England to a place called the manor which is where the

basic tracks were done Initially they were going to be a whole it was going to

be you know the cavalcade of stars kind of thing and then I thought And I

figured out that it would probably get in the way of getting the album across

as lyrically and musically. You know, you'd be just blinded by these stellar

kind of personalities.

But as it stands now, the first song is radioactive.

And you've got Joe Perry of Aerosmith doing some guitar embellishments.

Bob Seger is singing the chorus with me.

Then on the second song, Burning Up With Fever, Donna Summer is singing the

chorus. Jeff Baxter from the Doobie Brothers is doing some guitar.

Elliot Randall is doing some other stuff.

Third song was called See You Tonight, which is a kind of a Beatles-esque song.

And to that end, Paul McCartney was supposed to be on the album. He is not.

I know people thought he was. So I got the next best thing, the guys from

Beatlemania, Mitch Weissman and Joe Pecorino.

who look and sound just like John and Paul.

The next song, Tunnel of Love, has basically me...

Yeah, everything is basically me with lots of people. I don't think that

you've heard of doing chorus stuff.

We have the lead guitarist, Richie Rano, from a group called Stars, who just

happened by one day and said, what does that sound like? I said, I don't know,

give it a try.

And the last song is True Confessions with the Azusa, California, Citrus

College Chorale under the direction of Ben Bollinger, which is a 40-piece,

40-member college group of kids

that just have these kind of angelic voices.

They are joined on True Confessions by Helen Reddy, singing right along with

everybody else.

The second side of the album starts off with Living in Sin.

That's a holiday again.

And Living in Sin has got Gene

Simmons and Bob Seger singing the choruses.

And Cher is the groupie that calls on the telephone and says, Is this Gene

Simmons? I can't believe it.

And then on Always Near You, Nowhere to Hide is

Elliot Randleson doing some guitar, basically the guitars of myself,

however.

The guys from Beatlemania, Mitch Wiseman, Joe Pecorino doing Ooze and Oz.

And let's see what else. Oh, and then on the end, on the fade, is

the Azusa California Citrus College Chorale under the direction of Ben

Bollinger. I promise to get his name in there every time.

The song after that is Man of a Thousand Faces, which is me playing

guitar and then doing all the vocals with members of the Los Angeles

Philharmonic Orchestra.

The song after that is Mr. Make-Believe with Mitch and Joe

from Beatlemania doing oohs, you know, sounding like the Beatles with me.

Again, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is on there. The members of, I promise to

make that distinction, because it's not the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

It's the members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

Skunk Baxter is doing some stuff on there, some guitar all the way at the

end. The song after that is See You In Your Dreams, which was recorded by Kiss

once before on Rock and Roll Over, and I didn't like the way we did it. We were

just... you know always harried for time harry ozzy and harried for time sorry

about that folks uh the solo is done by rick nielsen from cheap trick who nobody

knows can play guitar like that i mean it's like uh i mean the guy sounds like

paige the best page you ever heard page nine page ten uh also singing on the

thing is michael de bar from the group called detective and uh the last song is

obviously when you wish upon a star with members of the new york philharmonic

orchestra when you do when you're doing consistent tours for five and six years

the only time we had off vacation time this is our first real vacation we're

taking a year off and in that year we're putting on four soul albums plus there's

going to be a double kiss album coming out next summer that nobody knows about

all original material there's more kiss stuff now than people have ever seen

before and yet we're taking a year off from touring so that we can do this

stuff right we've always been capable of doing different kinds of material as

witnessed by peter as early as beth and paul's song hard luck woman which is an

old song but we never really wanted to uh bring that out because

you know we were we were building something we were building a a

personality, a sound, a concept to our group. That was very important to us.

And we wanted to get it to the point where we'd have enough fans and enough

people that believed in us so that we could kind of have this understanding

between each other.

You guys as our fans, you guys and girls as our fans, trust us. Expect only the

best from us.

And once you know that we're going to be putting out really interesting different

kinds of stuff, we'll do it.

Sure, we're not going to be touring for another year and, oh God, at least

another year, next summer.

And the purpose of the solo albums was not so much, let's think, to add some

more songs to the Kiss repertoire.

That's a big word, repertoire.

I mean, the purpose really of it was to let everybody in the band a chance to

stretch and do all the things that everybody's always wanted to do, but

never did because of self-imposed restrictions.

Nobody ever told us, you know, you're not supposed to do anything except play

guitar and, you know, and grunt and growl and talk about strutters and songs

like that, which are a lot of fun. And we've, you know, we've always loved to

do that kind of stuff. And that's the best kind of stuff to do live.

But, I mean, all along we've imposed restrictions on ourselves because we've

always wanted to be easily accessible.

We didn't want to be one of those bands that you sat down and heard a nice song

and then tried to figure out what the hell the lyric was all about, you know,

when you hear about butterflies flying through the center of your mind.

try to figure out what that's got to do with anything and we certainly didn't

want to be the kind of band that we're saying oh the times they're changing in

the world it's terrible and you pay 7.98 to see this guy on stage saying

miserable things about life i don't want to pay to be either insulted or brought

down we're certainly nobody that i'm nobody that should tell you what to

what to do how to dress what to think you know or even who to vote for any of

that stuff

So the only thing any entertainer can hope to do is to provide some decent

escapism. If Gene's album was an explosion of celebrity cameos, Paul

Stanley's was almost the opposite.

Paul's album was focused, melodic, personal and unmistakably Paul.

The album was recorded between February and July 1978 at Electric Lady and the

Record Plant in New York, the Village Recorder in Los Angeles, and Trident

Studios in London.

Paul produced the majority of it himself, with Jeff Glicksman co

-producing four tracks.

And Paul brought in somebody Kiss fans already knew.

Bob Kulik.

Bob had been part of the Kiss story for years.

He'd auditioned for Kiss.

He'd played on Kiss-related recordings.

He'd worked with Paul on demos.

And now finally, Bob Kulik received a proper opportunity to contribute to one

of the members' solo records.

There was even an element of competition here.

Bob later recalled that Gene had wanted him to play on his album too.

But once Bob was working with Paul, that didn't happen.

Even the solo albums couldn't completely escape Kiss politics.

Are you playing lead on the album? Yeah, I'm playing lead. But for the most part,

a friend of mine I've known since Kiss got together, his name is Bob Kulik.

He's in Meatloaf right now.

And he took Steve Hunter's place in Cooper's band when Alice went to

Australia and played with Dick Wagner. And he did Mark Farner's album. He's got

a lot of stuff. He's playing lead.

And I got Steve Buslow, who plays bass with Meatloaf.

And another guy, Eric Nelson, who lives out here, playing bass, two of them.

And Carmine Appas, he's playing drums.

And someone from New York, Richie Fontana. And Craig Cramp, who used to be

with Flo and Eddie, out here.

And there's some female singing, but for the most part, it's me. I tried to do as

much of the album as I could myself.

So do you think your coach to playing was different than the stuff you do?

Yeah, quite a bit different.

When you work within the framework of a group, we built our audience in the past

four or five years.

So it wouldn't be fair to go too far from that track as

KISS. But as an individual artist, each one of us is

much more open to do things their way without compromising and stretching.

their identities as far in either direction as possible so um sure i mean

it's not like this album is um an operetta or anything or anything

drastically different but yeah it in its own way it's got a very strong identity

of its own it's um there's a a good deal of acoustic on there is it yeah there's

um there's one track that's got a full orchestra with violins you know and then

there's some did you arrange that Did I arrange it? I sat with the guy.

What's that track called?

That track's called Hold Me, Touch Me.

And, Jesus, I wish I had all, you know, I just switched cars at my house

and all the tapes were in the other car.

And it's really, it's coming along very well.

It seems like you might have had more time to work on this than you might have

with Kiss Records.

Yeah, this is something that I've been planning. I actually started recording

this about a half a year ago.

I started recording this on my own in New York.

So six tracks of it were done by me producing, and I think the rest of them,

at this point I'm not sure, you know, exactly through which song, but the rest

of them were co-produced by...

Jeff Glicksman, who does Kansas, and myself.

And Jeff and I are mixing, you know.

So, between Jeff and myself, it's a good meeting of, you know, two

styles that kind of have roots in the same thing, but went off on different,

you know, styles.

Tangents is a little too scattered.

Yeah. But Jeff's really always been into heavy English music.

Surprisingly enough, with this stuff, it's heavy and at the same time it's

very melodic.

There's a lot of counter melodies going on on guitars.

I tried to create on some of the stuff a wall of sound, but not necessarily

chords as much as something similar to what Spector used to do. Spector would

take a guitar and mix it in with a trumpet and you'd say, you know, what's

playing that line?

So basically, I tried to get that kind of feel on a lot of stuff, so that

there'll be a guitar against another guitar playing a counter melody behind a

vocal, you know. I really went for a texture, which is something that KISS is

usually much more upfront, and it's much more slam-bang.

And this has a lot more subtlety to it, but still remains rock and roll. I mean,

if you look at Boston, I mean, it's...

you can be rock and roll and at the same time have a much wider appeal and also

deal much more with dynamics and feel.

So then there would have been tracks where you would sit down and maybe lay

down three or four or five different tracks of rhythm and counterpoint. Oh,

absolutely. Yeah, we were listening to one song. There's a song called Tonight

You Belong to Me, which starts off with three acoustic...

Guitars those high strings three of those and an electric and bass and then

it goes into Jesus I think there's got to be about five electrics

an acoustic three ebos You know and believe

me it's not cluttered at all You know I think the secret and good mixing is

realizing that everything doesn't have to be heard as much as it has to be felt

You know

You may not hear an instrument, but if you pulled out all the instruments that

you don't hear, the track would sound empty. I think that's the key to a good

mix.

When you take a band into the studio a lot, you'll find that the bass player or

the guitar player might say, hey, bring my guitar up.

When you're dealing more, doing it on your own, or when you can get everybody

to put, you know, their own egos aside and work as a whole you're more

concerned with texture than with everybody being showcased in a song

right so basically that's pretty much what i was going for paul's album

contained nine songs tonight you belong to me move on ain't quite right

wouldn't you like to know me take me away it's all right hold me touch me

love in chains and goodbye

And there were no cover versions.

That was significant.

Paul didn't need to prove that he could interpret somebody else's song. He

wanted to prove that he could write an entire album.

Move On and Ain't Quite Right were co-written with Mike Japp.

Take Me Away also came from that songwriting relationship.

and the album was probably the clearest indication that Paul Stanley was capable

of being a frontman and songwriter without needing to kiss machinery around

him.

