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KISS HELL: We're talking to Chris Lendt who wrote the "KISS & Sell" book, which is doing great right?
CHRIS LENDT: Very well, we have about 75,000 copies in print and we've sold out almost all of the first three printings. (keep in mind this was a few months ago)
KH: Did you expect it to do so well?
CL: Well you always hope for the best and you try and you do everything possible to make it happen but when the success does come it makes it even more gratifying because you know how much time and effort everybody put in to make it work so we're very pleased with the way it's going.
KH: What originally inspired you to write the "KISS & Sell" book?
CL: I really wanted to write the book on KISS because having spent so many years working with them, more than 12 years on the road and off the road, I felt that I was probably the best person who could write that book. I felt that I had a very unique perspective on KISS. I was an insider. I worked with them for a very long period of time particularly in the world of rock & roll and I felt that it would be an entertaining book as well as an informative book if I told people what my experiences were, what it's like working with a band of the stature of KISS and really gave a close up view of all the success they had as well as many of their mistakes & failures which made KISS the band that they are.
KH: Did KISS know you would be releasing this book on them?
CL: I don't believe so. Several years ago when I was working on the book I did get a call from Gene Simmons who had heard about my writing a book but he really wasn't aware of what the focus of the book was and I really didn't go into any detail but we had a very cordial, friendly conversation & at the that time he mentioned that they were working on a book which was KISSTORY & he asked me if I might be interested in participating in that in some way and I said 'I appreciate your asking but this is a project that I really feel that I want to pursue on my own' & I had no other conversations with him.
KH: Did you have any other contact with KISS since 1988?
CL: I had no direct contact with them. I did have that phone call with Gene, & I bumped into Paul Stanley once. I didn't have any contact with them cause until the end of 1990 my company (Glickman/Marks management) was involved in a suit that KISS brought against us and claims that we made against KISS and there were a lot of things simmering below the surface that made it very awkward for either KISS or me to have some kind of formal contacts because of the legal matters that were involved, that was eventually settled in 1990 out of court and from that point on what I understand is that Dr. Hillsenn, Paul's psychiatrist had assumed the role of buisness advisor to the group and there wasn't really a place for me anymore so it kind of ended on a sour note & that's unfortunate but I guess that's not unusual for the music buisness.
KH: Going back to 1976, exactly what was your job with KISS?
CL: I started in 1976 being hired as the account executive and Glickman/Marks management had just started in the spring of '76 and they had recruited me through an ad in the New York Times to go on the road and learn the ropes of what it's like to be with a rock band and keep tabs on where the money was going. They wanted a presence, they wanted a person on the road who would be the direct liason between Glickman/Marks management and the client which was KISS so that the client would know that there was somebody watching the finances, there was somebody who was going to monitor all of the buisness and financial activity on the road and report back to Glickman/Marks management to make sure that everything was taken care of. It was a very unusual job, obviously Bill Aucoin was very much involved and he approved me for this job that was an interview I had to go through and we had a very good relationship and KISS liked the idea that with all of the craziness that was going on with KISS at that time and all of the energies that Bill Aucoin was devoting to the promotion and the artistic side and the production, that there would be one person there-a represenative of Glickman Marks management just to keep an eye on the box office and the finances of the group to make sure that all the money was being accounted for and that they were getting their fair shake.
KH: How did your job change as KISS' popularity skyrocketed in the late 70's?
CL: Glickman Marks management became a much more important part of the life of KISS. Our role was much more expanded than the conventional buisness managers role. Obviously I had a very good relationship with all the guys in KISS; they liked me, I liked them. I became more experienced, I became more responsible for more things so I ended up becoming the tour buisness manager and doing all the show settlements and I had replaced the accountant they had on the road at that time so I was basically the financial director for the tour. I was dealing with all the promoters on the concert arrangements, I was dealing with the booking agent on the itenerary and getting the band to approve the deals and as I grew in responsibility and my job expanded I became more influential certainly in the buisness and financial areas, that was a period when the role of the buisness manager was becoming ever more important to KISS because so much more money was coming in and we all got along very well and everybody respected what my job was, it wa never to be involved with their creative side or their artistic side of their venture but it was always to keep track of the money and make things as efficient as possible and just handle all the buisness details so like with any job if you do it well you rise in importance as the venture becomes more successful.
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CL: Eventually I would say Peter and it's interesting because Peter was probably the most different from my background as could be imagined and everybody knows what Peter's background is, he dropped out of high school, he's a guy from Brooklyn, he used to hang out in gangs and then he became a musician for many years and struggled until he hit the big time with KISS. But I became friendly with him because he was such an unusual character, he had a kind of a wild side to him where he would wanna scare people and get them excited and sometimes he would really make you frightened to be around him because he could be so volatile but other times he was very pleasant, a very charming guy, he was a very emotional person, a really down to earth guy who you could tell really cared about people alot unless he was in one of his moods and for some reason even though my background was totally different than his we had a very good repoire because there were certain things that we had in common; he liked to travel, I liked to travel, he liked to go out doing nightlife and going out to fancy restaraunts and he liked to get dressed up alot on special occasions and I like that kind of stuff myself and we just had a very nice relationship.
