No Regrets (27 page)

Peter and I had some epic nights of partying involving multiple
women and enough cocaine to stop the strongest of hearts. The fact that we’re both on this earth today, alive and kicking, seems like a small miracle to me.

Peter was my KISS buddy, the only person in the band I ever considered to be truly a “friend” and someone I could trust. Interestingly enough, he’s also the only person in the band with whom I ever engaged in an actual fistfight. It happened on an early tour, in Canada. I don’t even remember what it was about—I was mad about something and Peter was pissed off about something else. We just butted heads in the dressing room and one thing led to another and fists began to fly. Our road crew broke it up before anyone got hurt. We apologized to each other over a beer and the incident actually brought us closer together.

We’d always come up with crazy ways to entertain each other on the road, some dangerous, some merely ridiculous. For a while Peter would do this character called “Dr. Rosenbloom.” He’d dress up like this crazy doctor and put on a fake mustache and slick his hair back and do impersonations. His impression of Sinatra was terrific! When we didn’t have guests it was usually just me and our two bodyguards enjoying the show. We’d sit around in Peter’s room and get loaded and share lines, laughing our fucking asses off until the sun came up.

On many occasions I also hung out with the guys in the road crew. Roadies and truckers would always be up for a good poker game, and I was always willing to host the game in my suite and cater the festivities. No one in the band ever played poker, so I didn’t have much of a choice. I usually ended up winning the majority of those games, but when I lost I tried to be as gracious a loser as I was a winner.

When we toured with other bands, invariably the band members would either end up in my room or Peter’s room. The word got out that we had the best stuff and were throwing the best parties after the show. Party animals usually gravitate toward each other, and that was usually the case on a KISS tour.

I have so many road stories, but one that always comes to mind is the
tour we did in the summer of 1975 with Rush opening for us. I always liked Rush (and still do). After a few weeks on tour I started to get to know the guys in the band, and their very funny tour manager, Howie. One thing led to another and before long Peter and I were getting visits from the Rush boys. It usually turned into late evenings filled with beer and grass and whatever else was around. Alex Lifeson, the band’s guitarist, used to do this hysterical routine with a large paper laundry bag. He’d draw a ridiculous giant face on the bag with a black marker and put it over his head with a couple of holes poked in it so he could see and breathe. Everyone in the room at this point was either drunk or stoned, but usually a little of both. Anyway, Alex would go into this routine with the bag over his head and while smoking a joint out of his eye he put everyone into total hysterics. He really milked the routine until everyone was gasping for air!

The more popular KISS became, the more security we needed, and our entourage swelled accordingly. We had advance men, bodyguards, managers, road managers, valets, etc., along with various girlfriends and wives. For a while (before we began renting private jets) we flew commercially and usually took up all the first-class seating. Our personal bodyguards were guys you didn’t want to tangle with. If anyone from coach tried to invade our space (which they almost always did), one of the bodyguards would just flash a look—

Don’t even think about it
—and that was usually enough to send them scurrying back to their seats. Our bodyguards were all trained security officers, but they also were great guys, really serious about their work and fun to hang out with. They’d all been around the business for some time and usually knew what to expect in any given situation. I trusted them completely, and put my life in their hands on more than one occasion.

There was the time in St. Louis, for example, in the late seventies. It wasn’t at all unusual when we flew into a city for our bodyguards to befriend members of the local law enforcement agencies. It was a smart thing to do, not only because you might need help with unruly fans or with traffic control at a show, but because afterward things sometimes
got out of control back at the hotel or at a local club. The bodyguards knew we’d be in a better bargaining position if the local cops were on our side. We’d always accommodate the cops with autographed records, pictures, and T-shirts, and take photos with them and their families as a courtesy for their support. So, this time in St. Louis, while we were in town on a day off, two off-duty cops came back to the hotel to hang out with us. One of them was packing a .45. After a few hours of sitting around and having a few drinks, I said, “Man, let’s go out and find some action.”