Well, I guess first there's a certain amount of trepidation. You're a little

scared about it because working in a group situation is actually kind of like

being married because you know your partner's moves after a while and you're

very secure within.

just the World that you build up between the two of you or the four of you in the

case of the band is for you know the four of us so The idea of going out and

playing with other people was was pretty much a challenge. It was uh, I Don't

know I looked to it as pretty exciting initially because I'd get a chance to

see just what I was capable of Well, I guess tremendously, you know what I

wanted to do was

be much more diverse in what I was doing on the album. At the same time, not

come across like I was selling out or I was

doing different types of music to show what I was capable of. That was the last

thing I wanted to do with the record.

I didn't want people to get the idea I was trying to show I've matured.

you know because maturity is like a dangerous word you know what i wanted to

do more was just do things that i've always done but never done on record you

know so um sing more do some more melodic

singing which doesn't even mean soft singing you know it just means uh more

emphasis on melody and um i don't know i think uh i've done a

lot you know to to broaden my uh scope and i think

everybody that's ever been into us is going to enjoy it but then on top of

that i think there's a whole new audience um well

the one person i've used on everything besides myself is bob kulick who um

who's been a friend of mine for about six years actually he tried out for kiss

And right now he's in Meatloaf.

And he, before that, did a tour with Alice Cooper

and was in Lou Reed's group. He's a great guitar player.

And I used him on everything. I used, on a couple of cuts, the bass player from

Meatloaf, Steve Buslough.

On a couple of cuts, I used Richie Fontana, who used to be in Piper.

I used him on drums.

On some other cuts, I used a guy, Eric Nelson, on bass, who plays with Nick

Gilder now.

And I used Craig Cramp, who's a drummer for Nick Gilder now. He used to be

in Flo and Eddie.

And before that, he was in The Robs.

I used him on some stuff.

Then also one track I had Carmine play on, and a

friend of mine, Pepe Castro, sang with me on some of the stuff. Pepe was in the

Blues Magoo, and he's doing some great stuff out here now in L.A.

And a friend of his, Doug Gling, Katsaros, great name,

he plays piano and sings on some stuff.

Bob and I have been working together for about five or six years. I've been

fooling around playing with Bob since I've known him.

And he and I play very, very well together, so he knows exactly the way I

think. So that was easy.

Still, to walk into a studio and see a whole different band

than the guys I'm used to is very interesting, very strange

at first.

but um more what i was looking for was people that were on the same wavelength

as i was so that without too much you know talking i could get them to play

what i wanted um i didn't think i should sit down and tell anybody note for note

what to play i thought that i should be able to direct them but that the um the

ideas had to be similar to begin with You know, the musicians had to be

thinking the same approach as I was.

So it was actually very refreshing to work with different people. Very, very,

very interesting.

And I can only grow from things like that.

Well, at this point, up till now, you know, some of the guys have always been

more involved in the production than others, just, you know, for whatever

reasons. But I think at this point,

Everybody's grown tremendously with their albums.

And the really nice thing about it is that when the albums are all done and

each of us hears the other, it's really a great way of saying, hey, this is what

I'm about.

This is the way I've always heard things.

It's like really getting to know somebody even better than you do.

So at that point, we can only respect each other that much more.

you know because uh i don't think any of the albums are going to be a letdown i

think all of them are going to be wonderful albums well we i think in

a way we we uh kept ourselves from getting into trouble we kept ourselves

from getting into trouble by letting ourselves do the solo albums a lot of

groups run into frustrations because they need to get away from each other

they need to create a little on their own and not given that space to do it

Things get a little, you know, edgy, you know, and we all just went off and did

our thing.

Granted, if one of us did it, like in any group, I think it's a different

situation, though, with KISS, because in most groups you don't have four strong

personalities.

the guy that usually goes off and does the solo album in a group context is

usually the main contributor anyway so sure the other guys feel hey he's

leaving us you know you know he's getting he's going to move out soon uh

whereas with kiss we all contribute and we all have a lot to say so we all just

went off and did our albums you it doesn't really apply to most bands

because i don't know that uh

The Joe Schmoe group could go out and all guys do an album and they would

sell. It doesn't quite apply.

You know, Kiss is an exception.

Yeah, that's why it was amazing for months and even still now in some

circles, you know, people are talking about, hey, you know, I know the band

broke, you know, the band's breaking up or the band broke up.

We've anything but broken up.

It's like six years down the line now, you know.

And there's not that many groups around that have been together six years.

Sure,

we go through changes and metamorphosis.

KISS now is not what KISS was in 73.

But KISS is a lot more knowledgeable.

We've been through more.

I see KISS becoming a...

Much more than a legend where I want to become an institution You know,

I mean we started this off broke, you know in a one-room rehearsal

loft with egg crates on the wall and we've taken it this far and I want to

see it become Exactly that I want to see an institution Then there was ice

And Ace's album is perhaps the most important of the four.

Because Ace finally sounded like Ace.

No Gene, no Paul, no pressure to fit the Kiss formula.

Just guitar, melody, attitude, and a strange, slightly

intoxicated sense of humor.

The album was recorded primarily at a mansion in Sharon, Connecticut.

during june and july with additional recording and mixing at plaza sound

studios in new york the producer eddie kramer and ace himself

eddie kramer was a perfect choice he understood guitar he understood

rock and crucially he understood how to give ace space ace also

brought in a drummer named anton fig

At the time, Fig wasn't a household name, but he was brilliant.

Well, you know, Anton and me, you know, hit it off immediately.

But it was destiny that Anton was going to play on my record because I remember

a friend of mine, Larry Russell, who I went to high school with, called me up

one day and he said, you know, I was looking for a drummer for the record.

And he said, you got to hear this guy, Anton Fig.

And then like two or three days later, Eddie Kramer calls me up and goes, you

got to hear this guy, Anton Fig.

So, you know, I got it from two sources that, you know, hadn't spoken to each

other. So I said to myself, I better check out this guy, Anton Fig. And, you

know, we jammed together and, you know, we've been, we just hit it off, you

know, like salt and pepper.

And we've been close friends ever since. And he did so many of my records.

Subsequently, after 1978, I even played on some Kiss records.

He and Ace had already worked on demos before the album sessions.

And when they recorded the basic tracks at the Connecticut mansion, the setup

was unconventional.

The drums were placed in a hallway, taking advantage of the natural

acoustics. The result was a huge sound.

Raw, spacious, almost live.

And Anton Fig's relationship with Kiss was only beginning.

Because within a few years, he would become one of the most important session

musicians connected to the band.

I play

lead guitar, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, synthesizer and bass.

I did all the lead vocals and half of the background vocals.

A guy named Anton Figg, as you heard, is pretty incredible.

It's really funny, I like to say that.

When I told people that I'm playing every instrument on the record, just

about, you know, I'm doing all the vocals and some background vocals to my

own voice, and they say, wow, that must be really hard. The reality of the

situation is that

When you're playing against your own rhythm tracks, you know them better than

anybody else does because you wrote them.

I find it a lot easier to play against my own recordings than playing against

somebody else's because I know exactly what I did prior to the overdub.

Most accomplished guitar players that can play rhythm and lead can usually

play bass without any problem.

I was in groups where I used to have to teach.

You know, the guy had to play bass, you know, couldn't figure it out, so I have

to figure it out. So, you know, I was always very well acquainted with bass

guitar.

I think it'll expand their views.

I certainly think I've expanded my musical horizons just a little, you

know, on this record.

And I think it'll, you know, I hope that, you know, people say, wow, you

know, I didn't think he could do this or do that or could sing like that.

Because, you know, I did a lot of different, things with my voice that

i've never been able to do up until now and you know i also got a couple of

interesting guitar sounds i've never you know reproduced before on record so i'm

really really happy with the way it turned out well i have a really big

guitar collection and a big amplifier collection all old amplifiers you know

dating back to the 40s and 50s and you know up until now you know whenever we

did kiss albums you know a lot of times we were on a very hectic schedule as you

very well know with touring and everything a lot of times we didn't have

as much time as we wanted to you know to do records and uh especially guitar

solos you know it was always the kind of thing where all right come on you gotta

do a solo you know you have eight hours to do it or whatever and that's the way

we you know we'd whip them out but you know in this case of the solo albums you

know we took two i took two months to record it it was the kind of thing where

i brought all my guitars and all my amplifiers to the studio

You know, sometimes we just spend the whole day on a guitar solo to get the

right sound.

I think it shows.

I think it wasn't very different working with Eddie, with Kiss as

it was with the solo album. It's just that I just saw another side of him and

he saw another side of me. You know, we worked a lot closer on this project than

we did in the past because it was just me and Eddie. He didn't have to worry

about three other guys.

It was just me and Eddie basically and Anton.

Anton supplied the percussion and I supplied just about everything else.

And it was just like the three of us went up to a mansion in Connecticut.

We took it over and we cut all the basic tracks up there.

And it was really funny. It was just me and Eddie. We started with basic rhythm

tracks, just rhythm guitar and drums, and then we started layering everything

on top of it. I'd put the bass on.

And then after we got all the basic tracks, we came down to Manhattan at

Plaza Sound and did most of the guitar solos and the vocals and stuff,

synthesizers.

So it came out, you know.

Basically, we kept on schedule and everything turned out basically the way

we wanted it to.

So I really don't have any complaints about directing.

Well, for a while, I was very dormant.

I think, you know, when the Alive 1 album hit, and I was...

you know, bogged down with traveling and, you know, I decided to get married,

you know, around that time.

So much going on in my life, my creativity kind of went down. And if you

check the records, you know, Destroyer or the one after that, I think I only

wrote maybe one song on any of those albums.

But this is probably the first project where I really came out of my shell, so

to speak.

you know, wrote all the songs except for one.

And I think now that I've, you know, realized what my abilities are, I think

I'll probably be doing a lot more in the future because I'm sure each of the

albums are going to bring out one side of all of us that none of us ever knew

we had.

I think it's going to make us all better as one unit.

I could... Yeah, that was the first...

I'll never forget the first night when we did that tour, and the guy said,

you've got to do Shock Me Live.

And I was really nervous.

You've got to get in front of 20,000 people and sing lead, and I never had

the voice.

But I just tried not to think about it.

And it just happened, you know, it came natural.

I would say I'm more confident now as a singer and guitar player than I've ever

been in my life, probably.

A lot of the insecurities have gone away that I've had in the past.

Everybody's insecure now.

Well, see, I'm never satisfied with what I do.

You know, I'll say it's good. I do do some good guitar work, but I always

want to strive for a higher level.

A lot of times I can't. A lot of times playing live, all of us have to give up

a little musicianship for jumping up in the air and doing a flip or whatever.