We travelled to a few places together when we were off the road. I knew Lydia (Criss) very well, I travelled with her on one trip and then after the divorce I became friendly with his second wife Debra and they're totally different people but it was very clear that each of the wives did something for Peter that was very special but in a completely different way. So I always say that Peter I had a very close relationship with and I helped him later in the years I bought him his first house in Greenich, Conneticut and I helped him deal with all he real estate people and negotiated the deal to buy his first house and then when he got divorced he lost that house and the second house was also in Conneticut in another suburb and I helped him buy that house and made the deal with the real estate people for that and that was the house he lived in with Debbie until the early 1980's, so I was very much involved in his personal life. I was the one responsible for planning those wedding parties that I mentioned in the book-the ones at Chaissons in L.A. his bachelor party at Leraungeree and the wedding party at Regines in New York, that was really all stuff done by me and people that were working for me at the time and I became kind of a part of his extended family. When Peter and Ace left the band I spent a lot more time with Gene and Paul-particularly Paul because Gene eventually moved to L.A. so I would say I got to know Paul and Gene even better after Ace and Peter left the band.
KH: You mentioned sometimes Peter would scare people working with the band, do you have any idea why he may have done this?
CL: Well Peter liked to show off. There are two things going on here, Peter had a substance abuse problem and that's clear and that certainly affected his personality but having said that it was also part of his natural personality that he had to impress people, that he had to show that he was the man in charge and he kind of liked the idea of unsettling people and making them crazy because he felt that gave him power, it was kind of a mind game in a way. The reality was that if you didn't pay attention to a lot of Peter's hystrionics and craziness and you treated him as a regular person and said look I'm gonna deal with you as one guy to another and forget about all of your craziness, Peter respected you more and he calmed down and he settled into a more mature adult role and you could become very friendly with him but some people have to put on this big act to impress people and get a reaction because they feel it makes them powerful but they're just testing you and with Peter he was really testing you because he felt that if you were really a down to earth guy that you would see through some of his silliness and when that facade came down he was much more enjoyable to be around.
KH: Can you give any examples of how Peter may have frightened people working with the band?
CL: The people who worked in the office, whether it was our office or Bill Aucoin's office-a lot of the girls that were working there at the time who were assistants and secretaries at the time, they would be terrified to get a phone call from him because sometimes he would call and be very abusive and start yelling and screaming and just really carrying on and making himslef really objectionable and they would be afraid to take calls from him anymore because they were always afraid he was gonna go off the deep end. On the road crew it was the same, sometimes he would come into a soundcheck and start storming around the arena at some piece of equipment that wasn't set up right or he wasn't in the right mood to play and he started cursing everybody out. That was something that made some of the people on the road crew upset and one of the stories which happened many times was because of his substance abuse he didn't sleep properly, he was like up for days and it's very difficult to deal with a person-particularly if you're a bodyguard or a road manager and you're responsible for getting the band to and from the next gig and on the plane, to deal with a person that hasn't slept in days and goes to the airport wrapped in blankets and it's almost impossible to keep under control, so those are things that happened many times that were examples of that.
KH: Was it always this way with Peter or did it get worse towards the end?
CL: I remember it from the beginning and the beginning for me was 1976. If you talk to his ex wife she will tell you that in the early 70's before Peter had made much success and before he had made much money his problems weren't so great. In other words, as the money came in and Peter became more successul he could indulge in some of his habits and that was obviously a problem by the mid 70's and it really continued certainly through the end of 79 which was the last tour we ever worked with Peter.
KH: In your book you mentioned that Peter would hide his drug use, was Ace more social about his partying? Who was crazier?
CL: That's hard to define. Peter did a lot of different things and like most people who do any kind of substance abuse they do try to hide it, they try and pretend that it's not a problem or that the reason that they're not sleeping is that they have insomnia, yes Peter did have some insomnia but it was certainly made worse by his various habits. Ace's habits were heavily into alcohol, he did other things but I certainly remember the alcohol because the alcohol was so flagrant! I mean the guy would walk around with a champagne bottle all the time not just once or twice, he was constantly drinking champagne and he would even go into a buisness meeting carrying a beer bottle, he's said that himself in interviews.
KH: How do you think the alcohol affected Ace's performances?
CL: Well, he never missed a show as far as I know, except for one which was at Studio 54. I'm sure there were shows that he performed better than others and I know that was true with Peter but I don't remember in my time that they actually cancelled a show because of their problems so to some extent they kept it under control so they could function with KISS but what happened before the show and after the show was another story.
