Hmm. He had me there with the whole Mafia thing. How could a street guy not like the Kiss of Death?
So we started breaking it down. Before you get in her pants, you gotta kiss her. Warm her up to get to second base. Good kissing makes for good laying. It’s sexual, it’s cool, let’s go with it, we thought.
When Ace came in a week later with his sketch for a KISS logo, the name was confirmed in heaven. Ace is a great artist, and his KISS rendition, with the last two letters as lightning bolts, was totally bitching. And contrary to some people’s opinions (and later the opinion of the government of Germany), the S’s didn’t symbolize the Nazi SS. Despite the fact that Ace would get drunk and run around in a full SS uniform, complete with a monocle, and scream, “You vill die! Give me your papers! I vill kill your family,” those were lightning bolts from space. Then Paul refined the logo, made the K a little straighter, and we had a name and a logo.
Now it was time to play. At the end of January 1973, we booked ourselves in a little rock club in Queens called Popcorn (the name was later changed to Coventry). Of course we had no following then, so the audience, all four of them, was Lydia, Gene’s girlfriend Jan, her friend, and a friend of Ace’s. But we played our asses off. We played like the place was packed, and afterward I realized that this band was the band. I was so proud of the guys. We were all drenched in sweat, and we had given the performance of our lives for four people.
Over the next few months we played a lot at a little club in Amityville on Long Island called the Daisy. We had gotten a few write-ups, and they were uniformly negative, but we didn’t give a shit. I actually liked the fact that we were so obnoxious and crazy that people hated us, although it did bug me a little because I thought we were absolutely dynamite.
When we first started at the Daisy, we drew a sparse crowd. But for some reason Sid, the owner, kept bringing us back, and by the fourth time we were pulling up to the club in our milk van and there were a few people waiting outside to get in, and inside the place was crowded. We knew we were on the right track. The club itself was a dump, and we changed into our costumes in the owner’s office, which was barely bigger than a closet. We hadn’t formulated our characters by then: We were just experimenting with different makeup and costumes. I wore a long-sleeved spidery black shirt with studs going down the chest, black studded cutoffs that my mom had sewn, and a scarf. I bought a couple of pairs of light-green Hush Puppies and brought them home and my mother soaked them in glue and poured silver sparkle over them and they were as far as I was concerned.at when my stage shoes. The other guys improvised as well, trying to keep to our silver-and-black motif.
One night we were about to go on, but before we left the office, I said, “Let’s go out and make believe it’s Madison Square Garden and we’re going to rock the house, because we’re the greatest!” I said that because I knew deep in my bones that one day we would play the Garden. And that became our mantra. No matter what toilet we were playing, we’d say, “Let’s go out like it’s Madison Square Garden.” And there was no stopping four guys who had that incredibly positive energy.
Gene would jump into the audience and grab people at random and make them clap their hands to the music. That took some major balls. He’d go up to huge, scary-looking guys and force them to clap. I was convinced he was going to get floored one night because what he did was so humiliating. But it never happened. And after every show, I was ecstatic.
At the time, we were managing ourselves. When we had a gig coming up, Gene would print up some pamphlets at work and then we would divide up the city and put them up wherever people could see them. We were a band of brothers, all thinking the same way, all pulling in the same direction. What was great about us then was that we were so open-minded. You want to wear nylons? Sure, no problem. You want to put on greasepaint? Fine. You’re going to wear a dress? Great. Anything we had to do to make it, we all were willing to do.
Now we had to work on our images. Androgyny was really big then, with guys like Bowie and even my friend Jerry’s band, the New York Dolls. So at first we just dressed in drag and wore women’s makeup. That was a disaster. Gene looked like an old drag queen in a blond wig and lipstick. Ace looked just like Shirley MacLaine. Paul was a little chunky then, so he looked like some hooker working the corner of Bowery and Delancey. I was a skinny little bastard, so I could get away with dressing in women’s clothes, but in the end we weren’t as cute as the Dolls. In fact, we all looked like bad transvestites. That’s when we realized that we had to come up with something no one else had.