And it's, you know, I'm sure I could play more proficient live if I stood

still and never had to do any choreography.

But, you know, you give a little and it's a give and take situation. It's

like everything. You've got to give up something to gain something else.

Oh, yeah.

Most of the English, you know, the English rock invasion affected me.

in a very positive way.

I really thought that they had the right idea.

Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Peter Townsend was a big influence on me.

I saw the Who's first New York appearance at the Mary Decay show.

They were opening up for Mitch Wright in Detroit Reels. I was there with my

friend. I was 16, 15 or 16 years old.

And he threw his guitar 20 feet in the air and caught it in a smoke bomb. I

said, this is the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen in my life. I want

to do the same thing.

And then Ace found a song.

New York Groove.

Written by Russ Ballard, originally recorded by the British glam rock band

Hello in 1975.

Ace took it and made it his own.

Why choose it?

Because it sounded like Ace.

It had swagger.

It had attitude.

It had a sense of place.

And most importantly, it didn't sound like something Gene Simmons would write,

or Paul Stanley, or Peter Criss.

It sounded like Ace Frehley.

And that distinction would turn out to be very important.

The rest of the album was almost a diary of Ace's personality.

Rip It Out, Speedin' Back to My Baby, Snowblind, Ozone, What's on your

mind? I'm in need of love, Wiped Out, and the instrumental Fractured Mirror.

Speeding Back to My Baby was co-written with Ace's wife, Jeanette.

Wiped Out developed from an Ace riff with Anton Fig helping shape the lyrics.

And Fractured Mirror gave Ace the opportunity to demonstrate that he could

create something atmospheric and instrumental.

There was also another important ingredient.

Ace's Drinking By this stage, alcohol was increasingly becoming part of the

story. And while Ace's drinking problems would become far more serious in the

years ahead, the seeds were already there.

The irony is that Ace's solo album was probably the purest expression of who he

was. But the same freedom that made the record exciting also exposed the

problems that came with giving Ace complete independence.

oh i really did in fact it was that point in my life where i was kind of i'd

always been wanted to be a commercial artist you know i designed the kiss logo

and i've designed other other things for people you know my specialty is logos

i'm into lettering all that kind of stuff and layout work and uh

And when I was around 16, you know, that was the point in my life where I said,

well, what am I going to do? Am I going to go to art school and really seriously

become a commercial artist? Or do I want to be a rock and roller?

And after seeing, you know, the Who Live, I really made the decision.

It's pretty inspiring, that type of...

Theatrics mixed with rock and roll always excited me the most. I mean, good

rock and roll is good rock and roll. But when you can mix it with a theatrical

show and make it that much more exciting, that's probably

the whole thing that makes KISS work.

Well, the answer to that is obvious.

I mean, some of it has to rub off.

And then Peter.

This is where the story becomes genuinely sad.

Because Peter Criss' solo album wasn't a Kiss album.

It wasn't a hard rock album.

It was Peter's attempt to show the world what he actually loved.

Soul, R&B, Motown, Blues, Pop.

The album was produced by Vinnie Poncia and recorded between April and July at

Electric Lady in New York, Burbank and Sunset Sound in Los Angeles.

Poncia was an interesting choice.

He had worked in the Phil Spector orbit.

He'd worked with Ringo Starr, and he understood vocal-based pop and R&B.

Peter wanted to make an album that sounded like his musical roots.

Not the sound of Kiss.

His sound.

Four of the songs came from Peter's pre-Kiss band, Lips.

I'm Gonna Love You, Don't You Let Me Down, That's the Kind of Sugar Papa

Likes, and Hooked on Rock and Roll.

These weren't songs Peter suddenly invented because Casablanca told him to

make a solo record.

They were part of his musical history.

They went back to Before Kiss, and then there was Tossin' and Turnin', a cover

of the Bobby Lewis hit from 1961.

Why that song?

Because it fitted Peter's musical personality.

The song came from the world of R&B and soul that Peter loved, and suddenly we

could hear the man behind the Catman.

Peter's album featured a huge supporting cast.

Alan Schwartzberg on drums, Bill Bodine on bass, Stan Penridge on guitar, Art

Munson, Elliot Randall, John Trepea, Steve Lukather, Bill Cuomo on keyboards,

Lenny Castro on percussion, the horn players, backing vocalists, and more.

And there's something ironic here.

Peter wanted freedom.

Yet his solo album involved an enormous supporting cast, because perhaps Peter's

strength was never about being the most technically accomplished musician in

Kiss. It was about feeling.

His voice, his phrasing, his personality, his ability to make a song

sound lived in.

And that's exactly what this album attempted to capture.

Yeah, I think that's why our manager, Bill, did that. You know, it was like...

Maybe the Beatles white album or their sergeant pepper. It's when they finally

showed their versatility I mean when Harrison finally broke out and did his

thing and Ringo finally did his thing We're doing it now, and I think it's

gonna. It's gonna show it. I mean it's gonna It's time.

Yeah, we've been doing kiss albums for six years and now

We've got to show everybody there's more talent in the band than just that style.

And you're right. A lot of kids just dig the show.

Half the time, I don't even know if they know what the hell we're singing about

or what we're playing about.

With Beth, they really listened. I mean, because it did make the top ten. I did

win a big award for it.

They're going to listen again now. I think it's going to make our audience

bigger.

Yeah, well, it is New York.

I mean, because I played clubs like Trudy Heller's and Metropole, and I

played with Joey D for a while doing the Peppermint Twist.

There's a song that I do called I Can't Stop the Rain, and I open it up in an

echo chamber like I'd be in a subway in New York, and I go, this is New York.

And it is very New York, and I did some tunes in New York City, but I did the

rest out here, and what I was afraid of was L.A. musicians.

thinking, oh man, they're so laid back, and let's take a help salad break, and

I'm not going to really get no kick-ass music from them, and they're not going

to play real New York City for me.

But I was fooled, because Vinnie Ponce, my producer, is from Brooklyn, and he

grew up in the streets also, and he got musicians that really played very

streetsy, very New Yorkish, which I needed very bad, because I'm from New

York. And I'm proud of him, really, from Brooklyn.

Yes, I am.

He's... How can I say it?

Extremely bright. I mean, one of the brightest.

I mean, I've worked a lot of producers, but he set my drums up in the middle of

the studio and set the musicians around me.

And he's the only producer I've ever seen, instead of sitting behind the

board, inside the room, playing it cool, sits outside.

And he also arranges, plays every instrument, sings.

He sings a lot of the songs you heard, he's singing on them.

And he won a Grammy with Leo Sam. And he worked with Richard Perry,

who was genius.

And when I met Vinnie and I set up that way, I instantly got...

respect as an artist and he didn't never told me how to drum never once said drum

this way because he knew it you know what i he respected me instantly i

respected him you know and he was like you could do it man uh the key's too

high let's try this key uh this song should be sung a little quieter why

don't you just take it easy don't put all your energy in at once uh i'm

learning how to run a board differently we're working side by side it's a very

close relationship From New York, there was a guitarist called Elliot Randall,

who I worked with in the early days.

Elliot's one of the best in New York.

There's a lot of them. I can't think of all their names. There's like Bob Como,

who played synthesizer piano, and Richard Gerstein, who played on piano in

New York.

There's Bill Bodine, who played bass.

I used the Farragut brothers, who Vinnie worked with on a lot of albums, so

Harmony. uh three bass players three piano players the horns and strings i've

used three black girls in new york three black girls out here so it's uh there's

a lot of people there it really is the only other song i did from anybody else

was bobby lewis's tossing and turning and i always liked it because i have

insomnia and i can't sleep at night and it's true and i related to it and i used

to do it years ago and i thought and vinnie came up with it anyway and he

said the song has never been done only once and with your voice and my

arrangement let's redo it man and it's a great tune and it is i love it you know

i couldn't sleep at all last night it was so such so true man and it reminds

me of new york and i did it and the other tune uh you matter to me uh i

don't know who wrote it but he brought that in for me and rearranged it it's

the only two tunes i'm doing

from somebody else. All the rest I've written myself.

Which hasn't been, if you think about it, the sounds have changed so much. I

mean, like now the Bee Gees are in and disco is very big. I mean, I thought

disco would last for a year.

It's the biggest thing happening.

And the song that mattered to me is very disco. So I did it. I did disco.

Only my way.

It's an old style that we know about.

That I brought back and to them it'll be a new sound all over again Music is a

circle clothing is a circle. Everything's a circle. It comes back.

I want to bring back That era when Sam and Dave, you know Soul

man all that Motown was really big then, you know an end to Supremes and Shangri

-La's and it was really a happening era and it was good dancing music and now

dancing is back Yeah That says it all. It's true.

Because it's time now. I think it's my time to do that. I've waited and waited,

and I was eating my heart out because this music was in me so long. I was

dying to do it and dying to do it because I know they're going to accept

it. I think they're really going to get off on it.

Yeah, it's going to blow my mind. The movie's coming out, the NBC

two-hour special, which was our first acting debut, which was weird.

because we never acted before and it was actually dramatic in lines and really

getting into characters and all.

So that's going to come out and for Soul Helm, so it's going to be a very heavy

month for us. And then we're working on, we want to do another motion picture,

because it's only going to be TV, we want to do a really movie motion picture

and do a soundtrack for it, like Hellboy or A Hard Day's Night.

And then we'll probably do a three-month stadium tour next summer.

And by then, we haven't been around by then for probably two years, so kids

will be dying to hear us, and by hearing these albums, they'll be dying to hear

these songs.

So it's going to be great.

That's one thing we did that the Beatles didn't do.

I think we're maybe the first band to ever do that.

Probably, I think we are, to do that.

I don't compare us to the Beatles, because I love the Beatles. I mean,

they're my favorite band.

But we are a phenomenon, and we're the only group that...

Like the Beatles sold lunch boxes and radios and buttons and buckles and all

that stuff.

And no other band has done that. And we had the largest show that's ever been

put out.

We do cause insanity and kids go crazy. And I haven't seen that since the

Beatles. And we're the first New York band to become a super group. No New

York band has ever become a super group, nor sold out the Garden Three Nights.

I'm really proud of that. Very, very proud of that.

And it'll go down in history. I don't remember any band from New York except

for the Rascals, and they weren't even as big as us, but they were great. They

weren't a phenomenon.

Kiss is a phenomenon. I mean, we really are, and I'm proud of it.

It's scary. I don't like to think about it a lot because it scares me because I

don't believe we're that big until I get on the ramp and run up and hit the

thing.

You know, like Tokyo. We sold out.

six nights at the Budokan and broke the Beatles records and they don't even know

what we're singing about and they're fainting and going crazy and it was

like, I felt like I was Ringo Starr actually and it was a great feeling, you

know, especially being from New York. Usually New York bands don't have a

chance, you know, we never did.

