Post by Erik Rupp on Sept 21, 2018 1:29:12 GMT -5
The Fall and Rise of KISS
The ascention of KISS from a club band in New York City (or the outskirts of NYC, to be more accurate) to an arena headliner is a well known story. Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons grew dissatisfied with their previous band, Wicked Lester, due to the band's lack of musical focus and a lack of any kind of visual identity. So they parted ways with the other members of that band and looked to recruit a new drummer and lead guitarist to fill out the new group.
This time they wanted not only people with the same drive and passion that they had, but also people who had a willingness to do something outrageous to get noticed. But the players also had to fit, musically. They found drummer Peter Criss first, and then lead guitarist Ace Frehley and their rocket to the top was fueled up and ready to launch. All they needed were the songs (they had several already, and with Ace and Peter in the group they came up with more – a bunch of classics, too), and one other vital ingredient - management.
Needing a manager they showed insight that most others wouldn't - they sent multiple invitations to TV producer Bill Aucoin for a couple shows that the band put on at the Hotel Diplomat in New York. Aucoin showed up at the second of these gigs and was mightily impressed with both the band's chutzpah and their songwriting. They needed polishing (both visually and musically), as well as money to take what they were doing to the next level, but being a TV guy he recognized the visual appeal of the band and just how important that could be for the band to achieve Gold level success.
The rest of the story is, as noted previously, well known. KISS became one of the most successful bands in North America in the mid to late 70's. They sold albums in greater numbers than their critics at the time thought possible (averaging over two million copies each), and they had very well attended arena tours (the best attended being their Love Gun/Alive II tour in 1977 and early 1978). The band was riding high. Merchandise sales were through the roof – no band had sold as much merchandise since The Beatles a decade earlier.
And right there the seeds of their downfall were planted.
At the very peak of their career their downfall was already almost inevitable. Sure, they still had multiple chances to change paths thereby avoiding that career calamity, but like Chernobyl a decade later, every single thing that had to be done wrong for the band to collapse commercially was done wrong.
First, the band embarked on recording four simultaneous solo albums. In and of itself this project wasn't a disaster. Ace and Paul both recorded strong albums that the core KISS fans would like (quite a bit, too), but Gene recorded an album that sounded like a collaboration with The Beatles as well as some straightforward late 70's Adult Rock material. The songs were good, but didn't fit the KISS sound and the album, from the Demon of the band – the guy with the darkest, meanest image - would turn off a large percentage of their fanbase.
To make things worse, Peter Criss' album would alienate their fans even more. It was an album filled with 60's Motown R&B type material as well as mid 70's Adult Contemporary songs. It was a complete and utter mismatch with the band's fanbase. If Gene's album confused and turned off a large percentage of KISS fans, Peter's album had that effect squared. The solo album project would have been a disaster if not for the high quality KISS-like albums from Ace and Paul.
But the oversaturation of the albums in the market made it look like the albums weren't selling (their record company, Casablanca Records, made the strategic mistake of printing up an initial run of one million copies each of all four albums). In reality, Ace's album easily sold a million copies (and additional copies were pressed), and Gene's came close to that number. Paul easily passed a half million, but Peter's sold far less than that after returns were counted. There were hundreds of thousands of unsold copies returned to the record company. It was an insider PR nightmare for the band.
To make matters worse on the fan PR front, the band had spent part of the Summer of '78 filming a TV movie for NBC – KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. The original script was something like A Hard Day's Night meets Star Wars, but the executives at NBC (at the urging of their internal censors) insisted on toning down the violence and simplifying the storyline. The final script resembled that of an extended episode of Scooby Doo (which was appropriate since Scooby Doo producers Hanna Barbera were producing the movie). The band was already under contract and just went through the motions. Peter Criss wouldn't even show up for looping to fix the audio for the lines that weren't audible or were garbled, so a cartoon voice actor overdubbed all of his dialogue for the entire movie.
The end result was a bad movie. An embarrassingly bad movie. But when looked at as camp it fits the decade (it very much matches the tone of the 1970's Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter). It is an entertaining movie when viewed as camp, but at the time the KISS Army wasn't looking for camp – they were looking for Kick Ass! The movie played like something intended for kids under 13, and it was broadcast in Prime Time on NBC around the same time that the solo albums were released.
Cracks were now showing. Publicly.
As the band regrouped and started planning their next group album they had to settle on a producer. Vini Poncia had produced Peter Criss' solo album, and he had worked with Ringo Starr as a songwriter, so when Criss suggested Poncia the band went along with the idea to keep the volatile drummer happy.
Ironically, Poncia would decide that Peter's playing wasn't good enough for the album and hired Ace Frehley solo album drummer Anton Fig (who would go on to be the drummer for the David Letterman Late Night band) to replace Criss on eight of the album's nine songs.
Poncia was a good songwriter with a gift for melody and hooks. He helped KISS polish up their songs for what would become Dynasty. It was largely a very slick, polished Hard Rock album, but it also featured a couple songs that had a Disco Rock sound – Peter Criss,' “Dirty Livin,” and Paul Stanley's smash hit single, “I Was Made For Lovin' You.”
