You Wanted The Rest, You Got The Rest. The Hottest Parody Of The Group, KISS!

[Author's note: While accumulating information for "Destroyer," I was faxed a never-published 1976 article from Cool Producers (formerly Groovy Producers) magazine from an anonymous source. The magazine interviewed Bob Ezrin extensively about the album just before its release, and I feel his words do much more justice -- and have more credence -- than my words. I have, however, added supplemental notes to the article. Incidentally, the note on the fax states that the article wasn't published because "apparently G(ene) and P(aul) got wind of Ezrin's interview. He was used to just giving honest interviews and I guess didn't have the whole 'maintain the mystery'í routine down pat." Here is the article, presented in its entirety.]

Bob Ezrin. You've probably seen the rock producer's name on the back of your Alice Cooper LPs. Alice has repeatedly called Bob "an honorary member of the Alice Cooper Band," and it seems now that he may become the "fifth member" of the kabuki-makeup-wearing, fire-breathing, blood-spitting rock group KISS. The band's "Alive!" LP, released last year, is still soaring on the charts. Its members -- Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Freley [sic], and Peter Criss -- were reportedly looking for a producer to give them a cleaner-sounding, slightly grandiose, follow-up album. They had to look no farther than Mr. Bob Ezrin. (Black-and-white photo shows a smiling Bob Ezrin at a control board.)

Bob sat down with ace writer Mike Stonen for a far-out interview about working with the band on its new LP, "Destroyer."

MS: So, Bob, you've worked with Alice Cooper for a while before working with KISS. What's it like working with such theatrical bands?

BE: Well, it can get interesting! (laughs) They're just two different animals, you know? Alice is very disciplined. I mean, when he walks in the studio and slips on the headphones, he's there to do his job and he won't stop until he feels something sounds just right. A real perfectionist. KISS is different. I don't mean this in a bad way, because I enjoyed working with them, but it was like trying to keep kittens in a basket.

MS: Like, they're wild?

BE: Oh man, it's okay, picture this, right? I would come into the studio around 6 a.m., make sure things were ready to rock and roll, pun intended. These guys would come in in full gear -- the makeup, the costumes, the works. I mean, this is how we'd record the album. I kept hearing that since "Alive!" they wanted to be more "in character." Hey, that's fine with me, except when Gene starts breathing fire in the middle of recording and blows out the acoustic tiles, you know? And they just weren't cohesive, I guess. It's like there were a lot of underlying politics in the scene, you know? Strange.

MS: So they were unprofessional?

BE: No, it's not that exactly. It's just for example, they came in the studio and didn't have a single song written. There were some things like "Foxy Ofelia" or some song like that, but it sounded like the Carpenters or something. I knew they wanted to expand their sound, but they were wanting to use flutes and all that garbage. So I had to sit them down to start writing songs -- rock and roll songs -- from day one.

MS: What was the first song you wrote with them?

BE: Well, Paul sat down and said he wanted to write a song about Davenport. Apparently they're big there, huge. He comes in singing, "You're gonna blow your nuts in Davenport Rock City." And I'm thinking, wait, first off, there are too many syllables there, uh. you're not going to get radio play singing about blowing your nuts, this is a mess! So he gets pissy, says, "Fine, make it Detroit or whatever." He wants to make the song about 4 guys who are driving to a KISS concert and they all die on the way there. Pretty morbid song, I'm thinking. He says, no, it's cool how they die because they're all getting oral sex in the car from four separate chicks and a truck hits them right in the middle of it. I said, dude, don't kill 4 fans. If you're writing about 4 guys, have them drive to a KISS concert, get into some trouble by losing tickets or whatever, each of them gets laid along the way, and then they make it to the show. No, he says, that sounds like an idea for a shitty movie or something. How about just one guy getting head and then crashing into a truck, he asks. Take out the sex, I tell him, and you've got a unique killer song. And that's how that song came to be.

MS: Who's idea was it to put in all that sound at the beginning, with the guy driving and everything?