The KISS epiphany happened the night we went to Madison Square Garden to see Alice Cooper play. Alice and his band came on, and Ace and Paul ran all the way to the front of the stage like groupies. Gene and I sat in our chairs in the back, but we were all equally impressed by Alice. It was amazing theater. Alice was in full makeup, and the kids in the audience were freaking out over this guy who came out with a huge snake and got hung onstage. The four of us got together after the concert, and it all started coming to us. We wanted the Beatles’ wit, the same type of fun paired with a high level of creativity, too. But we wanted to be tougher than the Beatles—more like the Stones, but not quite the Stones. We had been battling to be more gangish in a way, a tougher, almost biker don’t-fuck-with-us attitude. After that concert, I forgot who said it, but someone said, “What if we have four Alice Coopers?” Alice was the star attraction and the only one in makeup in his band. But what if the whole band wore makeup, and each guy’s makeup expressed some aspect of his persona?
So Alice inspired us to go from the garish drag makeup the Dolls used to more theatrical Kabuki-type makeup. Little by little, we’d start bringing shoe polish, whiteface, and other makeup elements to the rehearsals. Now we were using the makeup to each develop a unique character. Gene loved horror films, so he became the Demon, evil incarnate. Paulie was always a star, so he had to be the Starchild. Ace was definitely a space cadet, hence the Spaceman.); font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; } @font-face { font-family: "AGaramondPro"; src: url(kindle:embed:000d ever
My Catman character came to me one night. I was designing one of my stage costumes at home. I was sketching it out and smoking a joint and then I just kind of zoned out and started staring at my wife’s black cat, who was named Mateus. I realized that we both shared a lot of personality traits. We were both wild, independent, aggressive, powerful—yet also soft, gentle, warm, and comforting at the same time. I loved cats. I found them to be the most mystical, mysterious animals on the planet. They either loved you or scratched your eyes out. And like me, they had nine lives. So becoming a cat was a no-brainer for me. I brought the idea back to the guys, and they loved it.
By March of 1973 it was time to do a demo tape. Through Gene and Paul’s connections we were going to record at Electric Lady, which was really exciting for me, but better still, Eddie Kramer, Hendrix’s old producer, was going to be behind the board. That was really heavy for me. He was known for the great sound he got from drums and guitars on his records. I couldn’t sleep the night before the sessions, I was so excited to get to work. We recorded three songs in one day: “Strutter,” “Deuce,” and a song called “Black Diamond.” By the time we were ready to tackle “Black Diamond,” Eddie had already heard me singing harmonies on the other tracks and I think he dug my raspy voice.
“Black Diamond” was a song Paul wrote, and he sang the first take. Eddie was behind the board listening to the playback and I said, “Man, I could sing the shit out of that song.”
“Really?” he said in his thick British accent. “Well, go ahead, mate, go give it a crack.”
I went into the studio and belted it out. “Out on the street for a living . . .” I killed it. Eddie loved it.
“Why don’t we have Peter sing this? This song was made for him,” he said.
“That sounded pretty good,” Paul admitted.
I put everything I ever had into that song because I had waited so long for that magical moment at Elect
ric Lady. So I finally had a lead vocal all to myself.
When I got home that night, I played the demo tape twenty-four hours a day for weeks, I was so proud of it. I brought it to my mom, who was always my most trusted critic with my music.
“Baby, this is it. This is your break,” she said. “This band has it.”
Everything seemed to be falling into place. We had a hot demo; we were gigging in the region. But we needed management to help get us a record deal. By the summer of 1973, I was getting antsy again. I was still playing on the weekends with Infiniti, doing covers, and they were getting more gigs than KISS was. So I started complaining again. I’d been up and down the New York City music roads, and except for Ace, who had once played the Purple Onion, the other guys didn’t have any of that experience.