“I Was Made For Lovin' You,” was a Top 10 megahit, and it won KISS hundreds of thousands of new Pop fans. Unfortunately for the band, it also alienated hundreds of thousands of their core fans – fans who checked out for good (or at least until their 1996 Reunion). On top of the musical alienation that their long time core fans were feeling, the band's image was blown up way over the top. Where their image had previously been built around black and silver, leather and chrome, it was now built around Vegas glitz, which included colorful outfits complete with capes! They cheesy 70's Superhero look was what they were aiming for, and they hit that target dead center. Unfortunately for them, this successful achievement of their goal meant pushing away old fans even as they gained new ones.
The expected multi-night sellouts in major cities on the Dynasty Tour ended up being single shows with 80-90% of the tickets sold. Certainly, those were respectable numbers, but not what the band and Aucoin management expected.
Houston, we have a problem.
Having alienated probably half of their old core fanbase after the solo albums, movie, and Dynasty album, KISS needed something big to regain their upward career momentum. It was early 1980. Hard Rock and Heavy Metal were making a comeback after a couple seriously down years. Black Sabbath was reborn and revitalized with Ronnie James Dio as their new singer. Their first album with Dio, Heaven and Hell, was a Platinum seller and featured some of the heaviest (yet most melodic) material of their career. AC/DC was coming off a hit album in Highway To Hell, and their 1980 album Back In Black would be one of the biggest selling albums of all time. Judas Priest finally broke through in America with British Steel. Ted Nugent had a hit with Scream Dream. Hard and Heavy was back.
So what did KISS do? They kept producer Vini Poncia, doubled down on the Pop aspects of Dynasty, and came out with an even Poppier album than the one before!
Unmasked was not a bad album. It was actually a good album and featured a handful of great, very well crafted Power Pop and Melodic Hard Rock songs. But even then, the lead single was a pure, sweet Pop song that had nothing to do with the established KISS sound ("Shandi"). Under a different band's name the album might have gone over well. Under the KISS name it was a major sales disappointment. It barely sold 800,000 copies in 1980, less than half of what Dynasty sold in the United States. Worse, it alienated a huge percentage (maybe about half) of the remaining core fans.
Twenty five percent of your core fanbase from two years earlier is not a very strong number, but that's about what KISS had left by mid 1980 and concert promoters in America wanted nothing to do with KISS at that point. Interestingly, they were peaking overseas. Their success in Europe, Japan, and, especially, Australia in 1980 belied their commercial collapse in their home country. They were still a hugely successful touring band supporting a hit album in those countries/continents. But in America they couldn't even get a tour booked.
Once their international tour ended the band took a little time off before regrouping.
They assessed their career situation, and it was determined that a hard edged, serious Hard Rock album was the only cure for their ills. This was the correct assessment. The band started working on writing for the next album, and songs like Paul Stanley's, “Deadly Weapons,” were definitely a step in the right direction for the band.
A funny thing happened, though, on the way to their career resuscitation. The band and Bill Aucoin decided that super producer Bob Ezrin was the man to save their career. Not only had he guided the Alice Coooper band to megastardom, and given KISS their first hit studio album, but he had just co-produced Pink Floyd's mega hit The Wall. Everyone involved believed he was the right man to guide KISS back to Platinum sales.
Another funny thing happened. By his own admission years later, Ezrin was taking more drugs than he could handle at that time, and as a result his judgment wasn't particularly good. When he met with the band he and Gene Simmons mapped out a story for a concept album that they both believed would be KISS' answer to The Wall. Paul Stanley bought into the idea willingly (if not completely enthusiastically). On the other hand, new drummer Eric Carr (having replaced Peter Criss the year before) didn't like the idea and said so, but as an employee and not a full member of the band his vote didn't count.
Ace Frehley also thought it was a bad idea – a very bad idea. His contributions to the album diminished as production went along. His instincts were right.
Gregorian chants, actors playing roles, dark, moody, foreboding Prog influenced Rock sounded nothing like KISS. And yet Gene Simmons, Bob Ezrin, and Bill Aucoin were sure it would be a smash. Paul Stanley supported the project, but he did have some slight reservations. By the end of the production Ace Frehley (like many fans over the previous two years) had pretty much checked out, and his time in the band was just about over. To make matters worse, their New Romantic image (complete with shorter hair) for the album photo shoots didn't fit the band well, and gave a clear signal that the band was completely lost. They lost the plot, and the new look only solidified the impression that the fans who had previously checked out after Dynasty or Unmasked had of the band - that KISS had truly become a cartoon and were desperately grasping at straws. And those fans were correct in that assessment.
The album, (Music From) The Elder, was a bomb. A nuclear bomb. Only cockroaches or KISS could survive this bomb, and even though they somehow survived, KISS was severely hurt by that bomb.