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CL: Well Gene's acting really took off in the mid 80's when Peter and Ace were no longer involved so the the only person he really had to account to was Paul, and there's no question that Paul resented the fact that Gene was devoting a lot of time to acting and Paul felt that the roles that he took were not neccessarily flattering and he felt that the intentions was a distraction to what KISS is all about, now having said that and as you know from reading the book Paul is also jealous. Paul also aspired to get acting roles, Paul certainly would've taken movie or TV roles had they been offered to him and I know that he didn't accept any so it was part of the chemistry of Paul and Gene. Paul always looked up to Gene, and Gene was a tremendous influence on Paul. Paul was not happy about Gene's acting roles, he felt that they were a distraction from KISS and at the same time Paul would've liked to have done them himself.
KH: Did you see this take away from Gene's side of KISS? Did this dissipate anything?
CL: That's a very good question. Looking back in retrospect I don't think it really hurt the band because quite frankly at that time KISS was unmasked, they were not in costumes anymore, they were not a big item, they were not selling a lot of records, they were not a big concert draw. I don't see that it could have hurt them, it helped generate additional publicity for KISS, I don't say it helped them but I really don't think it hurt KISS. In my opinion I think he did a credible job as an actor. I think he had a fairly limited range and there seems to be a lot of KISS fans that liked those roles & I must say I never heard any fans object to the acting roles that Gene took on and I think it happened at a point in their carreer where there was very little downside, if Gene had been on a sitcom or started to appear on sports programs I think it would've been different but he played these kind of melodramatic roles that were not out of character with what he was known for in KISS and at that time I think it just created some additional publicity angle that they wouldn't have had otherwise.
KH: In your book it mentions that KISS copied Van Halen & Bon Jovi, are there any direct examples of this?
CL: Well the ones in my book are the ones that I distinctly recall. Bon Jovi was an unusual situation because they were a totally unknown band in the mid 80's and our first contact with them was when they opened for KISS in Europe (83) and they were the opening act and they were tracing through the continent in a bus without a heater that kept breaking down and Doc McGee who was then the manager of Bon Jovi was making some rumblings about maybe leaving the KISS tour because the ticket sales weren't all that great and then not too many years later the tables were turned; Bon Jovi had that Slippery When Wet album, around the world just an enormous hit and in 1987 when I was with Gene and Paul in Europe and we went to the Donnington Festival in England; who was the main attraction? It was Bon Jovi and a few years ago they were bowering around in a bus and they were nobody's and people were laughing at Bon Jovi, so it was an unusual situation and the reality is Paul and Gene are very savvy about what is selling in the music buisness, they know who is recording what group and who the producers are and what kind of promotional technique they're using and how the marketing's done and, let's face it, in the mid to late 1980's KISS was in the dulldrums, they weren't a failure but they were selling a fraction of the amount of tickets and records they had before, Bon Jovi was the biggest success in the music industry, it was obvious that they were influenced by the type of music he was singing, some of the people that were working for him, the video director did some of the production techniques.
I can't say honestly that Paul & Gene sat down and said we are now going to copy Bon Jovi, but I can tell you as an insider that they were heavily influenced by that-they were influenced by his success, by the type of song style that he was using, the type of studio production techniqes. They contacted video directors that Bon Jovi had used & I can tell you from the buisness side that whenever the record company, particularly in Europe which I dealt with extensively, would ask us about approving a new marketing technique or releasing a certain b side in European territory they wanted to know who else did it and if Bon Jovi had done it successfully, cause we were on the same record company then it was okay, so they were very influenced by that. Van Halen was a group that Gene was intrumental in discovering. The Van Halen sound was something that I don't say KISS copied but they admired and they liked that kind of sound and when Van Halen hit the top of the charts in 1984 with "Jump" KISS was way down in the pits as far as record sales were concerned. I remember calling up Paul and asking if he was gonna go and see Van Halen at the Garden and Paul was just so depressed he said 'no they called me up and they asked me to come but I'm just not in the mood to go down there.' The synthesizers were something that Van Halen, I don't say they were the first but certianly with "Jump" was the first hard rock band I know that had a #1 hit single with synthesizers, that makes an impact, that makes an impression. Paul loved synthesizers. They didn't use a lot of synthesizers in their music until the mid to late 1980's , now I can't say I listened to every conversation between Gene and Paul because there's probably thousands upon thousands that they had privately that I wasn't privy to obviously. I can't say we had a meeting and said from now on we'll copy the Van Halen sound but I can tell you that they were influenced by the synthesizers, I can tell you that they were very friendly with Edward Van Halen.
At one point Gene brought Edward and Alex up to our office to talk about managing them. They loved the clothes that Van Halen was wearing on stage which I described in my book. They did hire the woman who was the costumer for Van Halen about that time, so yes they were influenced because Van Halen-top of the charts, millions of records, selling out coast to coast, same with Bon Jovi, KISS was really at the nater of their carreer at that time and there's no question that they were looking for ways to get back on top and sometimes the way people do that right or wrong is they copy what's successful or they copy parts of what is successful and try and adapt it to what they do.