BE: That's a story in itself. The way you hear the song now, it's got that car intro and then the song starts in "ba da ba da ba da ba da ba da ba da ba da ba da BA DA BA DA BA DA BA DA BADADADADADADA BA DAAAAA!" (drumming on chair arms). We originally had this Jaws-like opening, a soft "ba da" then 10 seconds later another "ba da" and then 8 seconds later "ba da ba da" and it kept building like that. We even wanted the listener to have to turn it up at the beginning, like he'd think something was wrong with his speakers. And then we'd hit him with BADADADADADADADA! Well, Ace grabbed our master of the song, took it home and listened to it on his portable (tape player), and must have hit a record button accidentally as he was coming to the studio. Completely erased our long intro, and oh man, you should have seen how pissed Paul got. Screaming, cussing left and right, calling Ace every name in the book. I'll never forget this, he said "We could replace you with any goddamn dick-wagger on the street if we had to!" Anyway, I convinced Paul it actually is a great tie-in to the song and that we should leave it.

MS: Okay, wait, what did Ace do when Paul was yelling at him?

BE: Well, he walked out and didn't show up for 3 days. Called in and said he quit. We were recording a song called "Sweet Pain" at the time, and since Ace wasn't there, Paul literally grabbed some guy off the street. I don't remember his name.

MS: So Ace didn't play on that song? Wow.

BE: Right. But it was cool later on. He eventually came back. The guys set a bunch of flowers on his guitar when he walked in, and things cooled down a little after that. Gene seemed the most upset that Ace was gone.

MS: Why?

BE: Don't know, really. I know Paul and Peter used to hang out a lot, went off on their own to "write" according to Paul, although Peter never showed up with anything from those sessions. Those two were acting kind of cool to each other at the beginning of the sessions. [Author note: Obviously the trouble they had through 1975 was still around]. Then Paul comes in one day and says we should record one of Peter's old songs called "Death." [Author note: an old Chelsea demo] Peter lost it, was so happy he jumped into Paul's arms in fact. Funny. It was another real morbid song, basically about knowing death is always around the corner but, you know, a "not going gently into the night" type of thing. "Death, I hear you calling/but there's no time for you right now/I'm not even done playing/and to life I still am bound." Ehh. Just bad, bad lyrics. Gene's the one who suggested changing it to more of a "pussy" song, as he called it. "Change it so you're hot for a chick but you can't get to her 'cause you're on the road," he said. Paul seemed to think the song was fine as it stood, but that was Paul. Always protecting his Peter.

MS: You know, that song reminds me of "Eleanor Rigby." Just one member singing to a string arrangement.

BE: Right, except that the Beatles didn't play on "Eleanor Rigby." KISS played the strings on Peter's song.

MS: What?

BE: I said, okay, let's hire a string section for this song, make it really special. Paul and Ace insisted that they and Gene play the strings. And trust me, they pulled it off.

MS: But...

BE: Each is classically trained to play any string instrument, but hey, they're rock and rollers. No need to play classical instruments when you're yapping about blowing your nuts in Davenport, right? I was as shocked as you are now, but it worked well. That was the one time I got Gene and Ace to take off their outfits to play. Gene's demon boots kept getting in the way of his cello. Anyway, Pete got a little ticked I guess, insisted on playing trumpet on there. Said he hadn't played since he was in school at St. Mary's, but I said a trumpet wouldn't fit in the song. "Just a few notes, please," he'd beg, so we stuck in a few notes at the end of the instrumental break.

[Author note: In rehearsals for the "Destroyer" tour, Gene, Paul and Ace attempted to play their instruments in a raised half-circle behind Peter, followed by Peter handing his trumpet to a fan in the front row at the end of the song. Gene's armor made playing impossible, and trumpets cost Casablanca too much in upfront costs to hand out each night. This is why a prerecorded tape is used and Peter hands out (cheaper) roses when singing "Beth."]

MS: I wanted to say how cool that car crash is that leads into "King of the Night Time World." It sounds very authentic.