Again, concert promoters wanted nothing to do with the band. Within the industry the writing was on the wall – KISS is over. Done. Finished. They had committed career seppuku.
Or so everyone in the media and music industry (and even most of their old fans) thought.
But Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are both determined and stubborn. They weren't ready to give up without a fight. They knew they needed to make big changes to regain their place in the music world.
The first change was firing manager Bill Aucoin. Aucoin had been the driving force behind KISS Meets the Phantom, and a big supporter of the more Pop friendly sound of both Dynasty and Unmasked. He also supported The Elder (although Gene and Bob Ezrin carry most of the blame for that one). He had also taken on other clients and wasn't giving KISS as much attention as he had in the mid 70's. He had to go.
The second change wasn't one Paul or Gene wanted. Guitarist Ace Frehley quit the band. He had a serious drug problem, and he knew that the stress of dealing with the band was making that worse. He was miserable, so he left.
With those changes behind them Paul and Gene quickly came to the realization that the original plan for the previous album – a straightforward Hard Rock album – was the right plan after all and that they had blown it. With that realization came a change in the songwriting process for the next album, which would be titled Creatures of the Night.
Creatures of the Night was preceded by four new tracks recorded with producer Michael James Jackson as a bit of a trial run for the new album (those tracks would end up on an international greatest hits album called Killers that wasn't released domestically). While those tracks were a bit watered down compared to Judas Priest or Black Sabbah they did show potential, so Jackson got the gig for Creatures.
The album would end up being one of the best of the band's career. An early 80's Hard Rock/Heavy Metal hybrid that was intended to show the new generation of Hard Rock and Metal fans that KISS could still kick ass with the best of them! On that level, it succeeded. While the album wasn't a hit, it did sell over twice as many copies as The Elder had, and peaked at #45 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The arrow was finally pointing up again. They still had a long way to go, but they were finally headed in the right direction. Their image, too, had changed. Gone were the colorful outfits of 1979 and 1980. Gone were the New Romantic outfits and shorter hair of 1981. Back were the kind of outfits that KISS wore at the peak of their career. Not only did they sound like what KISS was supposed to sound like in 1982, but they looked like KISS again as well.
The tour for Creatures of the Night (the 10th Anniversary Tour) in early 1983 was successful in some markets, but in most they played to only half full venues.
Fans of bands like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Judas Priest were fairly impressed with the nature of Creatures of the Night and the band's 10th Anniversary Tour. Not enough for many of them to buy the album or go to the shows, but their impression of KISS was now different. KISS had regained some desperately needed Hard Rock credibility.
But the image was seen as old hat. Worn out.
While making the follow up album with Michael James Jackson, Paul and Gene discussed the idea of dropping the make-up. New guitar player Vinnie Vincent had a major impact on the album (Lick It up), co-writing eight of the album's ten songs, most of which straddled the line between Hard Rock and early 80's Heavy Metal. He brought with him some modern guitar chops that would lend KISS even more credibility. But the image was an albatross around the group's neck.
They were still undecided as to whether or not to take off the make-up right up until the photo session for the album's cover. It was only then that the band finalized that decision – the make-up had to go.
The move worked. A half hour special on then new music network MTV showing KISS' unmasking got the band more attention than they had gotten in four years. The video for the first single (“Lick It Up,” the title track) was played during the special before making the regular rotation on MTV, and the band saw an immediate reaction in the record stores.
Lick It Up would sell four times as many copies as Creatuers of the Night, and would score KISS' first Gold (ultimately Platinum) album in three years.
But ticket sales were only marginally better than the previous tour. The band had retained the same stage set (their famous Tank stage), but at this point the fans weren't quite buying in to the idea of KISS as a leading concert act. KISS was still seen as an older act that had something to prove. Word of mouth, however, after shows on this tour was very positive – and the effect of that on the next tour would be huge.
At the same time, however, guitarist Vinnie Vincent refused to sign his contract with KISS, preferring to let the band fire him so he could start his own band (the Vinnie Vincent Invasion). Once again, the band was looking for a new lead guitar player.
While still looking for this guitar player, Paul Stanley started production on their next album with Michael James Jackson. This time, however, the working relationship between Jackson and KISS wasn't working, so Stanley took on the duties himself, along with Gene Simmons. Simmons, however, bowed out of the production less than halfway through due to commitments to co-star in a Science Fiction thriller with Tom Selleck – Runaway.
Musically, Animalize would continue down the path of Creatures of the Night and Lick It Up, but would have a little more bounce, a little looser feel, and a greater Pop sensibility in it's lead single (without being wimpy). Animalize would feature a couple of over the top KISS Metal songs (that hold up well to this day) in, "I've Had Enough," and, "Under The Gun." The rest of the album was more standard early 80's KISS fare, with a couple of Gene's songs being the glaring weak spots on the album.
But the production of Animalize was troubled not only because had Gene taken off midway through, but also because new guitar player Mark St. John was having a hard time fitting in, musically.