KH: Your book mentions that up until Peter left that KISS were all equal 25% partners & when Eric Carr came in & other members they were empolyees. Did this bother Eric or any other members, that you recall?
CL: At the time that Eric came into the group in 1980 I don't think he would've expected it any different because in 1980 KISS was a supergroup and Eric had no professional playing experience. It's like when you join a partnership, when you all start at ground zero then you're all equal, or you all have a share of the success but by 1980 KISS was already one of the most successful bands in the world. Eric Carr was a very talented musician but he had virtually no proffesional playing experience outside of bands whose names I can't even remember in Brooklyn and Queens.
KH: Which is what KISS wanted right?
CL: Exactly, and I think that affected them too because when you bring in somebody and they know that they will never get a chance to become a partner I think it influences their behaviour and how they think about themselves.
KH: Do you think that Eric gave KISS a different outlook after he joined? Or a better attitude?
CL: Well there's no question that Eric's playing ability was perfect for KISS. He was an extremely talented guy, he was much more in the heavy metal style than Peter, Peter will tell you that, that's nothing bad against Peter. Eric was a heavy metal/hard rock drummer. Peter was really a jazz drummer who was more influenced by Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich than by Alex Van Halen. Eric had a wonderful attitude, he was a pleasure to deal with, he was a very level headed guy. He was very, very good at what he did and he was a real asset to KISS and KISS recognised that. He was very well paid at the time, whether or not in later years how happy he was or whether he achieved everything he wanted-I think other people may be able to give more insight than me. I do know that there were certainly times that Eric was clearly unhappy in KISS, he felt that he was being relegated to a sideman kind of role even though everybody respected and admired him and I think he wanted to have more say in what was going on creatively with KISS and Gene and Paul kind of blocked that.
KH: Do you think KISS wanting a more modern drummer had anything to do with them getting Anton Fig to play on DYNASTY(1979) & UNMASKED(1980)?
CL: Well the reason they got Anton Fig was he is a very accomplished session drummer. He could play any style very well. He was available and they just plugged him in. I think that's what the criteria was, that he could play any style that they wanted him to play and he was a very powerful drummer and that's the kind of drum sound KISS wanted to have.
KH: Was there any animosity from Peter about this?
CL: Well I think on one hand he wasn't happy about somebody else stepping in but he was frequently out of control. I mean he frequently had problems just showing up for the sessions and playing when he was supposed to. He had a very bad problem at that time and that's why the album would've never been finished unless they brought in somebody to pick up where Peter left off.
KH: Was Peter completely out of the band by the time of the UNMASKED(1980) album?
CL: Peter was not functioning as a member of KISS on that album, or any activity from 1980 forward.
KH: Can you tell us about the Super KISS concept you mentioned in your book & how the band evolved into what you saw as Super KISS?
CL: Well the Super KISS concept was a term that I invented and that's how I described the change from what KISS was all about up to 1978 to what it metamorphosed into in 1979. By 1979 they had a boatlad of merchandise on the market, they had been on the TV movie on NBC, they had the KISS dolls and all the KISS paraphernalia flooding the market, they had four solo albums and KISS was always looking to top itself and this was part of Bill Aucoin's creative strategy, it was always to take it to another hurdle, take it to another creative level so the way I saw it was, & the '79 tour was emblamatic of that, was that the next level they should take it to is they have the biggest show ever, the biggest production ever and to try and incorporate all of these creative concepts about KISS with superpowers and that stuff that came in the TV movie, and merchandise being offered, and all the colors that were on the 4 solo albums, to take it to the next level and integrate that into the stage show and put that into our production and take it on the road. One thing lead to another which became a mammoth production and there was everything being done from lazers to pyrotechniques. You saw how outlandish the costumes became. They were on another scale compared to what the KISS costumes were in '77 or '78 but everything became Super KISS, we had to top what they did before, it wasn't enough just to be a great rock & roll band with stage acrobatics, we had to have superpowers. At one point Paul was supposed to have a lazer piece over his eye that shot lazer beams into the audience, the problem was it might've blinded somebody! So that effect was scribbled, and Gene with the flying rig, and there was a lazer system that was used breifly on the tour. There were far more effects being planned for Ace's guitar than we could use on tour because some frankly didn't work. So it just became over the top and KISS started to become an exaggeration of what KISS was in the first place.
KH: What do you think was Gene's motivation behind the way he would show people his photo collections of nude women?