It's always English groups are the big groups.

So I'm really proud of that. I really am.

And doing four solo albums and still being in Kiss is great.

I think it's really going to blow a lot of minds. It really is.

Probably more than I even realise.

We mustn't forget the artwork.

Casablanca wanted the four albums to look like they belonged together.

So the Italian artist, Araldo Carragati, painted matching portraits for all four

covers.

Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter.

Four paintings, one visual identity.

The idea was brilliant. You could walk into a record shop and immediately

understand. These four albums belong together.

They're Kiss.

But they're also individuals, and that contradiction was exactly what the

project was about.

The albums were separate, but the packaging told us they were still one

family. At least commercially.

One by each of the four KISS stars on Casablanca Records and Takes.

On September the 18th, the day of the album's release, the four albums were

greeted with enormous publicity.

Initially, Gene's album performed best.

That wasn't exactly a surprise.

Gene had always been one of the band's dominant personalities.

His album had the biggest guest list, the most publicity, the most outrageous

concept, and Gene knew how to promote himself.

But something unexpected happened.

Ace began catching up.

And then, New York groove exploded.

The single eventually reached number 13 in the Billboard Hot 100.

Ace's album reached number 26.

Gene's reached number 22.

Paul's number 40. And Peter, number 43.

The initial certifications were extraordinary.

All four albums were certified gold and platinum on October 2nd. But that tells

only part of the story.

because Casablanca had shipped enormous quantities, and those shipments weren't

the same thing as actual consumer demand.

Eventually, huge numbers of unsold records were returned.

The experiment had worked commercially in some respects, but not in the way

Casablanca had imagined.

And this is where we have to ask a difficult question.

Were the four solo albums actually a success?

If you judge them by the charts, no.

If you judge them by the expectations placed upon them, no.

But if you judge them as an artistic experiment, absolutely.

Because for the first time, Kiss fans could hear four very different musical

personalities.

Gene was theatrical and eclectic. Paul was melodic and focused.

Ace was raw and guitar-driven.

Peter was soulful and nostalgic.

And suddenly the question wasn't, which Kiss member is your favourite?

It became, which KISS member are you?

And that was potentially dangerous, because KISS had spent years convincing

the public that the four characters were equally important.

Now Casablanca was literally asking fans to choose.

Tonight on CBS Late Night, look who's about to break the sound barrier.

Who can resist them?

a once-in-a-lifetime happening, a monster of a show. I don't believe it!

For everyone who's tired of spending a quiet evening at home, stay tuned as

Kiss meets The Phantom of the Park.

Then on October 28th, 1978, America finally got to see Kiss meets The

Phantom of the Park.

The film had been shot earlier in the year. Now it was broadcast nationally by

NBC.

Produced by Hanna-Barbera, it starred Kiss as superheroes battling evil

inventor Abner Devereaux.

The film was a huge piece of Kiss mythology.

But there was a problem.

Kiss hated it.

They felt they had been turned into buffoons.

The band were presented in a way that didn't match the dangerous image they

had spent years cultivating.

And yet the audience loved Kiss.

The film became a major television event.

Its long-term reputation among critics would be another matter entirely.

Today, it's become a cult object.

Some fans adore it precisely because it's ridiculous.

Others consider it one of the worst things Kiss ever did.

But commercially, it demonstrated something very important.

Kiss could attract an enormous television audience.

And internationally, the story continued.

The film was later released theatrically in various overseas markets under titles

including Attack of the Phantoms and Kiss Phantoms, with versions that

differed significantly from the American television cut.

Kiss had conquered records, they had conquered arenas, now they were

conquering television.

But the individual members were becoming increasingly visible too.

I never really had any negative feelings about the film.

i thought it was funny i laughed at some of the scenes you know i cringed at some

of the scenes but you know i was intelligent and smart enough to realize

that you know it is it was what it was it was just a silly rock and roll

movie that was designed for kiss fans you know it wasn't you know love story

Yeah, so I took it in that light, and to this day, you know, I don't have a

problem with the film.

On November the 8th, Ace Frehley appeared for an interview at WGCL Radio

in Cleveland with Tim Bird.

And this is an important period for Ace, because his solo album had become a

genuine success.

New York groove was everywhere.

For perhaps the first time, Ace was being treated as a star in his own

right.

And that was both exhilarating and dangerous.

Because Ace had always wanted recognition, but recognition came with

responsibility.

And Ace wasn't necessarily equipped for that responsibility.

The drink was becoming increasingly significant.

And as the solo album gave him more independence, it also gave him more

opportunity to indulge the lifestyle that accompanied it.

Did you ever get props from the guys in Kiss after your...

album was so successful? Gene would never admit it. Gene would always say

his records sold more.

Yeah.

It was hard for those guys to compliment me.

And I don't know why they were like that. You know, they never wanted to

give me credit where credit was due.

They always tried to hog the spotlight when we were performing live.

I had arguments with the video director. I go, look, when I'm doing a guitar

solo, I want the camera on me. I don't want it on Paul shaking his ass.

And, you know, that should happen.

And I don't know. It was just, you know, when I did something amazing, they

would just say, OK, that's a take.

It was never like I never got.

a lot of praise from those guys.

Away from, you know, in the studio or even the way I played live, you know, it

was never, you know, I don't know if they were jealous or,

well, I think I know Paul was jealous of me because, yeah, he was a guitar player

and a struggling lead guitar player.

i think he always wanted to be able to play as well as i did but that ain't

gonna happen on november the 18th gene simmons appeared at tape city

in new orleans it was another example of the new reality gene wasn't simply

promoting kiss he was promoting gene simmons his solo album his persona

his celebrity his business interests

And behind the scenes, his relationship with Cher continued to place him in a

world far removed from the traditional Kiss touring circuit.

The demon was becoming a celebrity in his own right.

And that couldn't help but affect the internal balance of the band.

On November 27th, Gene appeared on one of the pilot episodes of the Tony

Tennille show.

And he did it in full demon makeup.

The orchestra played radioactive.

And Gene walked onto a mainstream television set looking like he'd just

escaped from a heavy metal nightmare.

And here's the leader and co-founder, Gene Simmons!

waited i did not want to see gene with his makeup and i'll have to tell you

that gene came over to the house a few days ago without his makeup and daryl

and i spent an hour and a half we could have spent all day talking to him and

before we get started i want to say that he is probably one of the most handsome

intelligent articulate it's not true It is true.

Is that breaking your image? But I just wanted to tell you that there is a great

-looking guy under there. But we talked about so many terrific things, and I

want you to know about them. First of all, the story about how you started

Kiss.

You were with a musical group that played real music, you said. Yeah, and,

well, that infers all kinds of things.

I mean,

it was a Crosby, Stills, and Nash type of a group, you said. It was like

Crosby, Stills, and Kiss, I think.

Actually, I think a lot of people are surprised to hear me talk for the first

time Is this the first time you've talked on national television? I think

so The

way

to make quick friends anyway Actually the group started as

a kind of a of an experiment we wanted to do everything that we've always

dreamt of seeing on stage we wanted to put together the kind of band the kind

of band that we've always dreamt of seeing live on stage the band that would

stop at nothing to give the audience to give the audience everything that they

could possibly conceive of isn't it true that it was almost kind of a calculated

thing on your part though that you you read the trades and you studied what you

felt that was needed in the business today?

Well... At that time, which was about six years ago, right? Actually, we

didn't do anything more than just go to concerts and see other rock and roll

bands on stage.

And the thing that happened is we noticed... That's a nice-looking camera.

It's a beautiful camera.

It is. The thing that we noticed is when the lead singer would have an off night,

that the whole band would perish.

And so the premise behind Kiss was to put together four lead guys, four guys

that would do...

Nothing short of going insane on stage to capture the attention of the

audience. And so the premise behind Kiss is four guys that go nuts every night.

They like it. They love to hear that. Now, there was another one of the

members who actually got together with you, and you were both in the same band

before Kiss, right? The band started in 1973.

Paul Stanley and myself were two guys roaming the streets of New York at

night, along with other...

kinds of people. Uh-huh.

I'm not supposed to smile, guys.

Did you see this roaming the streets of New York at night?

I don't think he looked like this when he roamed the streets.

I looked a little bit different, but not too much.

The boots were a little bit shorter, but that was about it. How did you find the

other two guys?

Ace was on a street corner panhandle. No, no, Ace was not there.

Actually, it kind of happened the same way a lot of rock and roll bands get

together. We placed ads in newspapers.

Is that true?

Yeah. In fact, Peter Criss, our drummer, came into the fold, as it were, from an

ad in Rolling Stone magazine.

Really? Yes. In fact, his ad said something like, drummer, 11 years

experience, willing to do anything to make it.

And I remember the first question I asked him is, what do you look like?

What do you believe in?

Things that inferred that to him right away that we would stop at nothing to

put together.

the ultimate rock and roll show tell tell that wonderful story about how the

kiss army got started that's what they call their fan club the kiss army and it

started in terre haute indiana is that not true it's true in fact there was a

young man whose name was bill starkey he's about 56 years old no that's not

he's 18 years old and uh one afternoon the radio station in terre haute indiana

refused to play kiss music the record that we had out at the time this was

three years ago

And Bill Starkey, in no uncertain terms, told him that at 5 o'clock, when he

comes off the air, if he does not play one Kiss song, then 4,000 members of

something that he called the Kiss Army would surround the station, and he just

wouldn't be able to go home. The disc jockey, of course, thought that he was

kidding. 5 o'clock that day, he decided to open up the doors of his radio

station, and he saw 4,000 people in front of him, made up like us, that kept

pointing, go back inside.

So he went back and said it. I love that.

So it's because of Starkey that you call it the Kiss Army now. We decided to call

the fan club that because it's more than a fan club.

Members of the fan club dress up like us, you know. They spend time building

outfits like this.

I think they do more than, they're more than members. They really live the part.

That's incredible.

We're going to be right back with Gene Simmons, so don't go away. Got a lot

more to talk about.

We're back here with Gene Simmons, the leader of KISS. And I think... Oh, my

goodness. It's breathtaking, Gene. It truly is. But I think... I think a lot

of people are fascinated by the outfits. Now, who designed this whole outfit that

you have? I did. In fact, the important thing about the band that all our fans

realize is that everything from the makeup to the stage design to the

outfits are designed by the band.

Each man designs his own outfit.

We have some people that are in back of us, of course.

It's true what they say, behind every guy there's a girl.

So we've got a lady that takes care of all this stuff.