St. John (real name Mark Norton) came from a more spontaneous, improvised Jazz/Rock background. He had a hard time duplicating his solos on a second or third take. St. John's style, too, was somewhat incompatible with what Stanley and Simmons wanted. They wanted Jeff Beck, more or less (someone who could play flashy stuff, but had a foundation in Blues guitar). St. John, however, wasn't a fan of Blues based guitar playing, so it just wasn't working well in the studio. Stanley took the drastic step of calling in Bruce Kulick to play the solo on one of Gene's songs (“Lonely Is the Hunter”) and then the outro solo on another (“Murder In High Heels”). Stanley (and Simmons) regretted hiring St. John publicly before making sure he fit in the band. He was hired based on playing ability, but his compatibility with the band, musically, was never tried out until they brought him in to record the solos on the album.
Then a funny thing happened. St. John developed a problem with his left arm and hand that made playing guitar unbearably difficult (and nearly impossible). It was diagnosed as Reiters Syndrome, and that gave Stanley an out.
Press releases were sent out to the media. Mark St. John was, “Temporarily,” being replaced on KISS' European Tour in support of their new album, Animalize, by Bruce Kulick (younger brother of Bob Kulick, who almost became KISS original lead guitar player in late 1972, and played on Stanley's 1978 solo album as well as three tracks on the studio side of ALIVE II, ghosting for Ace Frehley). Bruce Kulick was a perfect fit in the band. While initially a bit stiff on stage, he loosened up more and more as the tour went on, and his playing was exactly what Paul and Gene wanted (a player who could be flashy, but had a strong Blues base to his style). After a couple early shows on the American tour in support of Animalize to give him one last chance, St. John was still not working out and clearly was not a good fit in KISS. He was sent home. Permanently.
But before the tour had even started, Animalize was an unqualified hit. The lead single and video, (“Heaven's On Fire”) was a smash on MTV and won over a new generation of fans for KISS. "Heaven's On Fire," was an ultra simplistic, amazingly catchy song with a really funky beat and big, fat power chords. The video was well made, and was very memorable, visually. This made the change at lead guitar a little awkward on the tour (as St. John was very visible in the video), but the tour was a clear success, even if not at the level the band had enjoyed in the 70's. The tour's staging was also something completely new and exciting - a bunch of ramps, platforms, and stairs became a huge playground for KISS to run around on, and run around on it they did. The band had never before shown this kind of energy (largely due to the platform boots and weight of their old outfits). This new found energy won over fans as well.
KISS was back! Maybe not at the level they had seen seven or eight years earlier, but they were back. KISS were regulars on MTV which helped Animalize sell about a million and a half copies. Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the Animalize era was that KISS were once again viewed as a great live band, and as a result they were selling concert tickets by the thousands.
They maintained that level of success throughout the rest of the 80's, but could never quite get back to the top level that they had achieved in the 70's, or the level that the next generation of bands like Van Halen and Def Leppard had reached after that. The early 90's were particularly cruel to KISS as drummer Eric Carr died of cancer related complications in 1991, and the subsequent album (Revenge) was a slight disappointment, commercially. (Although for many fans it remains a favorite.) The Revenge Tour was their least attended since the Lick It Up tour, and the changing tide in the music industry (thanks to the advent of Grunge) had made KISS' style somewhat passe...
...until they got the original line-up with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss back together, put the make-up and costumes back on, and had the #1 tour of 1996! The KISS Reunion was a massive success, but the friction points in the band that had driven Peter Criss and Ace Frehley out of the band a decade and a half earlier resurfaced after a little over a year. Frehley and Criss were barely featured on the Reunion era album Psycho Circus (although Paul, Gene, and manager Doc McGhee tried to hide that fact), which drove a further wedge between the two factions in the band.
KISS embarked on a Farewell Tour in 2000 when the two camps (Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons on one side and Peter Criss and Ace Frehley on the other) just couldn't get along anymore, resulting in the band becoming unworkable going forward.
Infamously, when Peter Criss refused to sign a contract extention after 2000 (to complete the Farewell Tour) he was replaced by Eric Singer, who himself had previously replaced deceased drummer Eric Carr before losing his spot to Peter Criss during the Reunion. With Singer back in the band the inner turmoil and stress was greatly reduced, and suddenly Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons realized that they could continue without the other original members.
The, "Farewell Tour," became the, "Farewell to the original line-up," Tour, and the band would tour regularly over the next 16 years, as well as release two new albums (Sonic Boom and Monster).
Like the 80's, KISS had success in the 2000's and 2010's, but not at the level of a their peak periods. But it was enough to sustain the band, and only now (2018) has the band announced their final End of the Road Tour for 2019.
This time, given the band's age and Paul Stanley's vocal problems, they will probably call it a day.
But the fact that they have been able to continue so long after having been all but completely dead commercially entering 1982 is remarkable. With the assistance of Bill Aucoin, KISS made several bad decisions that nearly ended their career, but due to the determination of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons KISS rose from the ashes and found a level of success that no one in 1981 or 1982 would have thought possible.