Everyone agreed, but we ended up biting off more than we could chew. We ended up in a bar on the other side of the Mississippi River, which of course meant we had crossed state lines and jurisdictions. We’d been told the place was a rock ’n’ roll joint, but it ended up being more of a biker bar and they weren’t too fond of out-of-state rockers.

Peter and I stood outside the door, sizing up the atmosphere.

“Ah, fuck it,” Peter said. He gestured to the cops and bodyguards. “Who’s gonna mess with us?”

So we went inside without reservation, unaware of what was about to go down.

We all started drinking, shooting a few games of pool, and dancing with some of the local chicks. We were just starting to unwind and enjoy ourselves when things began to go wrong. Someone in our group (okay, it was me) supposedly made an improper advance toward one of the bikers’ girlfriends. The next thing I knew, guys were squaring off, cursing and threatening to fuck each other up. Usually, in a bar fight, it ends there, with both sides backing out of the brawl before it even has a chance to begin. But not in a biker bar at one o’clock in the morning. Not when you have a couple of cops and professional bodyguards on your side.

Someone made a quick move and fists and bottles started flying. Things went out of control fast, and at one point my bodyguard Eddie pushed me up against the wall and, like a Secret Service agent, shielded me from a guy trying to smash a chair over my head. Eddie took the full
impact, but it barely fazed him. Things were escalating and a decision on what to do next needed to be made fast. Everyone fought as best as they could, but after a few minutes it became apparent that we were badly outnumbered. My bodyguards quickly decided it was time to split. They guided us out into the parking lot and threw us into the two limos that were waiting with engines running. The limo drivers burned rubber as we pulled away, and it took a while for everyone to calm down before we began to assess the damage.

A few of us had minor cuts and bruises, but one of the cops had a three-inch gash in his head that was bleeding badly. And that wasn’t the worst of it.

“Motherfucker!” the injured cop said. “They got my fucking gun!”

I’d known enough cops in my time to realize that this was a very big deal. Short of an accidental shooting, almost nothing is more embarrassing, and potentially more damaging, to a police officer than the loss of a gun. And when it happens while you’re off duty, drinking in a bar, brawling with a bunch of bikers?

Not good. Not good at all.

We got back to the hotel and I let the injured cop wash up in my shower. We tried cleaning out the gash in his head, but it was obvious to everyone he needed stitches to stop the bleeding, so we ran him over to the hospital for some medical treatment. I felt bad that he had lost his gun, especially since he was trying to save my ass! I never found out exactly what happened to him, but I’ll never forget what he did for all of us.

I had been so preoccupied with all the commotion at the hotel and hospital that I hadn’t realized my favorite motorcycle jacket was missing. Suddenly it hit me. I’d left the fucking jacket back in the bar.

“I need you to go back there and get it for me,” I told my bodyguard, Eddie. “And I don’t care how much it costs to get back.”

“Don’t worry, Ace,” he said. “I’ll get it, no matter what.”

I gave him a thousand dollars cash and said, “Don’t come back without it.”

Like I said, these guys were fearless… and loyal. To someone outside looking in, it probably would have appeared to be a suicide mission, but about an hour and a half later Eddie knocked on my door with my jacket in his hand.

“What happened?” I asked.

He told me most of the dudes we’d brawled with had left for the night, but the bouncers were still there. All it took to get my jacket was a short apology and a little cash—all in a day’s work for Eddie.

“How much?” I asked.

“I got it for five hundred. Is that okay, Ace?”

I laughed. “I would have paid two thousand to get it back, Eddie. You keep the other five hundred and let’s call it a night. Talk to you in the morning, buddy. Good night, and thanks.”

Eddie was a good guy, and I know he went to bed that night with a smile on his face.

Thinking back, I couldn’t help but wonder how it all happened. When we’d left the hotel, I felt like we were untouchable, like no one would fuck with us. It just made me realize that you’re never really safe, especially when you start to get fucked up and women are involved. You never know what’s in the stars; but isn’t that what makes life worth living?