CL: I think he thought it was a way of arousing people. He was obviously very sexually oriented and it was a way of showing that he was so powerful that he could have all these sexual conquests, I think that's how he saw it, that now he was a super star that he could amass a collection of pictures like this, of really provocative and in some cases shocking pictures of women and I guess that's how he kept score in life, some people keep score by how much money they have in the bank and that was important to him too and other people think that it's a big item to be able to show you how many women you've had sexually. We all have our little emotional idiosyncrasies and I guess that was clearly one of his. It was a power thing. Gene wanted to be in control and he had power over women and dominion over women and particularly when he was in his late 20's/early 30's this was how he showed off and cultivated this image he was creating for himself as a sex object.
KH: What did the other members of KISS seem to think about this?
CL: I think they reacted with amusement at times and at other times they thought it was exaggerated. I can't say that everyone else in KISS was pure as the driven snow and nobody had girls and nobody was fooling around, of course they all were, but the reality was that Gene made such an issue of it and with Gene it became almost like a science the way he wanted to memorialize all of these encounters, that they thought it was a little nutty.
KH: Were their tastes in women much different than this?
CL: Well when you're on the road in a rock band there's a certain style of woman, certainly at that time the type of girls that hangs out at the hotels, hangs out at the shows, it's not the full spectrum of the female population in America. I can't say that at that time the girls that the other guys picked up were radically different than what Gene had, the only difference was quantity. The others might have a couple a week and Gene would have a couple a day.
KH: Would you say it's true that Gene has never been drunk?
CL: Well to the best of my knowledge he has never had alcohol, now that doesn't mean that if he sat down at a passover dinner or something or went to a social occasion where in a matter of politeness you lift a glass & take a sip of wine, I'm sure that's happened but I would never describe him as a drinker because I don't think that accounts for anything.
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CL: Well when you say party, I mean he didn't drink. The only time Paul drank was sometimes I would be with him in a restaurant and he would have a glass of wine but he wasn't much of a drinker. The idea of Paul being in a room drinking is not even thinkable. Again, in a social occasion or an event he would have a glass of wine but that's it, he wasn't a drinker either.
KH: Did Paul & Gene ever say to Ace & Peter that they were f**king up & partying too much?
CL: Oh sure, there's no question that those words were said. I can't say I was privy to it all the time but I know that it was a serious cause of concern among Paul and Gene that Ace and Peter were potentially going to sink the KISS ship and I remember various times talking to Paul and Gene and they were upset. If I tell you some of the stories about Peter going off the deep end and Ace drinking too much all the time, on one level it sounds very funny but on another level I can tell you that Paul and Gene were very, very frightened by it. Peter was, with his extreme behaviour at times, with drinking and guns and substance abuse. Peter came close to having many calamities, and then if Peter ended up in an accident or ended up being seriously injured, what would happen to KISS? And the same with Ace, they were very worried that one day Ace would have another car crash, Ace would drink too much, he would get into a fight, he would end up being incapacitated in some way and what happens to the tour? So there's no question that this was something that they regarded with tremendous seriousness because it just takes one calamity to stop a tour and cost them millions of dollars and who knows what would happen to the rest of their carreers?
KH: It mentioned in your book that Ace only liked to hang around with his older friends & that he would fly them out on the road cause he was lonely, do you think this was just an act at all?
CL: No, Ace had a problem in being happy in what he was doing and he was very much rooted in the circumstances of how and where he grew up, which meant hanging out in the neighborhoods, playing in local bands, going to local bars & hanging out with a certain group of people. Now, what happens in many cases when people become successful they rise to the occasion and they develop a new group of friends and a new group of people, and some of the old people too, but they kind of move up in life emotionally, financially and in terms of who they relate to because their status in life changes. With Ace, it certainly didn't happen at that time, he could only be comfortable with the same guys that he grew up with, many of whom were kind of sponges, kind of hangers on. They loved to party as long as Ace picked up the tab and there were quite a number of guys that he flew around who were friends of his from the old neighborhood or the old life of Ace when he was an unknown rock & roller in the Bronx, and those were apparently the only people he could relate to socially and he flew them out and I met them many times at his home and he took care of them in one way or another and that's how he amused himself, so there's just some people who it takes a long time to get adjusted to success and the only people they wanna be around are the people from the old neighborhood who never really made it.
KH: Do you think there's any truth to the rumour that KISS did the solo albums (1978) mainly to get more records on their contract?
CL: Well the solo albums enabled them to get a larger amount of money as an advance per album, because they were delivering four albums as opposed to one. I do not recall at this time whether or not the solo albums enabled them to get four times the advance from one album, I don't think so. I think they got more money but I don't know that it was four times. They did the solo albums partly for financial reasons yes, and partly for the fact that they felt that this was part of what was becoming super KISS. It wasn't enough just to have a KISS album, now we have to have KISS by four. Each guy does his own thing because each guy is so important & so well known and such a superstar that they can each perform their own music and automatically all KISS fans will buy four albums as opposed to one. Yes there was certainly a financial angle to it and yes there was certainly a creative angle to it that was leading into what I called Super KISS, so both are correct.
