![]() ![]() In April 1976, KISS earned their first platinum record for Destroyer and they would never look back. Naysayers couldn’t dismiss KISS for long. So we never really wanted to be a part of the New York scene and we were never embraced by it because we had ambitions. Most of those other bands, their music became the soundtrack to a fashion show. The reason we weren’t considered hip or cool was because we didn’t hang out. “Those bands who were considered hip or who were the darlings of the New York scene spent more time at Max’s Kansas City or at clubs than they did learning their craft. ![]() “What was so strange about that was we knew the bands that were being praised in New York and we killed them all,” Stanley said. Even in their hometown of New York City, KISS were dismissed at first as gimmicky and crass. In 1977, the album went gold, but that pales in comparison to many of KISS’ other records. 75 on the Billboard album chart and only sold 75,000 copies before Alive! was released. It wasn’t just critics that didn’t flock to the party. But there was this review in Seattle that read something like, ‘this band called KISS better save their money because it’s going to be over as quickly as it started’ Well, I would dare to say he’s probably seen the food stamp line sooner than I have.” ![]() I remember one review that was very funny because it was transparent and it was obvious what was behind it. We clearly took what we did seriously and I think that was intimidating to a lot of people. “It threw me because we clearly were undeniable. “Critics, for reasons known only to them and their therapists didn’t want anything to do with KISS,” Stanley said. But for some reason they were scoffed at from the start by music journalists. KISS knew they had the songs and the live show to win over the world. Even so, the quality of the aforementioned “Deuce, “Firehouse,” Strutter” and “Cold Gin,” as well as “ Nothin’ to Lose,” with its glam piano, female background vocals and soaring guitar solo, the bluesy electric thunder of “ 100,000 Years” and the multi-textured, near-progressive, cowbell-enhanced rockfest “ Black Diamond,” are unimpeachable. I felt so incredibly out of place.”Ĭompared to the band’s live show and later recordings, KISS sounds clean and glossy, as if the producers had just finished a session with Grand Funk Railroad and left the amp, guitar and control board set to the levels they were at before KISS entered the room. The microphone might as well have been me singing into an elephant’s ass. “I was intimidated by the studio and intimidated by the idea of touching something and ruining the gear set up or ruining a take we were recording. “We were so green,” Stanley said of the sessions. After recruiting new guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss, KISS tracked their first album at Bell Sound Studios in New York City with producers Kenny Kerner and Richard Wise over the course of three weeks. Vocalist and bassist Gene Simmons and Stanley wrote most of the songs on KISS when they were in their pre-Kiss band Wicked Lester, which formed in 1971 and disbanded at the end of 1972. ![]()
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