Make sure that it's kept in tip-top condition, but otherwise, I design this.

It's like a wardrobe lady.

Absolutely. But you have quite a unique wardrobe to be taken care of. She's

about ten feet tall. She would have to be ten feet tall. Could you think that

we could stand up? Can you guys? Oh, sure. I want people to be able to really

see what he's wearing.

Maybe you could describe what you're wearing. Well, this is Larry.

Larry's kind of shy. He doesn't say anything very much. I love him. He just

kind of gets by on his looks. Say hello, Larry.

Oh, that's great.

And this is Harry, of course, his double.

made out of this is made out of a material i don't know the specific name

for it but it's a kind of a plastic that space cones are made out of they're non

-flammable they weigh very little but all together this entire outfit weighs

about 30 pounds i'd say 30 pounds under hot lights as you can see beautiful

these are chains of course i keep my lunch on me at all times and uh

Now, what is this here? These death heads here, are they made out of what?

It looks like steel.

Yeah, they are kind of a light metallic steel.

Oh, they're very light. Oh, I feel that now.

But all together, you know, this kind of builds up. These are real studs. Would

you like one?

I would love to have one. Are you going to give me one? Absolutely.

Eat your hearts out.

We're going to show...

Another clip of your incredible show that you guys do. I must say that I have

never seen them in concert, but Gene has promised me a front row seat with

earplugs when they go to Anaheim soon. I will be there, and I'm sure it will be

fabulous. Let's take another look at the fabulous Kiss.

We're back with Gene Simmons of KISS, and you told me when you talked over at

our house that your show, you travel so much, and you're, like, how much, in

fact, didn't you get some kind of award or something for being the travelingest

band? Yeah, the only kind of award I got was from my mother, who, of course,

disavowed me. She didn't recognize me when I came back home. No, no, the fact

is that we've been on the road so much that we received some kind of an award.

I don't know by which organization.

That doesn't...

of course sound too good but the first year we were out uh 280 days out of 360

something so that means that we got one day off per week something like that a

day off per week but we toured for the entire year what does that do to your

personal life i mean can you have any kind of relationships with you of course

have to go along you know you uh you kind of land in the city and you see

what's doing now come on i mean

Daryl and I have each other when we're on the road, and it's nice, you know,

because I think one of the things about the road that makes it tough is

loneliness. Do you ever feel that, or do you just love it?

We are not too lonely for some reason.

Maybe I'm not expressing myself.

Well, I think what you're getting at. I think relationships really are

wonderful, but for the past six years, they really haven't fit too well into my

lifestyle. Do you think they ever will?

I think there's a possibility. I'm certainly giving it a whack.

Is it okay if we talk about Cher? Sure, you can. She is a beautiful lady.

She's wonderful.

And do you ever see anything more permanent in the future, or are you both

kind of wanderers? I think we're both realistic enough to realize that we both

want different things out of life, and I think if you don't try to put any

limitation on anything, you're more freer. I think we're using fancy words

to say the same thing, but...

She's got stuff that she wants to do. I've got stuff that I want to do. And I

can't wait to get back on the road.

This was Gene at his best.

He understood television.

He understood publicity.

And he understood that the more bizarre the appearance, the more people would

remember it.

But again, look at what's happening.

Gene is building Gene Simmons.

Not just Kiss.

Gene Simmons.

Two days later, Gene was in Cleveland.

an appearance at Cosmic Comics, an interview at WMMS, and another

television appearance with Denny Sanders interviewing him on WEWS-TV's Afternoon

Exchange.

And the rest of Gene Simmons of KISS.

And he's here with us in one of the very best comic book stores in all of

Cleveland, Cosmic Comics.

I come here often, as a matter of fact. Yes, he comes here often. Cosmic Comics.

in the colonial plaza downtown cleveland and gene you're a real comic book fan

you've been for many years haven't you it's true as a matter of fact among the

other things that i've been involved with comic books have always been near

and dear to me you know without uh people like the fantastic four spider

-man and all the rest of the weirdos out there with all kinds of social problems

that marvel has put out some of the dc heroes too Without the comic book

heroes, we wouldn't have been around, that's for sure. I guess comic books in

general and all of the sort of surrealism that you see in the pages of

good comics help to form the basic nucleus for kids, don't you think?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I think without comic books, a lot of the young

people out there who have kind of vivid imaginations and who think that there's

somebody else, when in fact they really are.

But of course, they only change when the lights go out, when nobody else is

watching.

uh without comic books without outlets like uh secret no

no that's the wrong magazine you can't that's the wrong table scene we long

table without obvious outlets without you know being young and thinking that

you're sore or or that you're hurt or that you're sore if you're oh i can't do

that guys no without without having an outlet for your fantasy it's hard to

grow up and be mature i mean i refuse to do that I refuse to grow up. There's no

reason at all why people can't remain young, at least in their minds, all

their lives.

There's just no reason.

There's all this imagination all around us.

Oh, God, look at that. A great superhero comic.

One of your favorites, huh? One of my favorites.

One of the all-time bestsellers, as I understand it. How do you feel about

that, after all these years of being a comic book fan, having one of the

biggest-selling Marvel comics of all time?

God, that's a great question.

Well, I mean, to say that it's a dream come true is a little bit playing it

down, except that I guess nobody else that's ever read Marvel Comics can say

that.

I don't know.

I think maybe KISS fans are a special breed of people. I think they're not

afraid to go against the stream of things. I think that they're not afraid

of... even going to the rock and roll concerts and makeup and actually trying

to live out a part they may be similar to the science fiction and fantasy fans

that go dressed up as the hulk or uh or the silver surfer or somebody else

there's something really special in people that have vivid imaginations that

makes them disregard all the all the kind of uh silly rules that society

places on us about how we dress how we look you know there's a lot of

There are a lot of laws about how you're supposed to look walking down the

street. You're supposed to wear this when you go here.

When you go to church, you're supposed to wear this. When you do this, you're

supposed to do that. Even the way, you know, your mother and father want you to

appear a certain way. Your preacher wants you to appear a certain other way.

When you go for a job, they want you to look a different way. This is the way I

look. Coming up this summer, you say that you're going to be putting a big

show on the road. Can you tell us about that?

Everything about us has to do with being big.

When in fact, you know, our main purpose in life is always... There's no

comparison there, is there?

What do you think about those shoe sizes, guys?

Mine are 1298 specials at Uncle Bill's.

Where do you get your stuff? How do you get this? Do you design this stuff? Do

you walk into strange stores or what?

It's...

It's the way a scientist figures out how to do a new thing. It's the way a

designer figures out how to design a new set of duds. Sometimes you go into a

junk shop, and I'm pretty serious about this. You'll see strange things, strange

designs. You may go to a museum. You may see different kinds of outfits. Or the

obvious perfect thing is to pick up any comic book where everybody goes nuts.

There are artists designing hundreds of thousands of different outfits.

different costumes different designs different facial makeup i mean makeup is

nothing new comic book heroes have been doing it forever and be and before them

people like al jolson and before them even people like uh i don't know indians

going out on war paths would always paint themselves up so there's just

nothing new under the sun so what you have to do hopefully what this all boils

down to is your imagination when you go to a kiss show it's the place where

nobody's going to tell you to be quiet there's nobody that's going to tell you

you can't scream here you can't make noise you can't jump up and down on your

seats the prerequisite of any kiss show is before we step up on stage everybody

rises there's a kind of an homage paid and i accept it you know i mean i know

that the people out there are waiting to see the greatest show of their life and

they stand up in expectation and it's not easily won you know if we don't put

out for them they destroy us so they before we even hit the first note we

step up on that stage and everybody gets up off their seat because they're

expecting something special and because there's that expectation we you know

there's that equal transfers you give us something we'll give you something make

me feel important and i'll give you the show of your life yes one of the most

important bands in the whole world one of the most entertaining bands in the

whole world coming back to cleveland what are you talking about like maybe

the summertime late spring early summer we'll be coming back to cleveland to

give cleveland a taste of sane intelligent stadium rock and roll

concert uh size spectacular i'm using big words only because those are the

only words i can use to describe what we want to do we want to do the same things

comic books have been doing in the framework of pages live there's no

reason why uh godzilla's should have the only license on breathing fire you know

and there's no reason why uh oh i don't know a sore should be the only one that

flies through the air with the greatest of ease i mean anything that's got to do

with a limit on your imagination is something that doesn't involve kiss

we're here to stretch the boundaries of what rock and roll is supposed to mean

what visual entertainment is supposed to mean we're going to try to give you the

best possible show we can that's the premise behind the band and i think

you'll see what we mean this summer all right Gene Simmons, hanging around

Cleveland here at Cosmic Comics.

This is Gene Simmons. Make him believe he's jumping. Make him believe he's a

disc jockey. If you want to talk to Gene Simmons, we'll do it to you. In the

meantime, let's play a little music for you.

The phones are ringing.

The phone is motioning to itself. It says, answer me, talk to me, touch me,

hold me. Touch me, feel me.

This is Paul.

This is Gene Simmons on WMMS.

Hi, Dave.

Hi. How are you doing?

I'm doing really fine. You guys have been setting me up for this.

What's your name?

Hi. Hi, Ann. Hi. How old are you?

Oh my goodness.

I think

that's

a fair question. I guess everybody's been asking that.

Cher is one of the people that I know and sometimes I fear and sometimes I

don't but that certainly doesn't mean that I want to get married. I don't want

to have children. She's a wonderful person and I love being with her but

that shouldn't stop you if you want to knock on my door.

Everything about KISS says power.

Their makeup, their music, and their performance.

And although it's the fans who give them their power, the group must decide how

to use it. We never tell anybody what to do, how to dress, who to vote for, you

know, what to think.

We never misuse it, but yes, I think we do have power.

If we wanted 20,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 people, then masks.

It's E-M-M-A-S-S-E, guys. We're smart, too.

If we ever wanted an entire audience to do something en masse, all we have to do

is say, do this, and they do it without question.

Because they would never abuse our audience because they know...

But our secret is that without them, we wouldn't be here. This is Jumpin' Gene

Simmons right here on WMMS.

I don't think it's a mask.

I don't think it's as much a mask as the makeup that you're wearing is a mask.

Or the haircut that he's got.

Or the beehive hair that some ladies out in the audience may have.

Everything that you do is for effect. Otherwise, the scale of news wouldn't be

so high.

Sometimes you're smiling, sometimes you're proud, and sometimes you're

angry, and sometimes you're happy. A thousand different ways that you can

look.

And that doesn't mean you're bastardizing yourself.

You know who you are. You know this is the most serious interview I've ever

done. Usually I'm either biting the camera or doing something.

