KISS EXPLAIN MUCH, EVEN THEMSELVES

KISS EXPLAIN MUCH, EVEN THEMSELVES

FEATURES

Elianne Halbersberg

The word for today is “great.” As in “Great sound, great material, great songs, great playing.” These thoughts, dear readers, come to you straight from the lips of Paul Stanley, and he should know better than anyone else. “Every time we talk about a new album, I always tell you it’s great,” he reasons, “so why should this one be different?” Quite frankly, friends, I have to agree. Kiss album number 21 is one hot piece of work, and they’ve never let us down before. Why would they start now?

The first question that comes to mind, however, is the lengthy wait for product release. Kiss, after all, has lived instantaneously—record, tour, record, tour. “We will send no album before its time!” Stanley offers. “The reason we took longer is no mystery. Although the writing had always been good, we thought we’d take more time this year and make it even better. Second, we wanted Ron Nevison to produce, and his schedule was booked with the Heart album. When that was finished, we started our record.”

"We know who and what we are better than anyone else. I, for one, am very cynical about everything. I have the biggest mouth in the world." —Gene Simmons.

“Asylum was a long tour," Bruce Kulick picks up. "Rather than spend one whole month getting ready for an album, like we had done last time, we all got twelve tracks to work on demos and really took some time. I worked on a lot of riffs and ideas—‘Mr. Technical’ the band calls me—wrote, did outside work with Michael Bolton, also Desmond Child for Cher and Ronnie Spector. Then came the Exposed videocassette. By summer we were serious about the album’s direction. I played on all of Gene's demos, every song. I got a lot of practice and you can really hear my growth as a player on this album.”

'“This album” is tentatively called Who Dares, Wins (although weeks later Stanley confirmed that this is unconfirmed). The title, according to Simmons, upholds the Kiss philosophy of ‘‘being totally arrogant. People think life is about rules. The truth is, we write our own rules, respect everyone’s right to do what they want, and just don’t step on anyone’s toes. People who enjoy themselves, who dare to have fun and take chances, are winners. Those who are afraid will fail and lose by default. This is something we talked about on the first album in ‘Nothing To Lose.’ The individual makes the difference.” Stanley agrees. ‘‘That’s what fans like about us,” he says. ‘‘We’re consistent in the fact that we do things our way and trust our gut instinct. We do what we think we should, and if it works, we’re right. If not, that’s fine too. Fans appreciate honesty that is not without risk.”

Album 21 (as it shall hereafter be called) is the first Kiss effort in many a year to incorporate outside production; those responsibilities and usually rest in the hands of Stanley and Simmons. Despite the latter’s initial reservations about involving a fifth party—after all, who can do Kiss better than Kiss?—they agree the decision was the right move. ‘‘Ron is great,” asserts Eric Carr. ‘‘He’s got a good track record, if you’ll pardon the pun! He’s a great engineer as well, and we thought it would be very good for the band to have an outside force take everyone’s best ideas and help decide what would and wouldn’t work. To produce Kiss, a person needs to have a definite understanding of what the band is, wants and can be. They can’t totally change things around into their idea with no regard for the identity, attitude and energy of the music. Ron used his own touch to improve, not alter.”

Understand that we’re dealing with headstrong individuals, professionals to the highest degree, focused to the tiniest detail. Did they worry about relinquishing their own creative control? ‘‘We would never have done this unless we really wanted to,” Stanley clarifies. ‘‘Besides, other than Ron, we don’t really think a hell of a lot about most producers. They’re usually glorified engineers or someone who’s had a lucky streak with a band or a couple of records. There’s no long-term consistency. Who decides this person is a producer? They don’t get a degree or a license. They decide. Ron is one of the few who has been involved with a lot of great people and records. We like his roots. He’s been like a partner; a sounding board. You put together a great producer and a great band and the result is a great record. I can point to my wall and see 20 platinum albums. I’d like to know what all these other producers have to show.”

"...Humble and quiet are not my virtues." —Gene Simmons

"Every time we talk about a new album, I always tell you it's great so why should this one be different?" —Paul Stanley

‘‘We know who and what we are better than anyone else,” Simmons declares. ‘‘I, for one, am very critical about everything. I have the biggest mouth in the world; a comment for everything from what somone’s wearing to who they’re dating, what they think or how they play. Humble and quiet are not my virtues, but that’s OK as long as it’s straightforward. What you see is what you get—take or leave it. In the words of Popeye, ‘I am what I am and that’s all that I am.’ Integrity. That’s the key. Our fans know that. That’s why they’re Still around.”

Time off, previously non-existent in the Kiss camp, was more than a period of well-deserved rest. Kulick did outside recording and an instructional tape for the Hot Licks series. Stanley collaborated with songwriting friends and stole a couple of Poison shows. Simmons produced, filmed, wrote and is launching his own record label. Carr developed ‘‘rock ’n’ roll characters” (details sketchy) and, to the delight of fans, contributed significantly to Album 21. ‘‘I wrote a lot for the album and in general,” he says. ‘‘Bruce and I worked on songs at my house. We put ideas together, musical verses, and finished with Gene in L.A. Real uptempo stuff; lots of flashy playing. I’ve got outside writers working with me, I’m recording an instructional tape focusing on drums as a songwriting tool, and I’ll probably be doing a Hot Licks tape very soon.”