We finally lined up a gig for August 10 in the ballroom of the Diplomat hotel in Manhattan, which, despite being a sleazy shithole, was a very cool place to play. So I was a little placated. The night of the show, Paul and Gene did something really nice for me. They rented a brown stretch Mercedes limo to take us to the show so I would feel like a star making his entrance. They hoped that would change my mood. Well, it worked for a couple of minutes. But then everybody started loading into the limo. Instead of it just being the four of us, Lydia was in there, and the sound guy was in there, some friends pi); font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; } @font-face { font-family: "AGaramondPro"; src: url(kindle:embed:000d ever led in, and then the roadies put some of our equipment in the trunk and squeezed in. Suddenly the limo had become a cab. I got furious.
“We’re going to pull up in front of the place and all these people are going to come out of the limo like it’s a circus car? That’s not cool.”
But when we got to the hotel entrance, the sidewalk was deserted! There was nobody there to make an entrance for.
Gene was promoting this show and had made the wise decision of putting us on in the middle slot, even though the bands that opened and closed were much more popular than we were at the time. A lot of people would leave before the last band went on to go someplace else, so it was a shrewd move. We were getting ready to go on, and I saw an older guy standing next to my sisters up front near the stage. He was getting ready to leave before we played, but he was intrigued that the girls next to him were wearing homemade KISS T-shirts, so he struck up a conversation with them—and my sister Donna Donna told this guy that we were the most incredible band in the world. So he decided to stay.
That gentleman was Bill Aucoin, and he went on to manage us into worldwide superstardom. Of course, we didn’t know that Bill was in the audience that night. Gene was relentless in sending out invitations to hundreds of people who were somehow connected to the music industry on the odd chance that one of them might come see us and decide to manage us.
That night Bill did come, and after the show he arranged to meet with Gene and Paul later that week. That day, I got a call from Gene while they were in Aucoin’s office.
“This guy is great, he should manage us,” Gene said. “He could get us a record deal.”
“He’s probably just another asshole who’s promising to make us rich and famous,” I said.
“No, no, he’s not what you think,” Gene said. He told me that Aucoin had a music show on TV called Flipside. I remembered seeing John Lennon on that show once, so I thought that maybe this guy just might be legit.
“In fact, he says that if he can’t get us a record deal in six months, he’s out of here,” Gene said. He urged me to go meet Bill.
I drove my Vega into the city a few days later and met Bill at his office. I was in my wise-guy stance, not showing any emotion, but I was really impressed. Bill was incredibly nice, soft-spoken, meticulous, and very, very smart. I left that office knowing that this was it. I didn’t let on to the guys, I actually kind of gave them a hard time about it, but I was excited.
The following weeks only confirmed what a great decision we had made. Bill was a wonderful person. Unlike most of the people in the music industry, he was sensitive and sentimental. In fact, I had signed our contract with a pen that I had found in the gutter on the way over to his office, and he kept that pen and framed it! As we got to know Bill, we saw that he had an artistic sensibility. He was classy. He dressed immaculately. He really seemed like he was the guy who had the knowledge and the wherewithal to make us famous.
Bill’s first advice to us was that we should honor our previously made bookings at Coventry in Queens. Then we were instructed not to play anywhere else. He also told us that we were going to play a showcase at the end of the summer for a major player in music who was starting his own record label.
That man was Neil Bogatz, otherwise known as Neil Bogart. Neil was a Jewish kid from Brohe Barracudas” ayloklyn who was born to be in show business. He started out as an actor under the name Wayne Roberts, then had a hit record called “Bobby” as Neil Scott. When his career didn’t take off, he became a music executive and became known as the Bubblegum King when he was running Buddah Records. Bill had known him for a while and had inside information that Neil was leaving Buddah to start his own label, Casablanca, which would be distributed by Warner Bros.