Can you explain the phenomenal success of Kiss?

Her approach is unique, and they are as much actors as musicians.

A KISS concert does more than entertain.

It explodes, and it demands the participation of its audience.

The group knows exactly what makes it work.

We get together and have real serious meetings, you know, when, of course,

everybody's in makeup and everybody's wearing the chains and leather.

And we sit around tables with our eight-inch boot heels and we throw

things back and forth. And besides the apple pies and things that go flying

back and forth, we talk about the kinds of things that are really important.

What do you, the fans, want to see, want to hear?

It's what really you want that counts. And so that's what the show's really

always been about.

Why do you think the kids come?

To see the greatest show on earth, of course.

All the smoke and the blood spilling and all that, is that important?

Firebombs and levitational platforms.

Americana, you know, everything that's got to do with... It's Disney, 100

megaton bomb size.

Without anybody ever getting hurt, people always have a real secret, is

that they're not part of the fun.

One more. This is Gene Simmons, live on WMNS.

Well,

you tell your mother I'll see her sometime.

Okay?

Is this tongue really seven inches long, or is it phony?

Ask your mother to call me later. Bye.

Bye. All right, Gene.

Let me look at your tongue here. Why?

Holy cow. Here it comes.

Actually,

I come from a long line of long tongue. My mother, of course, has two little

wheels, and she drags hers a block behind her.

Probably any mother would be relieved to know that despite his bizarre makeup and

costume, there are some all-American qualities about Gene Simmons.

I still like ringdings and milk and horror movies and not too much more.

You're the kid you were. Yeah, I don't own any cars. I drive around in limos

because I can't drive.

And I still like ice cream.

Chocolate chip, of course.

Any last-minute crazy things you want to say to conform with expectations?

No, but I will say something to anybody after this.

You know, the weird guy or the weird girl that always has the weird things

that they'll do that their friend put them down for.

Don't think it's so weird.

Maybe someday somebody will let you give you the chance to make a living out of

it. Just stick to it. You'll be weird.

Gene was everywhere.

And this is where Bill O'Coin's influence becomes important again.

O'Coin understood publicity.

He understood that KISS had to be visible constantly.

But there was a problem.

The more the individual members were promoted separately, the more the idea

of KISS as a single unit became diluted.

And nowhere was that more obvious than in December.

Because now it was Paul's turn.

On December 4th, Paul Stanley appeared at Oasis Records and Tapes in Pittsburgh

to promote his solo album.

He also participated in a PM Magazine interview broadcast on WTTV Channel 4

and made an appearance at JXKX Radio.

The rock group known as KISS has enjoyed huge success in the music industry,

primarily from adolescents and young teens, although many older fans are just

as enthusiastic.

The group is appearing to kick off what they call the biggest tour on earth next

year. The outfits of the members of the group and special effects of their

performance on stage are at times mesmerizing.

Today I talked to Paul Stanley, who is the lead guitarist of the group, and

asked him why the magnetism between the group and young people is so great.

And I think it's a lot more thrilling to know that there's a real Superman than

to see something that's put together for movies. We're flesh and blood.

I think we represent freedom, expression of your

fantasies. We're like a dream.

We're like the things that a lot of people think about.

but don't talk about. So we represent all of that to them.

What about some of the things that are done on stage? I understand your bass

player, Gene Simmons, breathes fire and spits blood. What possible purpose could

that have?

Entertainment. You know, I think part of the problem sometimes is that people

tend to read into what we're doing and give it much more significance than is

really meant.

It seems like it would be violence-inducing.

Well, I don't really see it that way. You know, the three superstars used to

hit each other with hammers, and nobody complained about that. You know, I used

to see Superman television shows where he would fly out the window.

He didn't make me put a towel around my neck and jump out the window.

What about your music? Do you feel...

that you and the rest of the people in the group could stand on your music

alone. No makeup, no gimmicks, no blood, no fire.

Just a bunch of guys getting up there doing their thing. We would be a

different band, but it would work as heavy metal music. It would work in the

context that it was meant.

I think most bands either have a gimmick, if you want to call it that, or

a presentation.

It's just that we've taken a much more...

to an extreme approach, you know, and to the limits than most people do. I mean,

a band like the Eagles come out with a backdrop and trees and all kinds of

things.

I think we must be doing something right because every other band is copying them

at the moment.

But you think that you can stand on your own merit as musicians without the ease

of stone?

Absolutely. I think that was the purpose of the solo album, was for each one of

us to be able to create without the pressures of what people expect from

KISS. KISS has a very set sound, which doesn't necessarily mean that that's all

that any one of us is capable of.

What's the future for you and the other three guys? This is not going to last

forever, as they say, you know, the train will stop.

What's the future?

Well, I own the train.

What happens when Kiss is no longer popular? Something else comes in,

something else is it for that time.

That's what life is all about.

I don't see that as a problem because each one of us is pretty diverse in what

we're capable of doing.

I intentionally continue as a musician and I'm producing other acts already.

It just doesn't end here.

You know, the day that we don't go out as pissing or we don't lock ourselves

away in a house in a bar.

Welcome to Seattle. How are you doing, Tracy? Good to be back in Seattle.

Good to have you back here. What happened today? The planes screwed you

up in Denver? That was beautiful.

We were just coming in for a landing in Denver to switch planes, and as we were

coming in, there were really strong winds, and we couldn't land, so we took

off again, and all my luggage is gone, and I'm here dressed just like I would

if I was going to school tomorrow.

Tomorrow we have an in-store at 4.30. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. You should be good. Yeah, I've been doing

that for the last week, going out and going to the people, letting everybody

come and sign autographs. It's been great. I think in the last three or four

days, I've probably signed about 8,000 autographs.

Yeah, I've got calluses on my thumb. Really, it's like tennis elbow.

Tennis thumb, I like. That's right, you got it. Why don't we play your new

record after we do these commercials? Sure. Okay? All right.

This is Paul Stanley of Kids telling you to stop, bud.

Double album, $6.99. Tape or cassette, $7.99.

Now available at Woolworth, Musicland, Sears, Payless, and at Giant T, DJ Sound

City, and Fred Myers.

Hey,

all right.

That's good. At least I know I got a profession, if anything ever happens.

Let's go on the radio.

Hey, 10,000 words a minute, right? 10,000 words a minute. It's usually

like... Hey, how are you? And then they say, you're on. You go, hey, everybody,

it's really good to be here tonight. We're going to play the top ten. It's

really good.

Mark and the Merc at 54 degrees.

Really? You got it.

You're better than I am.

I know. I have to do this. But can you play the guitar?

Play bass for a while. All right. Yeah.

But can you spit blood?

No, I cannot spit blood.

Okay.

On the page two. Tell me about your new record. Where'd you do it at?

I did it, um, I started in New York, did part of it in L.A., and then I went to

England and mixed it.

And, um... I'm real happy with it.

Yeah,

it's a departure.

A lot of people, some people listen to it and go, wow, it sounds a lot like

Kiss, but it's my voice, and I sing a lot of the Kiss stuff. But other than

that, it's really not that similar. I mean, sure, it's rock, but things like

Hold Me, Touch Me.

On some radio stations, they were playing that without telling people who

it is, and they asked them to call in.

And Jesus, you know. It was Barry Manilow-itis, I don't know.

Hey, listen, win your share of 20 grand in ski gear and a trip to Europe.

That's it. Yeah? Yeah. It's our ski challenge. It's promotional doing.

Can I win?

Have you entered the contest?

I don't know, but can I get my high heel from a pair of skis?

That I think we are ready. Okay.

8 o'clock with Tracy Mitchell and Paul Stanley.

KJR, we'll be right out of your way.

Brampton with Tracy Mitchell and Paul Stanley. Why don't we talk to some folks

on the telephone? Yeah, why don't you call in? I'd like to talk to you. That's

what I'm here for. I'm tired of everybody calling me long distance to

New York.

KJR with Tracy Mitchell and Paul Stanley.

Let's get on the telephone.

Okay, talk to me.

First call, up now. Hello.

You're on the radio.

I'm on the radio.

You're on the radio. Oh, my God, I'm on the radio.

Yeah.

Who's this?

This is David Mayhew. How you doing? This is Paul Stanley.

Hi, Paul.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. Yeah. I know how you feel. I've been waiting to talk to you.

Yeah. Oh, hi.

What's going on? Oh, not much.

My question is, which of the kiss guys you prefer over the other ones?

I love them all.

I can't tell them without the makeup. They're all nice guys.

Well,

Gene's my real good friend. I see him more than the other guys, but we're all

like brothers, you know? If you have that many brothers, you can't spend your

time seeing them all.

Okay? All right, you take care.

Why?

Of course you win an album. I'm going to sign it, right?

Okay.

Everybody's going, yeah, really?

Yeah, really.

Signing out.

Sure.

Oh, God.

Bye.

Hello, you're on the radio.

Let's try another one. Hello, you're on the radio.

Talking with Paul.

Hello there.

Some of them are sick.

Oh,

they're laughing.

Hello. How you doing?

What's your name?

Michelle. Michelle?

Does your mother know you're calling?

Uh-oh.

I've been with Kiss

for six years, I think, since the band got together. Gina and I started the

band in 73, 72, 73.

Really? So now I'm about 17 years old.

Okay, Michelle.

Bye-bye.

Oh, my.

It's already afternoon now, okay?

Excuse me.

Hello, you're on the radio talking with Paul.

Okay. Yeah.

Hello. I am now.

Hello.

Hello there. Hello. Hello. Hi.

Hi. You're on the radio. How are you doing? I'm fine. How are you doing? I'm

great. What's your name?

Lisa. Lisa. I used to know a Lisa. She was my girlfriend. She broke my heart.

Oh, that's awful.

I know. What are you doing later?

Oh. Or maybe you can put it together. What's your question?

When you guys do this show, are you guys going to do another one?

Not for about a year or two.

You know, we took some time off from touring, and this year we're going to be

putting together a new show where we're going to be doing a lot of stuff from

the solo albums and from the Kiss albums, and it's very important that we

go out and start playing again, because I don't want anybody to think that we're

movie stars. We're rock and rollers.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, because when I saw that show, that was the first time I felt like you guys,

because before, I didn't, you know, I didn't like you guys at all.

When I saw the show, I immediately said my commandment, dive by buttons and

everything. Well, that's great. I thought it was time everybody knew we

could fly.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, I thought that was really great.

Okay. Nice talking to you. I know. Bye.

One more call. Hello?

Yeah, hello. You're on the radio.

Hello? Uh-oh. Yep.

Hey. Hey.

When's your next test concert in jail?

I think we're going to play here in May.

I think we should be here in May.