It goes without saying (although I’m about to say it anyway) that the magic of Kiss is the sum of it’s four very unique and individual parts. Probably one of the strongest contributing factors to the band’s longevity is that Kiss is one of the select few groups who can boast a team of singularly distinctive players, each a separate entity, yet bonded together by collective will. Take Stanley and Simmons, for example. They’ve spent half their lives together, building Kiss from ‘‘what looked like a bunch of guys waiting for a bus” to what every guy waiting for a bus wishes he looked like. Still, you’d be hard-pressed to find more diverse personalities.

‘‘I think we’re more different than similar,” Stanley begins, ‘‘but we both have a pretty good understanding of what our priorities are. Once you know what’s important, you put everything else in perspective. We all know how to work with each other and we’re concerned ultimately that we do what’s best for Kiss rather than one of us being right. The key to any relationship is putting things in perspective. You’ve got to keep your own ego in check, rather than trying to be right all the time. Otherwise, you end up sabotaging your own best interest as well as everyone else’s. Part of what makes Kiss what it is, is the balance between the parts. To develop a band to this point, you’ve got to work with people who can develop themselves to their greatest extent without diluting or compromising the collective vision. You can’t allow yourself the luxury of doing everything your own way. When Gene and I started writing, our styles were more similar than they are today. In the long run, it was better for the band that each of us take his own direction. It balances everything out and in the •scheme of things, it’s always Kiss.”

‘‘Number one, Paul and I try not to second guess each other,” Simmons theorizes about what he agrees is a very special friendship. ‘‘Second, we try to avoid doing things that would make us sound stale. In the beginning, we wrote all the songs together—every song—even if credit was given to an individual. All members were involved. By the time of Alive, we realized if we kept going the same way, we would always be a certain kind of band. The soul is still the same, but Kiss doesn’t sound like Animalize which doesn’t sound like Who Dares, Wins. Each album shows an obvious evolution and progression. Early fans, interestingly enough, prefer the beginning records, whereas I don’t know if the older stuff makes such an impact on new fans or if Chuck Berry licks turned up to maximum are relevant to them. Times change, music changes, influences come up. So we started working with outside people in addition to writing songs ourselves. We fight wnat makes it ‘samey’ because success dulls the senses. Limos, groupies and penthouses make if much more difficult to stay fresh. It’s a constant struggle. It’s much easier for a starving new band to strap on a guitar, bash out tunes, sound wonderful and have it mean something. It changes when you have roadies tuning your guitars and everything becomes too polished and perfect. We work hard at being real and keeping our snoots close to the ground.”

While he won’t go as far as to stamp great significance on Kiss in the face of rock ’n’ roll history (despite this writer's observations), Simmons will offer this explanation: ‘‘The only thing I see are the same magazines that you see and you write for. When I look in those publications, every new band talks about how Kiss changed their lives. I’m certainly not telling them to say that! Ron Keel said he started a band because I threw a pick one night that he caught. He thought it was some sort of sign. Andy Taylor told me the same thing. He caught a pick when we played in England and decided he wanted to do this. If it sounds like I’m boasting—you bet! I’m proud! When people first saw us, they said, ‘Either these guys are knuckleheads to look like that, Dr they must really live and love it.’ It was blind faith, total belief in ourselves. We said, ‘If we fail, it’s on our own terms. We’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.’ We got no airplay. We paid our debts, busted our asses doing concerts. Eventually, people picked up on our honesty.”

“In a big way, Kiss is a full-time responsibility,” Kulick observes. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself to realize that I’m really working with the band, if you can call it work! It’s mainly demanding the best from myself and living up to what the fans expect. Everything else is like a fantasy! Writing is always tough because you want each song to be great. Every so often, a killer album comes out—Whitesnake, for example—and it’s important to keep on top of those things. A lot of time goes into Kiss but it’s not hard to bring everyone forward. Paul and I shared rhythm on all the tracks, so it’s new, but it’s definitely Kiss. Eric and Gene have their own familiar identities. What’s good about our structure is we all get to play. It's not like there’s a ton of things going on and no one comes through.”

“There’s no risk of predictability,” Stanley insists. “That only happens when a band stagnates. Knowing somebody real well doesn’t make them predictable. For instance, I just heard one of Bruce’s solos. I know his playing, but on this album, he’s in a whole other class! I know what to expect—that each time will be better and that everyone will give their best. With each record comes the excitement of something being new and improved!”

“There are a lot of parts to what keeps Kiss alive,” Carr adds, “and what our fans have come to expect. Kiss fans who have been here since the beginning will always love the original lineup because it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing—the whole concept, lifestyle and legend. That will never change. But you have to grow and Kiss fans are great because they always stick by the group no matter what. The band is progressing and in this new stage, there are fans who only got into Kiss the last few years. They’re rediscovering ‘older’ Kiss, finding out what it was all about. But they love the band as it is now and they seem happy, for which I’m thankful because I’ve worked hard at it, as have the others. It’s like there are groups of fans: older fans still and will always love Kiss. They see me as the first replacement who has been there so long that they can relate to me as one of the guys. Newer fans have seen the changes, they’re getting into the older records, and they love both. Brand new fans are going to be brought in by this album. Each year, new fans are picked up who like the band for different reasons. Basically, the idea remains that Kiss is true to itself. We have a lot of confidence, put out great music, and we’re a really, really good band. That’s what makes it last.”