The ascention of KISS from a club band in New York City (or the outskirts of NYC, to be more accurate) to an arena headliner is a well known story. Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons grew dissatisfied with their previous band, Wicked Lester, due to the band's lack of musical focus and a lack of any kind of visual identity. So they parted ways with the other members of that band and looked to recruit a new drummer and lead guitarist to fill out the new group.
This time they wanted not only people with the same drive and passion that they had, but also people who had a willingness to do something outrageous to get noticed. But the players also had to fit, musically. They found drummer Peter Criss first, and then lead guitarist Ace Frehley and their rocket to the top was fueled up and ready to launch. All they needed were the songs (they had several already, and with Ace and Peter in the group they came up with more – a bunch of classics, too), and one other vital ingredient - management.
Needing a manager they showed insight that most others wouldn't - they sent multiple invitations to TV producer Bill Aucoin for a couple shows that the band put on at the Hotel Diplomat in New York. Aucoin showed up at the second of these gigs and was mightily impressed with both the band's chutzpah and their songwriting. They needed polishing (both visually and musically), as well as money to take what they were doing to the next level, but being a TV guy he recognized the visual appeal of the band and just how important that could be for the band to achieve Gold level success.
The rest of the story is, as noted previously, well known. KISS became one of the most successful bands in North America in the mid to late 70's. They sold albums in greater numbers than their critics at the time thought possible (averaging over two million copies each), and they had very well attended arena tours (the best attended being their Love Gun/Alive II tour in 1977 and early 1978). The band was riding high. Merchandise sales were through the roof – no band had sold as much merchandise since The Beatles a decade earlier.
And right there the seeds of their downfall were planted.
At the very peak of their career their downfall was already almost inevitable. Sure, they still had multiple chances to change paths thereby avoiding that career calamity, but like Chernobyl a decade later, every single thing that had to be done wrong for the band to collapse commercially was done wrong.
First, the band embarked on recording four simultaneous solo albums. In and of itself this project wasn't a disaster. Ace and Paul both recorded strong albums that the core KISS fans would like (quite a bit, too), but Gene recorded an album that sounded like a collaboration with The Beatles as well as some straightforward late 70's Adult Rock material. The songs were good, but didn't fit the KISS sound and the album, from the Demon of the band – the guy with the darkest, meanest image - would turn off a large percentage of their fanbase.
To make things worse, Peter Criss' album would alienate their fans even more. It was an album filled with 60's Motown R&B type material as well as mid 70's Adult Contemporary songs. It was a complete and utter mismatch with the band's fanbase. If Gene's album confused and turned off a large percentage of KISS fans, Peter's album had that effect squared. The solo album project would have been a disaster if not for the high quality KISS-like albums from Ace and Paul.
But the oversaturation of the albums in the market made it look like the albums weren't selling (their record company, Casablanca Records, made the strategic mistake of printing up an initial run of one million copies each of all four albums). In reality, Ace's album easily sold a million copies (and additional copies were pressed), and Gene's came close to that number. Paul easily passed a half million, but Peter's sold far less than that after returns were counted. There were hundreds of thousands of unsold copies returned to the record company. It was an insider PR nightmare for the band.
To make matters worse on the fan PR front, the band had spent part of the Summer of '78 filming a TV movie for NBC – KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. The original script was something like A Hard Day's Night meets Star Wars, but the executives at NBC (at the urging of their internal censors) insisted on toning down the violence and simplifying the storyline. The final script resembled that of an extended episode of Scooby Doo (which was appropriate since Scooby Doo producers Hanna Barbera were producing the movie). The band was already under contract and just went through the motions. Peter Criss wouldn't even show up for looping to fix the audio for the lines that weren't audible or were garbled, so a cartoon voice actor overdubbed all of his dialogue for the entire movie.
The end result was a bad movie. An embarrassingly bad movie. But when looked at as camp it fits the decade (it very much matches the tone of the 1970's Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter). It is an entertaining movie when viewed as camp, but at the time the KISS Army wasn't looking for camp – they were looking for Kick Ass! The movie played like something intended for kids under 13, and it was broadcast in Prime Time on NBC around the same time that the solo albums were released.
Cracks were now showing. Publicly.
As the band regrouped and started planning their next group album they had to settle on a producer. Vini Poncia had produced Peter Criss' solo album, and he had worked with Ringo Starr as a songwriter, so when Criss suggested Poncia the band went along with the idea to keep the volatile drummer happy.
Ironically, Poncia would decide that Peter's playing wasn't good enough for the album and hired Ace Frehley solo album drummer Anton Fig (who would go on to be the drummer for the David Letterman Late Night band) to replace Criss on eight of the album's nine songs.
Poncia was a good songwriter with a gift for melody and hooks. He helped KISS polish up their songs for what would become Dynasty. It was largely a very slick, polished Hard Rock album, but it also featured a couple songs that had a Disco Rock sound – Peter Criss,' “Dirty Livin,” and Paul Stanley's smash hit single, “I Was Made For Lovin' You.”