What building? I mean, you know. Where?

I think we're going to set up on the freeway.

Where are you really going to be? I really don't know yet. You know, it

depends. But by then, I'm sure you'll have enough notice.

Come see us.

Oh, yeah. Thanks a lot. All right. You take care. Okay, bye.

Bye. Hey, J.R., Tracy Mitchell with Paul Stanley and Kiss up here at the radio

station. I knew that guy had it right, Ace Fraley. Ace Fraley.

Did I say his name right?

Fraley. Fraley. Yeah, some people say Fraley. We told him in the beginning, we

said, Ace, you should change your name because nobody's going to be able to

pronounce it or spell it.

And he said, what are you, kidding?

Fraley? And since then, it's been frankly Abe Frawley.

The kid's got a long way to go.

He's doing good, though, you know. I think he'll probably make it, don't you?

I think he's going to realize his potential.

Soon? Well, next five years.

Hey, JR, Nick Gilder, here comes the night.

That's right. That guy's doing good, too. He's doing really well, right? Big

number one record with Hot Child.

Yeah, that's right. Two of those guys are on my album. The drummer and bass

player played on a bunch of cuts. Eric Nelson's the bass player, and Craig

Pramp was the drummer.

They're on the single, too? Yeah, they're on Homie Touch Me, and they're

on two or three other cuts, and they're on all Nick's stuff.

So Nick's doing really well, too. Yeah, it's good to see that. Let's get back on

the telephones again here. You got the first call ready?

Hello there. You're on the radio.

Hello. Hello.

What's your name? Okay. I want to know.

What's your name? I don't know.

I want to know how James Dimon did his fire.

That's a secret.

I can't tell anybody how he does that because a couple of years ago we had

some people try doing that and they wound up really sick. They wound up in

the hospital. It's not something for anybody to try.

I know, but I just wondered how he did it. Well, he's a dragon. Everybody knows

that.

Okay. Okay? Bye.

Hello, you're on the radio.

Hello? Hello.

Um, Paul?

Yeah. You know how hard it is to get through here?

Oh, I know. I've been trying to reach you all night.

Yeah, okay.

What gives you the idea to use makeup when you're trying to do anything?

What? Wear makeup?

Yeah. What gives you the idea for all that?

I don't know. I guess we're all crazy like you.

Thanks. Okay?

Okay. Bye.

Okay, you're on the radio talking with Paul.

Paul? Yeah.

All right, let's go. Oh, nothing much. What are you doing?

Oh, yeah?

Hope you know you're the greatest fan in the world.

Oh, thank you. I think so.

I know four other guys who think so. One's my manager.

All right.

I just wanted to know that you're the person who inspired me to play the bass,

and I wondered if you had any advice for me. Yeah, switch your guitar.

All right. Okay, take care.

How can you even tell me what your desires were?

I don't know. I don't know what happened, but... I heard that some of

your equipment got ripped off or something.

No, no, there's too much equipment to get ripped off, but we're going to be

back. We're going to be back here in May or June.

We'll do as many shows as you people want.

All right.

All right? We'll do as many shows as you people want, won't we?

Oh, you were great.

All right. Really, you were great. Hey, I'll meet you tomorrow. I'm bringing my

date. I want you to sign it for me. All right, take care. Hey, take care. Bye

-bye.

Hello.

Um, what's your name?

What year we got together in 72, late 72, early 73.

Okay. All right?

Bye. Bye.

You're on the radio.

Howdy. Howdy.

Hey, all right.

Hey, all right.

I just wanted to know, you said earlier there was a girl that broke her heart.

Mm-hmm. Did you do any of the songs on your solo album about her?

Lots of them.

My heart's always getting broken.

The same girl?

Oh, no. You only get one chance. Then I got to move on.

Okay, and there's one more. If you get the, there should be a letter there with

a poem in it. Uh-huh. And I came to the station today, and I gave it, and the

receptionist said, please get it here, and I just wanted to discuss it.

We got it.

It's here.

It's from somebody named Karen.

Uh-oh.

You know, it's got a long envelope, off-white. I got it here. It's got

pretty handwriting on it. It says Paul Stanley on it. And it's underlined? You

got it. That's it.

All right, I'm going to read it before I go to sleep, and I hope it gives me nice

dreams. Okay, I hope so.

Okay, sweetheart.

Bye. Bye.

KJR, you're on the air.

Preachless.

Hello. Paul?

Yes. Yeah, I was wondering when the next kids' comic book is going to be out.

I don't know. They take a long time to draw, and we have to see everything

before it comes out.

Are you working on a new album?

Not at the moment. I think Kiss is going to get together and do the next album in

February.

Okay. Okay? Thanks.

All right.

You're on the radio. Hello.

Hey, Paul.

Hey, how are you?

I wanted to know, did you finish high school?

Of course.

Doesn't everybody finish high school?

Maybe.

You should finish high school, otherwise you're going to have to learn the lost

art of pinstriping.

You didn't go to college, did you?

No, I didn't have time. I was too busy on the road. They didn't let me into

class with my guitar.

My mom likes you. Do you care if she asks a question?

No, I probably like your mom, too.

Hi. Hi.

Mom. Hey, how are you doing? I'm fine.

Whenever I walk in my children's rooms and see your pictures and everything,

there's one burning question.

Okay. Do you have a stylus for your chest?

For my chest? Uh-huh. Why?

It's all natural.

Oh, okay.

Actually, I bought it. I bought it at Bloomingdust.

Yeah, probably up at their yard. That's right.

Uh-huh.

Very good. Anytime you want, you can put your feet in it. I hope so. Okay.

Bye-bye. Bye.

KJR, you're on the air.

Can you tell me, does he like this?

The movie?

I love the movie. Oh. I like the guys in it, too.

Oh. Okay?

Was it real meat?

Was it real meat? Uh-huh. Is this an interview?

Yeah. Oh, yes. It was real meat.

Oh, okay.

Okay? Okay. Bye.

Bye-bye.

KJR, you're on the radio.

Hello.

Um, um, tell me, why did, um, why did you guys put on makeup? Who made, who

started that up? We started it up.

Um, tell me why.

I don't know. You know, there's a lot of people walking around that look like

you. There's not that many people walking around that look like me.

Okay.

All right.

Hello, KJR. You're on the radio.

Hi, how are you?

What's your name?

Kathy broke my heart also.

Yeah.

How do you cure a cold?

You get hot. I don't know.

Okay.

Bye-bye. Bye.

Hello, you're on the radio.

I am?

You are.

Okay.

Paul? Yeah.

I just kind of want to congratulate you on Hold Me, Touch Me. Oh, thank you.

It's a really beautiful song.

Thank you. Thank you. I was, you know, really looking to do something a little

different because everybody knows, you know, that basically we do a lot of rock

and that I sing a lot of rock and I wanted to do something, you know, ballad

because I write that kind of stuff too.

What gave you the inspiration for the song?

Oh, getting held in touch. Everybody needs that.

Really?

Okay. Yeah. Hey, take care. Yeah, you too.

Okay. Another call.

Hello, you're on the radio.

Hello. Hi.

Who is this? This is Paul.

Oh, hi. I'm Bobby.

Hey, Bobby. How are you? Oh, I'm fine.

What's going on?

Nothing much. I've been talking for about two hours. Really?

Yeah. I've been trying for about two years.

About what?

What's on your mind?

I don't know what you think of all these teen magazines putting stuff about you.

I think it's great. As long as they print things, then I'm okay, you know?

Yeah, but what if it ain't true?

Well, if it's not true, you know it.

Yeah. You know what's true, right?

Yeah. Right. Hey, when's your next concert going to be down in New Mexico?

New Mexico, huh? I don't have an itinerary. I don't know where we're

going to be.

But probably sometime around June.

Oh, great.

Okay. Okay, bye.

Bye. All right, this is the last call. One more phone call.

Hello? Hello.

Oh, hi, Paul.

What's your favorite song off your new album?

Oh, I don't know. It's a tie between, I think, nine of them.

Oh, I like it. It's all right.

Oh, yeah? Well, that's all right.

Okay. All right, you take care.

Okay.

Bye. Paul, it has been great having you here today. Crazy, it's been great.

And welcome to... It was worth the flight. Worth the flight. Tomorrow

afternoon at 4.30, we'll be at Peaches.

That's right.

Sign, you know, sign an autograph, bring down your records, bring down your

girlfriends. Bring down... Look out for them. Look out for them. Didn't the star

come from your face on your makeup? Right.

From the hidden desire to be a star and a lover?

Yeah. Yeah, hidden desire.

Mm-hmm. I think you brought it out into the foreground pretty good. I'm still

trying. You're doing good. Okay.

Thanks again for coming up here. It's been my pleasure. You've been great to

work with. Oh, you too. The best. Great. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

In 1970, these four young New Yorkers decided that just playing music wouldn't

make them millionaires.

But that maybe adding white makeup, black tight-fitting costumes, some

sequins and seven-inch heels, some subtle touches like spitting blood and

burning guitars, would.

Three gold and five platinum albums later, it looks like they've hit on

something.

It really goes back to the old,

you know,

basis that we started the group and that's that um we care we go out we uh

you won't find me in tahiti getting a suntan you know um i owe my fans they

make me what i am so to be able to go into a store and sign autographs or go

to a radio station and shake hands with a disc jockey is important i should

never think that i'm above that you know too many people believe all their own

hype

96kx suitcase with paul stanley i don't know first we got to do a kiss album

because everybody keeps wondering if we're breaking up so we're going to show

everybody and we're going to do a new album all right all right see you later

bye bye robert

I know too much about Jean. I know things that I can't even tell you. I

can't tell you, but I got to tell you, don't ever try that.

That's not for anybody to try. That's for you to enjoy when you do it.

Does it ever scare you that people will claw their way through their friends to

get to you?

It can be pretty frightening.

In Japan, once or twice, I really thought I had it. I thought this was it.

I don't want to wait and die on top.

It's not always this glamorous, but I enjoy it.

Can you honestly say you

enjoy meeting disc jockey after disc jockey, screaming teenager after

screaming teenager?

Every screaming teenager is different.

I enjoy it a lot, sure. I mean, to that particular teenager, if she's female,

she's the only one that really matters.

Their fans show up as much to see the costume and makeup as to meet Paul

Stanley himself, which is why the members of Kiss are never seen in public

without costumes and makeup.

Well, almost never.

People magazine got this shot of Paul and actually got the camera and film

away from Paul's bodyguard intact.

I've heard that you and the other members of the group have this obsession

about not wanting your pictures taken when you're not wearing makeup. We own a

very large collection of cameras and film. Really?

What, if somebody gets a picture, you take the camera away?