I’ve come close to dying on numerous occasions. Car
accidents, overdoses, fights. Almost drowned, too. Twice, in fact. Oddly enough, given our love-hate relationship, Gene Simmons came to my rescue. The first incident happened at a hotel pool in Atlanta. It was a day off, on the road, and we were all hanging out poolside, soaking up the sun and enjoying life. I had had one too many beers that afternoon and shouldn’t have been swimming. For no particular reason while I was treading water in the deep end of the pool, I remembered this funny old cartoon of Bugs Bunny. It’s the one where he’s dramatically going through the process of drowning. You know: dipping beneath the
surface and holding up one finger. Then bobbing to the surface and going down again, this time holding up two fingers… and then three. I saw this in my mind’s eye, and I started laughing my ass off, so hard that I began taking in water. All of a sudden I was hacking and spitting and gulping for air.

And then I went under.

Oh, fuck… I’m drowning!

Luck interceded, as it often has in my life. Gene, sober as always, noticed I was in trouble and within seconds jumped into the pool and dragged me to the surface. Then he pulled me onto the pool deck and pumped the water out of me. Turns out Gene was actually a certified lifeguard when he was younger. Who knew?

I’ll never forget waking up with a hangover the next morning and the terrible taste of chlorine in my mouth. Then it hit me. I nearly drowned yesterday! Holy shit! And Gene saved my life! It was probably one of the few times that I was happier than a pig in shit over the fact that Gene was sober. I thanked him and walked away scratching my head, thinking to myself,
Did that really happen?
And as luck would have it, Gene intervened a few years later and rescued me a second time.

It happened one night after a show. I had decided to take a break from all the drinking and partying and just hang out in my room and take a warm bath. I took several tranquilizers to relax and while soaking in the hot water I dozed off. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to turn off the water and before long the tub started overflowing and began flooding the room (much to the dismay of hotel management). Gene must have had a premonition that night, since normally he would have been very busy entertaining one or two lovely ladies in his room, but to my surprise he came busting through the door with a security guard and pulled me out of the tub, butt naked, just as the water level in the tub was about to reach my lips!

“Ace!” he yelled. “What the fuck are you doing? You could have drowned!”

I was even more surprised than everyone else, since I had been
awakened from a relaxing sleep; it took me a moment or two to fully realize my predicament. I thought to myself,
My God, I’m so irresponsible sometimes. When will I ever learn?
I thanked Gene a second time for saving my ass and told him I’d be fine for the rest of the night. Gene didn’t want to hear any excuses, and I believe he was genuinely concerned for my welfare. Even though I said I was okay, he tenderly helped me into my bed and tucked me in. He decided to sleep in my room that night and keep a watchful eye on the irresponsible Spaceman. The following morning I woke up without any memory of the incident and when I saw Gene in the room I said, “Hi, Gene! What are you doing here? I stayed in last night and just relaxed. What did you do?” He just looked at me in amazement, realizing I hadn’t remembered a thing about the night before and was unaware of how close I had come to drowning for the second time.

Even when I got tired of being locked into the KISS
formula—with the pyrotechnics and special effects and lighting cues—I still enjoyed performing live. But after a while even that lost some of its excitement, primarily because there was no room for spontaneity. We couldn’t deviate much from the plan without risking bodily harm or at least messing up the show. After my accident in Florida, electrocution was always a fear. A bomb was gonna go off over here, or some fire was going to ignite over there. And it was going to happen at a specific time in every performance. So you pretty much had to do the same shit every night, and that became a little tedious. I distinctly remember a few times in the late seventies daydreaming in the middle of a song. This was only halfway through the show, and I became totally detached—my thoughts drifting away from the show as I began checking out chicks in the front row, wondering if I had enough coke and pills for the week, trying to remember if I had met anyone in town the last time I was here, signaling my bodyguards to give out invitations for our hospitality suite.

Once I finished my smoking guitar solo, I usually went on autopilot and thought more and more about events that were going to occur back
at the hotel after the show. I don’t think the word
bored
applies here as much as the term
spaced-out.
When you know what’s always going to happen, you start looking for other things to excite your senses and occupy your thoughts. That started happening to me on occasion, and I just went with the flow.