No Regrets (17 page)

Critics were less easily impressed. We got ripped in the
New York Times,
ripped in
Rolling Stone
, ripped in
CREEM
. Serious rock journalists seemed incapable of looking past the makeup and costumes and objectively reviewing our performances or recordings. Or maybe they just hated everything about us. I don’t know. But the negative reviews served mainly to fuel curiosity and controversy. Some critics were less spiteful, offering grudging respect for our musicianship and writing, and especially for the energy we brought to our shows. Mainly, though, it was word of mouth that proved most beneficial to KISS. We built a fan base the old-fashioned way, by getting out and playing night after night, in town after town, encouraging legions of fans to join what would come to be known as the KISS Army.

The most interesting moments occurred when KISS tried to enter the realm of stodgy, mainstream entertainment. Bill Aucoin and Neil Bogart weren’t about to leave any opportunity for publicity unexploited, so while KISS might have been seen by some as a hard rock band (bordering
on metal) whose members were into weird satanic imagery or sadomasochistic fetishism (neither true, of course), our management craved exposure to a more diverse audience. In short, they wanted KISS to be seen and heard by everyone, from teenage stoners in New Jersey to housewives in the Midwest.

So we taped three songs during a performance on Dick Clark’s
In Concert,
which was one of the few places on network television (cable was little more than a blip on the radar at the time) where a band could be seen and heard. We taped the show in late February—performing “Firehouse,” “Black Diamond,” and “Nothin’ to Lose”—and it aired at the end of March. Dick was terrific, as smart and gracious as I’d expected him to be. I’d grown up watching
American Bandstand
and always thought Dick was not just an astute businessman but a real music fan as well. He treated us professionally, without a hint of condescension or bemusement. In return we performed live and with our customary fury. This wasn’t a small thing—most bands who appeared on television shows in the seventies opted for the safety of recorded music and lip-synching. Not KISS. Same thing when we went on NBC’s
The Midnight Special
. KISS was a live band, a spectacle. There was no point in faking it.

KISS just trying to be KISS—with each of us staying in character, regardless of the circumstances or venue—could lead to moments of unintended hilarity and genuine “What the fuck!?” cluelessness. Like the time we appeared on
The Mike Douglas Show
, in April 1974. Now, I’ll say for the record that I always kind of liked Mike Douglas. Like Dick Clark, he was a Philadelphia guy seemingly too polite and well-mannered for the town that made him famous. A bit of a square, too, but that was okay. I’d grown up watching
American Bandstand
on weekends and
The Mike Douglas Show
on weekday afternoons. It was a plain-vanilla TV talk show, weirdly comforting in its blandness. You could always count on Mike to smile his way through a show, regardless of the guests, and to perform a song or two in his own little lounge act sort of way. He seemed like a legitimately nice guy, and I don’t think it was just an act.

Still, it was a bizarre decision for KISS to use
The Mike Douglas Show
as the forum for its first live interview on national television. But, as always, there was a method to the madness, and it sprang mainly from the dementedly fertile mind of Neil Bogart. Neil heard about a promotional contest, hatched by a pair of Florida disc jockeys, to use our band’s name as a hook for a kissing contest promoted by their radio station. This was the sort of nonsense that could help a band in its infancy; too much of it, though, could destroy a band’s reputation. KISS always walked the fine line between parody and promotion. It was easy to lose your soul if you did too much of this sort of thing, and God knows there was no shortage of people who wanted to exploit the fanaticism of KISS fans.

In this case the idiocy began with what appeared to be a fairly benign kissing contest. But Neil took the concept nationwide, and even suggested that KISS do a cover of the old Bobby Rydell song “Kissin’ Time” as a way to help promote the contest.

If ever there was a moment when the guys in the band were united in their opinion of Neil, this was it. We owed the guy just about everything, sure, but a cover version of “Kissin’ Time,” the sugary little teenybopper tune from the late 1950s?

It was spectacularly inappropriate. Completely fucking nuts. And we all knew it. KISS covering “Kissin’ Time” made no sense at all. It made a mockery of everything we were trying to do. We were supposed to be loud, edgy, dangerous. Why in the name of Christ would we try to be a bubblegum band?

