KISS is among the most successful bands in the history of rock and roll.
But despite their achievements and success in the music industry, things haven't always
gone well for these iconic hard rockers. Here are some tragic details about KISS.
Every member of KISS had a pretty rough start in life. Before moving to the
United States with his mother at the age of 8, Israel-born Gene Simmons grew up in poverty,
surviving on rationed bread and milk. Ace Frehley was expelled from two high schools for cutting
classes and left a third in the Bronx; he was also in a gang. In an interview with Loudwire,
Frehley discussed how music saved his life, saying:
"It definitely got me away from a negative element."
Meanwhile, Paul Stanley was born with a congenital ear problem called microtia. He was basically born
without an ear, and was severely bullied in school because of his disability. Finally,
Peter Criss went to Catholic school in Brooklyn, where he suffered severe punishment at the hands
of the nuns, including having his knuckles struck until they bled. Criss was often punished for
innocuous offences, such as wearing his hair too long. Despite their traumatic origins, however,
these four rockers came together in the early '70s and went on to shock the world. Eventually.
When KISS came onstage at the Popcorn Club in Queens on January 30th, 1973,
there were fewer than ten people in the audience. Their manager quit shortly before the show began,
saying that their music was basically the worst he had ever heard.
But none of this discouraged Gene Simmons, who cold-called the Popcorn Club himself
and convinced the manager to let them play another trio of shows.
At the time, the group's signature look wasn't quite there yet — but there was still plenty of
black leather and greasy make-up to go around. According to Simmons, after enduring those early
failures, they had finally decided to truly be themselves. On the band's website, he writes:
"This time, we would put together the band we never saw onstage,
the band that we wanted to be. This time, we would make sure we had the right lineup.
This time, we would make sure we had the right songs. We did it the right way."
"But you're kinda like a spaceman." "No, actually I'm a plumber. On the side."
The band's early years were far from glamorous. In 1973,
after playing their first shows in New York City, KISS hired Bill Aucoin as their manager,
and they soon became the first band to be signed to Neil Bogart's newly established
Casablanca Records. But KISS' first releases weren't doing well commercially.
Their brash and sensational live performances may have earned them a reputation,
but aside from being a cult attraction for live music fans, KISS remained pretty much unknown.
The reviews were often dismal, too, and the three full-scale tours they had embarked on
left them and Casablanca Records deep in debt. Gene Simmons later recalled:
"There were moments of doubt for me that we were gonna make it."
During this time, Casablanca Records almost went bankrupt,
and KISS risked losing their recording contract. In 1975, money was so tight
that Aucoin went as far as paying for the band's tour with his American Express card.
Then, in September 1975, KISS released their first live album,
Alive!, and the group skyrocketed to fame and fortune more or less overnight. The record,
which featured some of KISS' best known tracks,
went platinum and became a global hit, remaining in the charts for an incredible 110 weeks.
During their first overseas tour in 1976, KISS' members were accused of anti-semitism in Germany
and other European countries, as a result of their distinctive logo. The letters
"SS," which were bolted in their original moniker, were very similar to the insignia
of the Nazi Party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel organization. The logo was banned in Germany,
where the use of symbols and imagery associated with the Nazis is illegal and subject to fines or
even imprisonment. But KISS' members have always denied any connection to the party of Hitler.
Ace Frehley, who designed the logo by hand, said that, when he drew it,
he was thinking of lightning bolts rather than Nazis. In an interview with MTV, he said:
"I want to go on record saying that I don't believe in Hitler or his ideology
or anything he stood for. [...] And I’ll go on record saying it wasn’t
modeled after Hitler or Nazis. It was just cool lightning bolts."
KISS' logo was ultimately banned in Germany after the overseas tour. Gene Simmons later said:
"It was the most ridiculous thing. KISS is 50 percent Jewish."
KISS ended up changing the logo for all commercial purposes in Germany,
flattening out the bolts to avoid fines and further controversy.
In the 70s, Peter Criss developed a crippling cocaine habit. In his 2012 memoir, he wrote:
"Everyone surrounding my life did it — manager, lawyer, A&R guys, bodyguard, photographers. I
would be sitting across from a bunch of guys in suits who went to Harvard, doing blow."
It wasn't until later that he realized the harsh consequences of addiction. Criss wrote:
"So, to me, it was cool… I figured, well, if lawyers were doing it and business managers
and record presidents, that [there] must be no downfall to this. And, sure enough,
of course there is. [...] For me, it was like mixing gasoline and fire."
Criss fought hard to overcome his addiction,
and in 1982 he went to rehab. A couple of years later he had a one-time relapse,
but he claims to have been sober ever since. Criss said that writing his 2012 memoir book was a
particularly cathartic endeavour — one that helped relieve him of the pain of his past addiction.
During the darkest days of his drug addiction, Peter Criss was fired from
the band on account of his wild behavior. On at least three occasions during their 1979
tour, Criss deliberately sabotaged the band's shows, and during a show on December 8th,
when Paul Stanley gestured to Criss to slow down the tempo in the middle of a song,
Criss took it personally. In his memoir, Criss wrote:
"What that says to everybody in the arena is that I'm the one f---ing up the band."