Well, we'll take the film and we'll pay them for it.

Yeah, I mean, we're not in the camera business, so we... But it's really that

important? Yeah, I think so. I think we care that much. It's not an obsession as

much as we care.

So what is it like for you walking down the street with no makeup?

I really don't look that different.

You know, I'm not quite this pale.

Why is it that you are very determined not to be photographed without the

makeup? Is that part of the mystique? Yeah, mystique.

Mystique played a big part in Hollywood during the 40s and 30s. Stars were

bigger than light.

I think we lost a lot of that in rock music around 1969, 1970.

In the early 60s, mid-60s, you had all the English bands. And when you looked

at them...

Nobody in the Stones looked like they belonged in the Beatles. You always knew

by looking at the band that they were part of the unit.

So we just decided to go back to that. During the late 60s, you had everybody

taking a lot of drugs and going to see groups, and you had light shows. And

basically the reason for the light show was because the band was so boring.

So what we figured is as long as you're paying, you might as well see something.

I can't believe I'm seeing this.

Oh, my God.

They blow fire and spit blood.

And that's neat, huh? Yeah.

And he takes his guitar and he makes all this fire and smoke and sparks come out

of his guitar.

It's really great.

Paul Stanley.

It's what a young New Yorker named Stanley Eisen started out to become nine

years ago.

And now that he's made it, he says he couldn't be happier.

If you wanted to be president all your life and you became president, you

wouldn't have much to complain about. I don't think you'd have much right to

complain. And I always wanted to be what I am.

Paul approached these appearances differently from Gene.

There was less spectacle, more conversation, more emphasis on

songwriting, more emphasis on the music.

Paul was trying to communicate, this is who I am, not the star child, Paul

Stanley.

Gene is doing Gene appearances.

Paul is doing Paul appearances.

Ace is being interviewed as Ace. Peter is increasingly isolated.

Four members.

Four promotional campaigns.

Four identities.

The experiment designed to relieve tension inside Kiss was simultaneously

making the individual members more independent.

And Peter's story was becoming the saddest of all.

His solo album hadn't performed anywhere near the level he had hoped or expected.

It eventually peaked at number 43, the lowest charting of the four.

And commercially, that had to hurt.

Because Peter had poured himself into that record.

He had tried to prove that his musical identity was valid.

And now the marketplace appeared to be telling him, the fans don't want this

Peter.

Of course that wasn't really true. The album eventually went platinum.

But compared with the expectations surrounding Kiss, the performance was

disappointing.

And Peter's personal life was deteriorating at the same time.

His marriage to Lydia was coming apart.

The pressures of fame, Peter's behaviour, substance abuse and the

instability surrounding his life all contributed to the breakdown of the

relationship.

And the failure of the solo album didn't help.

Instead of giving Peter confidence, it risked reinforcing his belief that he

wasn't valued.

That would become crucial moving forward, because Peter increasingly felt

like the odd man out.

And once you begin believing that your own band doesn't want you, every

disagreement becomes evidence.

Every criticism becomes an insult.

Every success by somebody else becomes proof that you're being pushed aside.

all right i have a story when they did their solo albums there's a thing in the

back where you thank people that helped you to get where you're at and peter did

not put at the time like i said he had the girlfriend so he didn't want to put

my name on it so he thanked his parents first and then he thanked me but he used

to call me mikey you know because i was like one of the guys and um

So he thanked Mikey on his solo album. And then I saw the solo albums and Gene

thanked me first.

And I asked Gene, I said, Gene, why did you thank me first? And he said, because

Peter quit the band once. And it's because of you that he was back in the

band. You talked him back into being... I said, no, I did.

There was a time where he was...

He was making fun of the Chinese people in a Chinese restaurant.

And Gene said, if you keep doing that, we're going to leave.

And he kept doing it, and they left.

And then Peter was out of the band. And I went home, and I said, you know,

you're an idiot.

You know, you've got to be in this band.

They're going to make it. You know, like, this is way before a coin.

You know, this is in the very, very early days. They used to play, and we

used to go to Chinatown, like, 3 in the morning, because they were open all

night. And then Peter apologized and went back to being in Kiss.

Ace had the opposite problem.

His album had succeeded.

New York Groove had become a hit.

Fans loved his record.

Critics often singled it out as the strongest of the four.

And suddenly Ace had proof.

Proof that he could do it without Gene and Paul.

But Ace's drinking problems were becoming increasingly concerning.

And there was a dangerous contradiction.

The more successful Ace became, the more freedom he was given, and the more

freedom he had, the more difficult it became for anyone to control the

problems that came with it.

Ace was becoming a genuine star, but he was also becoming increasingly

unreliable. And that would become a major issue for Kiss in the years ahead.

Of course, with your solo record, yours was the most successful.

that is so even when that happened did that up your Your vision

of yourself as a vocalist at all it gave me a lot more confidence and

Made me realize one of the things I realized with the success of my solo

record that I was probably more creative away from those guys Okay, you know No

matter what I did in the studio, I never really got the praise maybe that I

should have gotten from those guys. It was always like, okay, okay, that's

good, you know, next.

You know, it was, you know, they weren't, Paul and Jim weren't the kind

of guys that, you know, raved about my guitar work and, you know, they were

always making me feel like maybe I wasn't good enough.

And I don't know why, maybe it was psychological or trying to control me,

you know.

That was the way they approached stuff with me.

Everybody else would say how great my guitar work was, but I really never got

it from those guys.

Did that push you at all, do you think?

I didn't understand the whole psychology behind the way they were with me.

I think maybe because at times I was difficult, they maybe didn't want to

give me praise.

Whatever the case might be.

When the four solo albums came out in late 1978, you could see the glasses

half full or half empty.

Selling around 500,000 copies each was nothing to sneeze at, two million

records if you looked at them collectively as a Kiss product.

But since Neil had shipped a million of each, what was he supposed to do with

the other two million copies?

It was too much hype, and because of the leftover records, a financial disaster

for Casablanca.

The solo albums did quell the need for Ace and Peter to leave, but they

represented nothing more than a band-aid on a gaping wound.

They put off something that was inevitable.

Meanwhile, Gene's relationship with Cher continued.

And again, it's tempting to treat this as celebrity gossip, but it was more

significant than that.

Cher represented everything Gene was becoming interested in.

Hollywood, television, celebrity, fashion, mainstream entertainment.

Gene was discovering that the makeup wasn't the only way he could become

famous. He could be Gene Simmons.

And Gene liked that.

But Paul and Gene had always been the two people driving Kiss.

If Gene's attention was increasingly being pulled toward Hollywood and

celebrity culture, that created another source of friction.

Because Kiss wasn't just a job.

It was a partnership.

And partnerships become complicated when one partner starts building a second

empire. On December 12th, Gene Simmons attended an event at Fiorucci in Beverly

Hills connected with the re-release of Disney's Pinocchio.

And Gene used the occasion to promote his recording of When You Wish Upon a

Star.

Think about the journey. The demon, the man who spat blood and breathed fire.

standing at a Pinocchio event, promoting a sentimental Disney song.

And yet it made perfect sense, because Gene Simmons had never really been just

one thing.

He was the demon, but he was also the child who loved movies.

The comic book fan.

The aspiring celebrity.

The businessman.

The performer.

The opportunist. The dreamer.

And by the end of 1978, all of those Gene Simmonses were beginning to

coexist.

In 1978, Kiss became more successful than ever. And simultaneously, they

became less unified than ever.

Paul Stanley proved he could make a melodic, polished rock album on his own.

Gene Simmons proved he could create an entire celebrity event around himself.

Ace Frehley proved that his guitar-driven style could produce a

genuine hit.

And Peter Criss proved that his musical roots were much closer to soul and R&B

than the hard rock identity of Kiss.

Four albums, four identities, four different visions.

And suddenly the question hanging over Kiss was no longer, can these four guys

become successful?

They had already answered that.

The question was, can these four guys remain successful together?

And behind much of this stood two people who deserve more attention than they

sometimes receive.

Bill O'Coin and Sean Delaney. O'Coin had helped create the Kiss machine.

He understood publicity, image and merchandising.

He understood that Kiss wasn't simply a band. It was an entertainment property.

Sean Delaney, meanwhile, was deeply involved creatively, particularly with

Gene. He had co-produced Gene's solo album and helped shape the project.

But there was a delicate balance.

Management had to keep four enormous personalities happy.

And that isn't easy.

Because once you've convinced four people that they're all stars, they may

start asking why they need the other three.

And that's the great irony of the Kiss solo albums.

They were designed to save the band.

They were designed to give everybody freedom and fulfill contractual

obligations. They were designed to appease four unhappy members.

They were designed to prove that everyone had something to contribute.

And in a strange way, they succeeded at all of those things, but they also did

something nobody could have predicted.

They proved that each member could exist separately.

And once you've proved that, you can't unprove it.

By year's end 1978, Kiss were still enormous.

But they were no longer the same band that had entered the year.

Peter's marriage was falling apart.

His confidence was badly shaken by the disappointing performance of his solo

album. Ace was enjoying his greatest individual success yet, while his

drinking problems were becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Gene was increasingly comfortable operating in celebrity circles.

His relationship with Cher had given him another world to inhabit.

And Paul was perhaps more determined than ever to keep Kiss functioning as a

band. Four men, Four ambitions.

Four increasingly separate lives.

And yet the makeup remained.

The costumes remained.

The logo. The fans.

The money. The illusion remained.

For now.

But 1978 had planted a seed. And that seed was individualism.

Kiss had spent years building the idea that the four characters were

inseparable.

Now the members themselves had discovered that they could be stars

without each other.

And that was going to have consequences.

Huge consequences.

Because in 1979, the music would change.

The image would change.

The relationships would change.

And eventually, the line-up.

Because the story of Kiss was about to enter one of its most fascinating

periods. The band was still the hottest group in the world.

But the cracks weren't just beginning to show anymore, they were beginning to

spread.

photos and videos to kind of accompany it so i hope you like what i've done

with it moving my hands around a lot i hope you like what i've done with it um

as well as this this is episode nine

there's loads before and there's loads still to come in this series i really

appreciate the support uh if you like what i'm doing there's a patreon in the

link and facebook and all the other stuff going on as well uh so i really

appreciate that you can subscribe and hit the alarm notification all that jazz

and i've also made my own personal reviews of the solo albums on this

channel i'll try and link those in the description as well and

I bet you can't guess which is my favourite of the four.

Spoilers.

But yeah, that's it for this one.

I'll see you in the next one when I will be starting with 1979 Part

1. I hope you can join me then. Thanks so much again.

I'll catch you later, Bill and Ted.