Blabbermouth
KISS frontman Paul Stanley says that the band’s tumultuous “Farewell Tour
“ in 2000 was nothing more than an attempt by the group to “put KISS out of its misery” after years of ego clashes and disagreements over songwriting credits between the band’s original members.
In 1996, the original KISS foursome regrouped and embarked on a massively successful world tour, which lasted a little over a year. Less than two years later, Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley made plans to the studio to record “Psycho Circus”, their first full studio album together since 1977’s “Love Gun”. (Peter was replaced by “ghost” drummer Anton Fig on all but one track on 1979’s “Dynasty”.) The results, however, fell far short of expectations, with Criss only playing drums on one song and Frehley appearing on two tracks.
“‘Psycho Circus’ was such a nightmare to make that it kind of turned me off to the whole idea of making another album,” Stanley said during a <a “href=”http://www.podcastone.com/pg/jsp/program/episode.jsp?programID=593&pid” =473241″=”” target=”_blank”>recent appearance on “Talk Is Jericho“, the podcast of Chris Jericho, the world champion pro wrestler, actor, New York Times best-selling author and lead vocalist of the metal band FOZZY. “But then at some point I thought, I don’t want that to be our last album. It’s not a good memory. Although ‘Psycho Circus’ has turned out to be a great song; it’s terrific.
“Everything was wrong [during the making of ‘Psycho Circus’].”
He continued: “The problem that I have is that people say, ‘Why don’t you stop bashing Ace?’ or ‘Why don’t you stop bashing Peter?’ And I go, ‘Well, if you ask the same questions, I have to give you the same answer.’ The answer’s not gonna change. Don’t ask the question, because the truth is the truth. It’s not a matter of wanting to bash somebody. I have to tell it the way it is.