KH: When KISS shipped the 5 million solo albums in '78, it was said to be kind of a disaster for Casablanca. Did Casablanca think these would sell invariably?
CL: Well Neil Bogart gave an interview in the Los Angeles Times where he said by Christmas ('78) he expects that there will be 8 million albums shipped. The reality was that there was a little over five and a quarter million shipped and I don't remember the exact number that came back but I believe it was well over two million at the time and it was disastrous for Casablanca.
KH: When you were on the road with KISS, what kinds of things would the band do on their days off?
CL: We really have two different bands. There was the original band and then there was the Paul and Gene band. On the original band, it was kind of a more lively atmosphere. On days off Gene would stay in his room but sometimes I would go out to dinner with Gene. Paul would usually have a girlfriend. They would do conventional things-go to movies, occasionally go bowling. I remember with Ace we once went out boating. Peter was always a problem because a lot of times he didn't go out although I do remember in Cleveland I went out to a restaurant with him. It was called the 'Blue Fox', this was in '79 and I was one of the only guys that Peter went out with socially, I had a relationship with Peter on his other side that I enjoyed. I remember I had a rented car and I was the expert on restaurants and I said to Peter let's go out, it's supposed to be a nice place and I had heard that the restaurant was a mafia hangout so that automatically made Peter more interested. When we got to the restaurant he enjoyed it because he liked going out but that's the thing, somebody had to get him out of the room in order to make him function like a real person in which case he enjoyed it. Ace would go bowling, he would have his friends come in and they would party and girls would come over, and from time to time we would all go out to nightclubs and disco's. Later on when there was no Ace and Peter around I can tell you that very seldom did I see Gene leave his hotel room.
KH: Did all the hotel trashing stop after Ace & Peter were out of KISS?
CL: There was none of that stuff. When Ace & Peter left that dissapeared. When Ace & Peter left I very rarely recall Gene leaving the hotel, he was always in the room. Paul would go out. Sometimes I would go out to dinner with Paul. Sometimes we would organize something like bowling or we would go to a nightclub. Once we had a party for Paul's birthday, it was in Corpus Christi, Texas and it was a 'Dukes Of Hazzard' party. 'Dukes Of Hazzard' was very popular at the time so we went out and bought all these party favors that were all themed to 'Dukes Of Hazzard' and it was just a fun thing.
KH: From knowing these guys so long & so well, what would you say is the best & worst way to approach each member?
CL: As of when I knew them & I don't know how much their personalities may have changed but; Paul is always very sensitive and you have to be very differential to him so if you want to get on his good side don't try and be a show off & don't touch him physically and always be aware of the fact that he thinks of himself as a rock star and you have to always approach him in that way. Gene doesn't like fakery. He would rather have somebody tell him to his face 'I don't think what you're saying is accurate and here's why...' he would respect you for that. Gene is also a person who dislikes anyone who has any aire or any way associated with drinking or drug use or is an uneducated person. If you wanna get on Gene's bad side then you would be inarticulate and stinking of liquor, or not in control and very undisciplined and coming across as being a stupid person, that is for sure the way to get on his bad side. He respects itelligence. He's a very image conscience person but he would have more respect for a person who comes in with a crew cut and pencils in his pocket and looks like a geek if he knows what he wants to say and can say it clearly and makes intelligent points than some guy that wants to pretend that he's a rock and roller, he doesn't care for that kind of thing.
Ace is a very down to earth guy, he's just very hard to get to know. It's very hard sometimes to figure out what exactly is going on inside his brain. He likes people that are fun to be with, he always wants people around who are characters, for him personality is important. If he thinks you're a regular guy, that you don't mind having a joke being made at your expense and you can laugh along with it and you're not too uptight and you know how to get along with people he respects you. I remember one time I was at a restaurant with him in Belgium, it was very fancy restaurant and we're sitting upstairs and I made a joke and I started to laugh & I put my weight towards the back of the chair and somebody made a joke and I leaned back in the chair and I did it so hard that the chair collapsed and I thought Ace was gonna die of laughter! I mean he was like almost gagging because it was this elegant European restaurant and I'm on the floor because the chair collapsed under me but Ace thought it was very funny and he could see I thought it was very funny too and I was laughing along with him, but that's the kind of thing that would make you comfortable with Ace is if somebody could play a joke and you don't get uptight about it. Peter, you had to be careful about but the reality was if you talked to him straight and you were a no bullshit person and said 'Peter this is the way it is 1, 2 & 3' and you're not gonna be impressed by Peter's ranting and raving and you're not gonna be taken in by Peter's wild and crazy mood swings and you're just very calm and very low key and you're very straight, then eventually Peter will find that you're a person that can be trusted.
KH: How did Bill Aucoin's role with KISS change in the late 70's?