“Because it’s brilliant,” Neil argued. “People will love it.”

There was a twisted logic to the promotion, and I suppose, in the end, it had precisely the impact Neil wanted, which was to get people talking about KISS and to create more opportunities for exposure. It was never about the music with Neil. It was about the show. It was about making money and expanding the brand. But at what cost? We all wanted fame and adulation, but in the weeks that we rewrote and recorded “Kissin’ Time,” none of us felt very good about what we were doing. This was
the first time I felt like our deal with the devil—choosing style over substance—had unintended and seriously unpleasant consequences. And I think all the guys—even Gene, who never met a promotional opportunity he couldn’t wrap his tongue around—felt the same way. But Neil was the boss. He owned Casablanca Records. He could pull the plug any time he wanted. He could cut our touring and recording budgets. He was the ringmaster, and we were part of the circus.

The show must go on, right?

“Kissin’ Time” was recorded as a single and added to the first album when it was reissued a few months after initial release. We all hated the song—much more than we hated the contest promotion, actually. The contest was stupid but harmless; the song damaged our reputation.

Anyway, it was the contest that brought us to Philadelphia and
The Mike Douglas Show,
where we’d perform live (we did “Firehouse,” not “Kissin’ Time”), but only after Gene had been invited to chat with Mike and his panel (which included comedians Totie Fields and Robert Klein) for a few minutes, just prior to introducing the winners of the national kissing contest. Serving as the unofficial face of KISS, Gene sauntered out onto the stage in character while the rest of us watched on closed-circuit television backstage.

“We have a new rock group for you, Totie,” Mike had said, just before holding up a copy of
KISS
. “But before we see them perform, I want you to meet one of the members of this act close-up.”

As the boys and I howled with laughter backstage, and the crowd reacted with disbelief, Gene took a seat between Mike and Totie.

“Mind if I spread my wings?” he asked, unfurling his spindly frame (made even longer thanks to eight-inch platform shoes) and exposing the batlike torso of his costume.

Mike played along good-naturedly, but when Gene described himself as “evil incarnate,” Totie Fields cast him a look that at first seemed to betray disgust or revulsion, but was quickly revealed to be merely annoyance. Hey, Gene was just doing his shtick. He was being the Demon, or whatever the fuck he thought he was. If it had been me, and I
was supposed to stay in character, I would have walked out there and cackled stupidly and said, “Hey, Mike, I’m the Spaceman! Nice to meet you.” None of it was real or to be taken seriously. It was supposed to be fun, and I thought Gene did a great job with it. But as the interview went on, and the repartee grew sharper, I couldn’t help but be thankful that I hadn’t been asked to do the job.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if under this he was just a nice Jewish boy?” an exasperated Totie said at one point.

The crowd roared as Gene smiled coyly.

“You should only know,” he said with a chuckle. It was intended as an inside joke. Gene, of course, was 100 percent Jewish, having been born in Israel under the name Chaim Witz. I doubt Totie Fields knew anything about Gene’s background, but she didn’t miss a beat. Totie, after all, was a professional comedian, and Gene was no match for her when it came to trading one-liners.

“I do,” she shot back. “You can’t hide the hook!”

Gene furled his brow and snarled halfheartedly. He was smart enough to know when he’d been beaten. The interview then turned to the subject of the national kissing contest and the “winners” were brought out onstage. Gene stood and wrapped them both in his bat wings, and a few minutes later we all came out and performed “Firehouse.”

The whole thing came off fairly well, I thought, and we got good reviews for the show. Believe it or not, some people didn’t know how seriously to take Gene. It was brilliant that way, even if it wasn’t necessarily intentional. It allowed KISS to maintain the element of danger that was such an important part of our early persona… and our early success.

It wasn’t all an act.

Although not exactly “evil incarnate,” we were threatening. Our fan base was composed largely of adolescent boys and young men, and what parent wants their kids listening to hard rock by a band that looks like it just stepped off the set of a horror movie? We looked dangerous,
and at times we behaved recklessly and hedonistically. We didn’t try to hide any of that. Well, most of the time, anyway.