“I Was Made For Lovin' You,” was a Top 10 megahit, and it won KISS hundreds of thousands of new Pop fans. Unfortunately for the band, it also alienated hundreds of thousands of their core fans – fans who checked out for good (or at least until their 1996 Reunion). On top of the musical alienation that their long time core fans were feeling, the band's image was blown up way over the top. Where their image had previously been built around black and silver, leather and chrome, it was now built around Vegas glitz, which included colorful outfits complete with capes! They cheesy 70's Superhero look was what they were aiming for, and they hit that target dead center. Unfortunately for them, this successful achievement of their goal meant pushing away old fans even as they gained new ones.
The expected multi-night sellouts in major cities on the Dynasty Tour ended up being single shows with 80-90% of the tickets sold. Certainly, those were respectable numbers, but not what the band and Aucoin management expected.
Houston, we have a problem.
Having alienated probably half of their old core fanbase after the solo albums, movie, and Dynasty album, KISS needed something big to regain their upward career momentum. It was early 1980. Hard Rock and Heavy Metal were making a comeback after a couple seriously down years. Black Sabbath was reborn and revitalized with Ronnie James Dio as their new singer. Their first album with Dio, Heaven and Hell, was a Platinum seller and featured some of the heaviest (yet most melodic) material of their career. AC/DC was coming off a hit album in Highway To Hell, and their 1980 album Back In Black would be one of the biggest selling albums of all time. Judas Priest finally broke through in America with British Steel. Ted Nugent had a hit with Scream Dream. Hard and Heavy was back.
So what did KISS do? They kept producer Vini Poncia, doubled down on the Pop aspects of Dynasty, and came out with an even Poppier album than the one before!
Unmasked was not a bad album. It was actually a good album and featured a handful of great, very well crafted Power Pop and Melodic Hard Rock songs. But even then, the lead single was a pure, sweet Pop song that had nothing to do with the established KISS sound ("Shandi"). Under a different band's name the album might have gone over well. Under the KISS name it was a major sales disappointment. It barely sold 800,000 copies in 1980, less than half of what Dynasty sold in the United States. Worse, it alienated a huge percentage (maybe about half) of the remaining core fans.
Twenty five percent of your core fanbase from two years earlier is not a very strong number, but that's about what KISS had left by mid 1980 and concert promoters in America wanted nothing to do with KISS at that point. Interestingly, they were peaking overseas. Their success in Europe, Japan, and, especially, Australia in 1980 belied their commercial collapse in their home country. They were still a hugely successful touring band supporting a hit album in those countries/continents. But in America they couldn't even get a tour booked.
Once their international tour ended the band took a little time off before regrouping.
They assessed their career situation, and it was determined that a hard edged, serious Hard Rock album was the only cure for their ills. This was the correct assessment. The band started working on writing for the next album, and songs like Paul Stanley's, “Deadly Weapons,” were definitely a step in the right direction for the band.
A funny thing happened, though, on the way to their career resuscitation. The band and Bill Aucoin decided that super producer Bob Ezrin was the man to save their career. Not only had he guided the Alice Coooper band to megastardom, and given KISS their first hit studio album, but he had just co-produced Pink Floyd's mega hit The Wall. Everyone involved believed he was the right man to guide KISS back to Platinum sales.
Another funny thing happened. By his own admission years later, Ezrin was taking more drugs than he could handle at that time, and as a result his judgment wasn't particularly good. When he met with the band he and Gene Simmons mapped out a story for a concept album that they both believed would be KISS' answer to The Wall. Paul Stanley bought into the idea willingly (if not completely enthusiastically). On the other hand, new drummer Eric Carr (having replaced Peter Criss the year before) didn't like the idea and said so, but as an employee and not a full member of the band his vote didn't count.
Ace Frehley also thought it was a bad idea – a very bad idea. His contributions to the album diminished as production went along. His instincts were right.
Gregorian chants, actors playing roles, dark, moody, foreboding Prog influenced Rock sounded nothing like KISS. And yet Gene Simmons, Bob Ezrin, and Bill Aucoin were sure it would be a smash. Paul Stanley supported the project, but he did have some slight reservations. By the end of the production Ace Frehley (like many fans over the previous two years) had pretty much checked out, and his time in the band was just about over. To make matters worse, their New Romantic image (complete with shorter hair) for the album photo shoots didn't fit the band well, and gave a clear signal that the band was completely lost. They lost the plot, and the new look only solidified the impression that the fans who had previously checked out after Dynasty or Unmasked had of the band - that KISS had truly become a cartoon and were desperately grasping at straws. And those fans were correct in that assessment.
The album, (Music From) The Elder, was a bomb. A nuclear bomb. Only cockroaches or KISS could survive this bomb, and even though they somehow survived, KISS was severely hurt by that bomb.
Again, concert promoters wanted nothing to do with the band. Within the industry the writing was on the wall – KISS is over. Done. Finished. They had committed career seppuku.