So just weeks after signing with Bill, we were going to audition for Neil at a small dance studio in midtown. Bill had a partner named Joyce Biawitz, a very cute girl who was constantly bugging Neil to come see us. For days before the date, Bill and Joyce were hyping the audition, telling us how important it would be to our careers. We got all dressed up as if we were going to play a club and set up our equipment in that little rehears my last name
CHAPTER FIVE
We were in the middle of playing when Paul started scratching his head. That was all Sean Delaney needed to see. He blew his whistle and stopped the rehearsal.
“You can’t look like a rock star and scratch your head,” Sean barked.
“But my head itches from the dye you used,” Paul pouted. “What am I supposed to do?”
Sean walked up to Paul.
“Make it brother, my uncle George,ouayt was into a move,” he said. And he took Paul’s guitar and put the strap over his shoulder.
“Throw the guitar behind you,” he demonstrated dramatically. “Then take both of your hands and just rip into your scalp like it was on fire. Then throw your hands up in the air and walk forward like some kind of beauty model.” Sean demonstrated, very accurately, a model walking the runway. And Paul’s first signature stage move was born.
Sean Delaney was, in my estimation, the fifth member of KISS. He was a tremendously talented creative force. He wrote great songs. He had a voice you could die for. He had flair and style. He was a great dancer. He knew theater. He had worked with Tennessee Williams. In his spare time, he was a transvestite. And he was our manager Bill Aucoin’s live-in lover.
We didn’t know that Bill was gay when we first met him. In those days, especially if you were on the business side of music, you had to stay in the closet. But as soon as Bill became our manager, he brought Sean in to refine and expand upon our act. That’s putting it mildly.
Bill had met Sean at a bar in the East Village when Sean was putting together a gay band called Manhole. For some reason that project fell through, and all Sean was left with was the earrings in his nipples. The music world’s loss was our gain. He was perfect for us, a multitalented musician who knew how to create an image and put it across. He was way, way ahead of us at that point.
The first thing Sean did was convince us to dye our hair blue-black.
“You’re a band. All of you should have the same color hair. And blue-black will really pop against the white makeup,” Sean said.
He took all of us down to the apartment of one of his gay friends in the Village. One by one, he dyed our hair in the bathtub. When we were finished, the apartment was in shambles, but we felt great. We hit Eighth Street, and everybody was looking at us. Who had ever seen a band where all four guys’ hair color was exactly the same?
S
ean wanted to dress us in gold and black, but gold changes color under lights, so we changed it to silver and black. And the black, of course, would be leather. We used to wear studded dog collars that we’d get from pet shops, but Sean marched us to the Pleasure Chest, an S&M clothing store in the Village that had a large gay clientele. That’s where we got heavy studded leather dog collars and bracelets and leather vests, studded leather cock pouches and chains.
Paul was chubby at that time, and Sean knew you couldn’t have a fat rock star, so he had the owner of the Pleasure Chest design a custom lace-up corset to squeeze Paul’s love handles in. Paul would put this leather contraption on and we would go behind it and pull the laces tight.
Then Sean began to work on our stage moves. He brought us to a loft in Chinatown where his old band used to practice. Paul put up the most resistance. The two of them fought for hours.
“I can’t move like that—I don’t look good,” Paul would say.
“Sure you do,” Sean would respond. “Pucker up your lips a little more. It’ll drive the girls wild.”
We had to block out elaborate choreography because Sean had made our platform shoes taller. They were now more than half a foot high and the guys kept falling, so he taught them how to do parachute-landing falls—and when that didn’t work, he taught them how to make the falls look like part of the show and black-and-gold velvet jacket would ever how to surreptitiously pick each other up. At first we wanted Sean to bring in a professional choreographer, so he found a famous gay guy who worked on Broadway. The guy knew nothing, so Sean intervened. His moves blew the guy away.
We had come up with some great moves on our own, but the guys didn’t even realize they were doing them. Ace would be sideways with his legs spread apart, then Gene would come over and put his leg between Ace’s legs, and then Paul put himself at the back and they all gyrated together. Sean immediately saw that it was a dynamite move and he even named it, I think, calling it the KISS Swerve. Sean said it was a physical representation of a musically charged orgasm.
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