In August 1974 we paused in the middle of a tour and relocated to Los Angeles to work on the second KISS album,
Hotter than Hell
. As with the first record, it was an intense experience: three weeks of ten-hour days at Village Recorders, again with Richie Wise and Kenny Kerner producing. We were all tired and starting to feel some pressure from Casablanca, as the first record hadn’t exactly been a big hit. Yeah, it had sold around 75,000 copies, but that hadn’t even been enough to cover the band’s expenses. We hoped to do better with
Hotter than Hell,
but everything was happening so fast that it was becoming hard to tell whether we were even on the right track.

Using songs leftover from the demo and material we’d written on the road, we assembled the record at breakneck speed. My contributions were much more significant than on the first record. I cowrote “Comin’ Home” with Paul, and also wrote “Parasite” and “Strange Ways,” a song that remains one of my favorites, even though KISS never performed it in concert. I wish now that I’d had the balls to sing “Strange Ways” on that record. It’s an emotionally demanding song, heavy and rhythmic, with a great guitar solo at its center. It was all mine and I should have claimed it as such for the record. But I had no confidence in my own vocal ability, especially around Paul and Gene and Peter, who thrived in the spotlight and had a way of pushing through a song—any song—regardless of any vocal limitations. Great singers are talented, sure, but they also have passion. And they’re usually arrogant as well. You can’t get up there and sing if you don’t believe in yourself.

I knew I was a good guitar player.

I had no idea whether I could sing at all. So for the longest time I didn’t even try.

“Parasite” I offered to Gene, because it seemed to suit him and he liked it. Rather than give “Strange Ways” to Paul or Gene, though, I offered it to Peter. As the drummer he was the least visible member of KISS (elevating drum riser notwithstanding!), so his ego was perpetually
bruised anyway. I thought having a vocal track on the record would make him feel less threatened. Besides, I liked Peter’s voice and thought it was right for the song.

Although basically we recorded the album live, the
Hotter than Hell
sessions lacked the spontaneity and thrill that we experienced while making
KISS
. That’s not surprising. There’s nothing quite like the first record, when everything is new and exciting. Making
Hotter than Hell
felt more like a job… a responsibility. It didn’t help matters any that we were fish out of water: four New Yorkers in L.A., sequestered on the West Coast for the better part of a month. We’d already been on the road for months and wanted nothing more than to get back home. But Neil wanted us closer to the Casablanca offices so he could keep an eye on things.

In my case the plan backfired. I can look back now and say that my drinking began to escalate during the making of
Hotter than Hell
, partly as a response to the pressure, and partly because I didn’t want to be in L.A. Those are just excuses and I offer them not because I want sympathy, but simply as point of illumination. Drinking was my crutch. It had been since I was a teen, and it remained that way through my time in KISS, only with more profound consequences.

On the night before we were supposed to do a photo shoot for
Hotter than Hell
, I got into one of my first serious car accidents. Now, I have a reputation for being one of the world’s worst drivers, but that’s not entirely well deserved. I’m actually a pretty good driver; I’m just a really bad drunk driver. I’ve totaled a lot of cars over the years, but I’ve never had so much as a fender bender while sober. Trouble is, from roughly the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s, whenever I got behind the wheel of a car, the odds were pretty good that I’d been drinking.

This was one of those times.

We were staying at the Ramada Inn on Sunset Boulevard, basically just hanging out and partying whenever we weren’t at the studio. I’ve tried over the years to remember exactly why I left the hotel that particular night and climbed into the front seat of my rented Chevy. But
that’s the thing about being a forty-year drinker: it takes its toll on your memory, leaving some recollections strikingly vivid, and others filled with holes. I know I was pissed off about something (probably something stupid) because I remember feeling angry as I cruised through the Hollywood Hills, accelerating through turns like I was a Formula One driver. I found this one particular street in the hills challenging, so like an idiot I kept circling around these twists and turns over and over again, trying to navigate the course a little faster each time. Must have made it around the loop at least five or six times! The next thing I knew, my car was spinning out of control and a telephone pole was coming up fast, rising to meet the windshield. The car spun sideways at the last minute, just enough to avoid a head-on collision, but the impact was still severe enough that I was catapulted forward into the windshield.