Or so everyone in the media and music industry (and even most of their old fans) thought.
But Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are both determined and stubborn. They weren't ready to give up without a fight. They knew they needed to make big changes to regain their place in the music world.
The first change was firing manager Bill Aucoin. Aucoin had been the driving force behind KISS Meets the Phantom, and a big supporter of the more Pop friendly sound of both Dynasty and Unmasked. He also supported The Elder (although Gene and Bob Ezrin carry most of the blame for that one). He had also taken on other clients and wasn't giving KISS as much attention as he had in the mid 70's. He had to go.
The second change wasn't one Paul or Gene wanted. Guitarist Ace Frehley quit the band. He had a serious drug problem, and he knew that the stress of dealing with the band was making that worse. He was miserable, so he left.
With those changes behind them Paul and Gene quickly came to the realization that the original plan for the previous album – a straightforward Hard Rock album – was the right plan after all and that they had blown it. With that realization came a change in the songwriting process for the next album, which would be titled Creatures of the Night.
Creatures of the Night was preceded by four new tracks recorded with producer Michael James Jackson as a bit of a trial run for the new album (those tracks would end up on an international greatest hits album called Killers that wasn't released domestically). While those tracks were a bit watered down compared to Judas Priest or Black Sabbah they did show potential, so Jackson got the gig for Creatures.
The album would end up being one of the best of the band's career. An early 80's Hard Rock/Heavy Metal hybrid that was intended to show the new generation of Hard Rock and Metal fans that KISS could still kick ass with the best of them! On that level, it succeeded. While the album wasn't a hit, it did sell over twice as many copies as The Elder had, and peaked at #45 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The arrow was finally pointing up again. They still had a long way to go, but they were finally headed in the right direction. Their image, too, had changed. Gone were the colorful outfits of 1979 and 1980. Gone were the New Romantic outfits and shorter hair of 1981. Back were the kind of outfits that KISS wore at the peak of their career. Not only did they sound like what KISS was supposed to sound like in 1982, but they looked like KISS again as well.
The tour for Creatures of the Night (the 10th Anniversary Tour) in early 1983 was successful in some markets, but in most they played to only half full venues.
Fans of bands like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Judas Priest were fairly impressed with the nature of Creatures of the Night and the band's 10th Anniversary Tour. Not enough for many of them to buy the album or go to the shows, but their impression of KISS was now different. KISS had regained some desperately needed Hard Rock credibility.
But the image was seen as old hat. Worn out.
While making the follow up album with Michael James Jackson, Paul and Gene discussed the idea of dropping the make-up. New guitar player Vinnie Vincent had a major impact on the album (Lick It up), co-writing eight of the album's ten songs, most of which straddled the line between Hard Rock and early 80's Heavy Metal. He brought with him some modern guitar chops that would lend KISS even more credibility. But the image was an albatross around the group's neck.
They were still undecided as to whether or not to take off the make-up right up until the photo session for the album's cover. It was only then that the band finalized that decision – the make-up had to go.
The move worked. A half hour special on then new music network MTV showing KISS' unmasking got the band more attention than they had gotten in four years. The video for the first single (“Lick It Up,” the title track) was played during the special before making the regular rotation on MTV, and the band saw an immediate reaction in the record stores.
Lick It Up would sell four times as many copies as Creatuers of the Night, and would score KISS' first Gold (ultimately Platinum) album in three years.
But ticket sales were only marginally better than the previous tour. The band had retained the same stage set (their famous Tank stage), but at this point the fans weren't quite buying in to the idea of KISS as a leading concert act. KISS was still seen as an older act that had something to prove. Word of mouth, however, after shows on this tour was very positive – and the effect of that on the next tour would be huge.
At the same time, however, guitarist Vinnie Vincent refused to sign his contract with KISS, preferring to let the band fire him so he could start his own band (the Vinnie Vincent Invasion). Once again, the band was looking for a new lead guitar player.
While still looking for this guitar player, Paul Stanley started production on their next album with Michael James Jackson. This time, however, the working relationship between Jackson and KISS wasn't working, so Stanley took on the duties himself, along with Gene Simmons. Simmons, however, bowed out of the production less than halfway through due to commitments to co-star in a Science Fiction thriller with Tom Selleck – Runaway.
Musically, Animalize would continue down the path of Creatures of the Night and Lick It Up, but would have a little more bounce, a little looser feel, and a greater Pop sensibility in it's lead single (without being wimpy). Animalize would feature a couple of over the top KISS Metal songs (that hold up well to this day) in, "I've Had Enough," and, "Under The Gun." The rest of the album was more standard early 80's KISS fare, with a couple of Gene's songs being the glaring weak spots on the album.
But the production of Animalize was troubled not only because had Gene taken off midway through, but also because new guitar player Mark St. John was having a hard time fitting in, musically.