Criss then intentionally slowed the song down to a crawl in the middle of the concert.
That wasn't the end of it, either. Two nights later, during a concert in Jackson,
Mississippi, Criss stopped playing for no reason during Stanley's solo performance.
Criss didn't feel treated as an equal and had
already expressed his desire to quit the band if things didn't change.
"I started getting tired of it, and I said 'God, I really wanna try and do it on my own.' I don't
wanna hit the age of 40 someday and say 'gee, could I have really made it on my talent?'"
On the other hand, Stanley and Gene Simmons felt that they couldn't put up with his antics anymore.
During a later show in Mississippi, Criss hit Simmons on the back of the head with
his drum stick and later threatened him with a broken champagne bottle in their dressing room.
For Simmons and Stanley, this was the final straw.
Criss was fired and replaced by new drummer Eric Carr.
The departure of Peter Criss only proved that the band had some deep internal issues,
which weren't about to be easily solved. Criss and Ace Frehley's hard partying lifestyles
didn't quite match Gene Simmons' and Paul Stanley's comparatively sober work ethic.
On the other hand, Frehley and Criss felt that they were being bossed around,
and thought that Simmons and Stanley were too controlling. After Criss left the group,
things continued to deteriorate. Frehley later wrote in his autobiography:
"When tempers flared, I usually tried to be the peacemaker. [...] with the loss of Peter,
I soon realized things would never be the same."
It was a slow and painful dissolution from there. Frehley played his last show in 1980,
but it wasn't until two years later in 1982 that he officially left the band. He recalls:
"I felt no connection to KISS anymore and wasn't happy about the direction the band was taking."
With Frehley and Criss gone, KISS' original lineup finally came to an end.
In 1980, FBI Director William H. Webster demanded an investigation into reports that
KISS concerts had been marred by civil unrest and attacks on police. Although no evidence was
found that any of this had ever occurred, one field office noted that a religious group in
Arkansas had picketed a show there, believing KISS stood for "Knights
in Search of Satan" — and that the various members of the band were all devil worshippers.
The strange face paint, long tongues, and fire-breathing antics probably played a big
role in it, but the rumor originally started as a result of an interview Gene Simmons gave in Circus
magazine after the release of the band's first album. In his 2001 autobiography, Simmons wrote:
"In response to a question, I said that I sometimes wondered what human flesh tastes
like. I never wanted to really find out, but I was curious intellectually. Later on,
this comment seemed to ignite the whole idea that in some way KISS was aligned with devil worship."
Despite Simmons' bizarre statement at the time,
he insists that the band's name has nothing to do with the devil. He writes:
"We just liked the name. It was a simple word that people understood all over the world."
But any press is good press, and while KISS denied any ties with Satanism,
they didn't do much to discourage them, either. Paul Stanley later explained:
"It created an aura of mystery around us, and mystery sells."
"Are you a bat?" "Yes. Actually, what I am is evil incarnate."
The irony is that Simmons was a theology major in school,
and he often defended himself by quoting back the Bible to his religious critics.
In April 1991, the band's drummer Eric Carr, who had replaced Peter Criss in the 80s, was
diagnosed with heart cancer. He underwent several surgeries, but by the time summer came his health
had rapidly declined, making him unable to record the upcoming album with the rest of the band.
Carr died a few months later after suffering both an aneurysm and a brain hemorrhage. Sadly, this
happened on the same day Freddie Mercury died, and Carr's death was largely overlooked by the
mainstream media. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley even wrote a letter to Rolling Stone, lamenting
the lack of coverage and expressing their grief over the death of their friend. They wrote:
"We loved him, the fans loved him and he will never be forgotten."
To celebrate his legacy, Carr's family released
Unfinished Business, a collection of his unreleased solo tracks, in 2011.
Speaking about the band's infamous 2000 farewell tour, Paul Stanley wrote in his 2014 memoir:
"The tour was horrible. Constant drudgery and misery."
After years of clashes and disagreement, in 2000 the band saw the original members finally reunite.
But what was meant to be a glorious comeback turned out to be a nightmare. Stanley wrote:
"We never knew if we'd make it to a show on time,
and once we got onstage we never knew whether we'd get through the show."
He was especially bitter at Ace Frehley and Peter Criss
for finding excuses to skip rehearsals and for only showing up at the very last minute.
In August 2000, things got tense when Frehley missed every available flight to get to Irvine,
where KISS was playing a show. He was supposed to get there the day before and
ended up showing up right before the concert. Even though the tour did well commercially, the general
mood ended up affecting the band's performance. During a later interview, Stanley explained:
"By the 'farewell' tour, I thought we were disappointing people.
People may have loved the excitement and the novelty of seeing us again, but many nights we
weren't very good. The 'farewell tour' was us wanting to put KISS out of its misery."
The last time all four original members of KISS performed together was the North Charleston,
South Carolina show in 2000. The current lineup, which features Gene Simmons, Stanley, Tommy
Thayer and Eric Singer, have announced that their final concert will take place on July 17th, 2021.
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