CL: Well Bill for many years was very important to KISS and everybody in KISS will tell you that. I think what happened with Bill is that it got carried away. Bill built up an enormous organization. He took on all these bands, he was trying to make each band as big as KISS and he felt he had the midas touch and that because he was successful with KISS all he had to do was get involved with these other groups and they too would go on to fame and success. It all went to his head.
KH: When Bill worked with KISS he took a alot of credit for things, do you think this was his ego talking?
CL: Everybody gives Bill all the credit for making KISS happen. I've even heard Lydia (Criss) say to me that without Bill there in the beginning she was unsure whether or not they would've ever have gotten off the ground. I think everybody gives him credit particularly in the early years, and then as they became successful & marketing it to the degree of the success it became in the late 70's. I think after that he got carried away. The KISS concept became exaggerated to the point of being ridiculous. Bill felt he had to live this kind of mogul lifestyle and take on all of these other groups at the expense of paying attention to KISS. KISS was into debt, none of the groups were successes and the whole thing collapsed and Bill went through all the money he made with KISS.
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CL: No they didn't. Vinnie was kind of a default choice. This was in Creatures Of The Night. We had so many guitarists come in I can't even keep track and they had to perform, they listened to tapes, they flew people in, but for whatever reason Paul and Gene didn't like any of the people enough to invite them into the group. at the time, during the Creatures album Vinnie was already playing on the record. He was around all the time and sometimes just by virtue of the fact that you're around all the time and you're there and available and they're already used to working with you, even if they don't think you're the perfect choice, they say 'okay he may not be ideal but he's already here so let's just see if it works' and that's what happened.
KH: So it was perfect timing for Vinnie.
CL: Yeah, he was in the right place at the right time. They were enthralled by Vinnie. It was personality, it wasn't because he wasn't an excellent guitarist. I never heard anybody say that he wasn't a very good musician and clearly he was a very good songwriter and he could sing and his songs speak for themselves, but in terms of getting along with people, that was not Vinnie's claim to fame.
KH: Do you know anything about why Vinnie's face wasn't used on the cover of CREATURES?
CL: Well that's very clear, the reason they didn't put his face on the cover of Creatures Of The Night was because they were trying to maintain the illusion that Ace was still in the band and they had to do that in order to keep the record company from thinking that Ace was out of the band in which case their contract would be voided, which happened anyway, it just happened latter rather than sooner, that was a buisness decision.
KH: What do you think is the biggest buisness mistake that KISS has ever made?
CL: Probably the single biggest buisness mistake was that Ace left the band. Going back in time I think there probably should have been more of an effort to keep him in the band even if it meant giving him 6 months or a year to sort out the various emotional and personal problems he was going through. I can't say that would've worked but clearly it was a terrible mistake for him to have left the band because he was an integral part of what the fans felt KISS was all about and he was a very important part of the buisness success of KISS because he was one of the people that was signed as KISS to the record company and that's what kept their huge contract in place. That was clearly a big mistake and it could have been handled differently and possibly better.
KH: Do you remember where some of the merchandise ideas came from? Were there meetings about these things?
CL: Oh yeah. There were a lot of people involved. Bill Aucoin was involved, Lee Freidman who was head of the merchandising company was involved, KISS had ideas, but don't forget in that buisness they had somewhere in the range of 70 to 100 different companies that are liscenced merchandisers who come up with some of the ideas themselves. In other words, when they had the KISS dolls, the lunchboxes, the garbage pails, whatever, these were in many cases the ideas that were from companies that were in the buisness of making producsts like that. They know the market. KISS was working with dozens and dozens of other companies, each of whom has an idea or a product that-that company can manufacture that they feel would be suitable for KISS & then it's up to KISS to approve it or dissaprove it & if they do approve to make sure it comes out the way they intend.
KH: Were any members more into the merchandising side than others?
CL: Yeah. Peter and Ace weren't really into that stuff. I mean they would okay it and some things they might take a shine to more than others but largely Gene was the champion of all things connected to merchandising.
KH: Do you recall any physical confrontations within the band?
CL: Well I remember a few gust ups. One of em took place in a photo session and Peter and Ace got into a tiff and Peter put his hand through the mirror in the dressing room and had to be rushed off to an emergency ward and then he came back with his hand bandaged.
KH: Can you tell us a little about the ELDER listening party? (record company)
CL: People walked away from it in a mood that they didn't really know how to react to it, in other words it didn't sound anything like KISS and it's not that it sounded bad but it was such a departure from what they were used to. People were very unsure about it.
KH: Do you think the band had to compromise their essence to keep up with the times back then?
CL: Well I think what happened in the late 80's and early 90's is that KISS didn't really have much of an image. Before it was a very clear image. It was very distinctive to what they were all about and it was very well defined. It couldn't have been more clear, but when you take off the makeup and the outrageousness dissapeared and there was no more costumes it really wasn't different than any other heavy metal act.