St. John (real name Mark Norton) came from a more spontaneous, improvised Jazz/Rock background. He had a hard time duplicating his solos on a second or third take. St. John's style, too, was somewhat incompatible with what Stanley and Simmons wanted. They wanted Jeff Beck, more or less (someone who could play flashy stuff, but had a foundation in Blues guitar). St. John, however, wasn't a fan of Blues based guitar playing, so it just wasn't working well in the studio. Stanley took the drastic step of calling in Bruce Kulick to play the solo on one of Gene's songs (“Lonely Is the Hunter”) and then the outro solo on another (“Murder In High Heels”). Stanley (and Simmons) regretted hiring St. John publicly before making sure he fit in the band. He was hired based on playing ability, but his compatibility with the band, musically, was never tried out until they brought him in to record the solos on the album.
Then a funny thing happened. St. John developed a problem with his left arm and hand that made playing guitar unbearably difficult (and nearly impossible). It was diagnosed as Reiters Syndrome, and that gave Stanley an out.
Press releases were sent out to the media. Mark St. John was, “Temporarily,” being replaced on KISS' European Tour in support of their new album, Animalize, by Bruce Kulick (younger brother of Bob Kulick, who almost became KISS original lead guitar player in late 1972, and played on Stanley's 1978 solo album as well as three tracks on the studio side of ALIVE II, ghosting for Ace Frehley). Bruce Kulick was a perfect fit in the band. While initially a bit stiff on stage, he loosened up more and more as the tour went on, and his playing was exactly what Paul and Gene wanted (a player who could be flashy, but had a strong Blues base to his style). After a couple early shows on the American tour in support of Animalize to give him one last chance, St. John was still not working out and clearly was not a good fit in KISS. He was sent home. Permanently.
But before the tour had even started, Animalize was an unqualified hit. The lead single and video, (“Heaven's On Fire”) was a smash on MTV and won over a new generation of fans for KISS. "Heaven's On Fire," was an ultra simplistic, amazingly catchy song with a really funky beat and big, fat power chords. The video was well made, and was very memorable, visually. This made the change at lead guitar a little awkward on the tour (as St. John was very visible in the video), but the tour was a clear success, even if not at the level the band had enjoyed in the 70's. The tour's staging was also something completely new and exciting - a bunch of ramps, platforms, and stairs became a huge playground for KISS to run around on, and run around on it they did. The band had never before shown this kind of energy (largely due to the platform boots and weight of their old outfits). This new found energy won over fans as well.
KISS was back! Maybe not at the level they had seen seven or eight years earlier, but they were back. KISS were regulars on MTV which helped Animalize sell about a million and a half copies. Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the Animalize era was that KISS were once again viewed as a great live band, and as a result they were selling concert tickets by the thousands.
They maintained that level of success throughout the rest of the 80's, but could never quite get back to the top level that they had achieved in the 70's, or the level that the next generation of bands like Van Halen and Def Leppard had reached after that. The early 90's were particularly cruel to KISS as drummer Eric Carr died of cancer related complications in 1991, and the subsequent album (Revenge) was a slight disappointment, commercially. (Although for many fans it remains a favorite.) The Revenge Tour was their least attended since the Lick It Up tour, and the changing tide in the music industry (thanks to the advent of Grunge) had made KISS' style somewhat passe...
...until they got the original line-up with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss back together, put the make-up and costumes back on, and had the #1 tour of 1996! The KISS Reunion was a massive success, but the friction points in the band that had driven Peter Criss and Ace Frehley out of the band a decade and a half earlier resurfaced after a little over a year. Frehley and Criss were barely featured on the Reunion era album Psycho Circus (although Paul, Gene, and manager Doc McGhee tried to hide that fact), which drove a further wedge between the two factions in the band.
KISS embarked on a Farewell Tour in 2000 when the two camps (Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons on one side and Peter Criss and Ace Frehley on the other) just couldn't get along anymore, resulting in the band becoming unworkable going forward.
Infamously, when Peter Criss refused to sign a contract extention after 2000 (to complete the Farewell Tour) he was replaced by Eric Singer, who himself had previously replaced deceased drummer Eric Carr before losing his spot to Peter Criss during the Reunion. With Singer back in the band the inner turmoil and stress was greatly reduced, and suddenly Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons realized that they could continue without the other original members.
The, "Farewell Tour," became the, "Farewell to the original line-up," Tour, and the band would tour regularly over the next 16 years, as well as release two new albums (Sonic Boom and Monster).
Like the 80's, KISS had success in the 2000's and 2010's, but not at the level of a their peak periods. But it was enough to sustain the band, and only now (2018) has the band announced their final End of the Road Tour for 2019.
This time, given the band's age and Paul Stanley's vocal problems, they will probably call it a day.
But the fact that they have been able to continue so long after having been all but completely dead commercially entering 1982 is remarkable. With the assistance of Bill Aucoin, KISS made several bad decisions that nearly ended their career, but due to the determination of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons KISS rose from the ashes and found a level of success that no one in 1981 or 1982 would have thought possible.