KH: Do you think KISS was lost a little bit after they took off the makeup?
CL: Yes, they were lost. They were drifting by the late 80's. they weren't really sure about what it is they wanted to be anymore and they were looking for big producers like Ron Nevison, who is very good at what he does, but they were looking to get direction from him as to how they should sound. the same thing when they had Ezrin with the Elder. They were looking to him to tell them how the music should be. They kind of fell into a rut in the mid 80's. It was certainly an excellent band and the musicianship was never better and they played very well in concert and it was a great performing act but it was hard to say 'well what is so different from KISS now than 10 or 15 other groups?' and the answer was-nothing.
KH: Do you think that Ace & Peter's personalities had a lot to do with that?
CL: Absolutely. KISS was a personality band, that's how they made their success. The fans don't care as much as the performers as to who is the most brilliant musician or who is the greatest heavy metal drummer. There's people out there playing in nightclubs here in New York who could play drums and guitar as good as anybody now on a major label, probably much better, but the reality is; Are they in a band? Do they have a personality that makes you want to become a fan of theirs.
KH: In the 80's was there any conscious desicion as to why Paul's stage raps got so much more vulgar?
CL: Yeah, that was his. He felt that in order to be relevant to younger folks they had to have this very raucous, harsh profanity laced rap on stage. That was how he felt that he could connect to younger kids. That's a perfect example of what I'm talking about that they were drifting. They didn't wanna lose touch with their young fans. They felt that because so many of their fans were guys in their early teens and early twenties that it gave them a certain credibility to have all this sex talk on stage and a lot of rough talk and it was how they were trying to concoct an image for themselves that wasn't able to be done with their music or their visual image anymore.
KH: What do you remember most about working with Eric Carr?
CL: He was a very sensitive person. He tried really hard. He was one of the most dedicated people that I've ever met. He was really a consumate musician. He put everything into his performances. He was a fun person to be around. He was probably the only person I remember in KISS that ever was friendly with the road crew, he would go out with them socially, not all the time but he would take an interest in them personally and would hang out with them. On a day off he would go out to bars with them or parties or things of that kind. None of the other guys in KISS were particularly close with guys on the road crew. Ace and Peter from time to time had people that worked with them that they were close to but that was years earlier. Eric was a gentle person. The only thing I think caused problems for Eric was he was a little bit immature for his age. Everybody liked him very much. Everybody thought he was a terrific asset to KISS & he was a very good musician, but Paul & Gene understood as others of us did that he was a little bit young for his age and I think that's why he was often very unhappy later on in his years with KISS because he wasn't quite as mature as the others.
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CL: Well the best and the worst are really the same. I would say the tour in Brazil was a memory that was both exciting and also one of the most nerve wracking but this was really the end of KISS as KISS because 1983 was the last tour with makeup and it was important to KISS to do that tour because it was one of the few places in the world they could go and draw a stadium crowd and I had just been on tour with them in St. Louis and there was 3,000 people in the audience which was a disaster. I had a lot of good memories with KISS, I had very few bad ones. Some of the most fun memories were; Peter's wedding and the wedding party, going to Bangkok with Peter and his wife Lydia, that was a tremendous memory, I'll never forget that. Probably I would tell you my most vivid memories were when all four of the members were in the band and the tour in Brazil because it was such an unusual event. What happened after that Joe, was it was enjoyable and I liked Paul and Gene and I enjoyed travelling with them and doing all the things that we did in '84, '85, '86, '87 together but it was much more buisness like. There was less excitement, less spontanaety. It ended up being kind of a repetitious pattern after a while. Nothing aginst the guys who replaced Peter and Ace but it wasn't the same band.
KH: Have the reactions been really great on your book so far?
CL: It's been extremely positive. The fans are very enthusiastic about the book. I think people understand that what I'm trying to do is relate my experiences as an insider to eliminate what goes on in the music buisness, to help people understand KISS better. Not to just write press releases but to tell you what they're like as real people & try and be as honest as I can. To tell you not just about the successes & triumphs but to tell you about the mistakes and the failures because that's what part of being in a band is all about and my job I felt was to humanize them and not make them stick figures or comic book characters because nobody believes that stuff anymore anyway. After 25 years people wanna know the facts and I think by knowing the truth & knowing that they're not superheroes, they made mistakes. They did some very foolish and stupid things, at the same time they did some tremendously successful things which is why they're legends in the music buisness. But they're human beings and I think if people understand that they are human beings who had a complex buisness side of their whole operation in addition to what they did creatively I think they will appreciate the fact that they've lasted as long as they have and that's what counts. The truth is not only much more interesting than the fantasyland stories about KISS that have been written, but the truth I think makes them look like real people which I think fans appreciate and people in general respect.
KH: I think the book is great & I certainly reccomend it to fans. Thanks for your time Chris!
CL: Okay my pleasure, good luck!