BE: Because it is! (chuckles) When we told Ace we'd leave in his "new intro" for "Detroit," he mentioned how cool a wreck at the end of the song would be. A brilliant guy! But we didn't have any canned sound effects to do that. So Ace (chuckles) goes out in the parking lot with his portable, starts his Mustang he was driving then, I guess throws a brick on the gas pedal, and plows the goddamn car into the rear wall of the studio! I shouldn't even be talking about it I guess. Wound up costing (Casablanca) a shitload and damn near scared the other guys in the band. Ace just thought it was a trip. Anything for rock and roll, right? (laughs)

MS: My god! So I guess you added the brake sounds later.

BE: Hey, it's amazing what you can do in the studio with a finger rubbing on a balloon!

MS: Now, I've gotta ask about "God of Thunder." What a cool-sounding song. I keep picturing an old Godzilla movie, with pterodactyls screaming over my head, lava pouring out of volcanos, Gene on a mountaintop

BE: Thank you.

MS: And Paul wrote it for Gene?

BE: Right. See, Gene wasn't coming up with much for the album. There's this song, "Sweet Pain," that came a little later, but that was just a silly sex song we used as filler. Gene said he wanted to write a monster song, with him as the monster. And a lot of the initial lyrics were just pathetic. God, I remember him writing stuff like "Watch out, I'm the demon/now I bet you're screaminí" and Ivd just bust up. At some point he came up with this song with him as a werewolf, something like "the moon is out/I think I'm changing/I'm nearly human." I said man, use that only if you're desperate for a B-side. Anyway, Paul had been talking about writing a duet for Peter and him to sing called "Thunder Gods," something about two warriors who are united to fight against the world or something like that. Paul would sing "I am the lord of your waistband" and Peter would sing "A modern, gay, man of steel." I'm assuming they were goofing around, like you do in the studio. Anyway, I told Paul to change this and that and let Gene sing it. "That son of a bitch'll never sing one of my songs, blah blah blah." I could only convince him to give it to Gene when we talked Ace into giving up "Flaming Youth" to Paul.

MS: Ace sang on "Flaming Youth"?

BE: I can't say he ever had a real feel for it, but yeah, it was going to be Ace's singing debut.

MS: So wait, I've gotta back up. What about those sound effects in "God of Thunder"? It's so different from anything KISS has done so far, and it actually sounds just like the cover looks.

BE: Right. My sons were in the studio, actually back when Paul and Peter were singing their "Thunder Gods" thing, and I asked them what the song reminded them of. They said it sounded like Bambi, flowers, little girls, stuff like that. I told them to go play because they weren't helping me much. Then I caught them in the studio next door playing with some recording devices. You basically hear them being spanked, as embarrassed as I am to say that. But their yelling sounded unusual and I put it in the song. I put anything in that song.

MS: Even gunshot sounds, right?

BE: Well (scratches ear), that's Peter taking a shot or two at Gene while he sang.

MS: What?

BE: Apparently he was pretty pissed at losing his chance to duet with Paul. Um we did shut down early that day, I can tell you. You have to understand, the band is a real mess, to be frank. No one gets along, even though they play up this united front for the public.

MS: I've only got a few minutes left with you and I can't get to all my questions.

BE: I've got time for a few more.

MS: Great. For "Great Expectations," Gene does an amazing ballad that includes a choir and bombastic drums. Even the instrumentation sounds different from anything KISS has touched before. How did you all pull it off?

BE: Easy. It's all Gene.

MS: What do you mean, it's all Gene?

BE: He wrote it, sang it, played every instrument... that's one reason I stuck with this record, because you'd see these guys act like morons to each other, and then you suddenly see these flashes of brilliance, like in "Beth" or "Great Expectations."

MS: But the choir.

BE: All Gene. Multi-tracked and sped up so it sounds like a children's choir.

MS: But I've even seen photos of the band with a boys choir and...

BE: Mike (chuckles), you still don't get it, man! This is KISS! Up is down, left is right. It's like being an oompa-loompa in Wonka's chocolate factory. Look, these guys can do anything they want to. I already told the guys, you could do absolutely anything at this point, you could all do solo albums, you could do a movie, you could market dolls, you could even take the makeup off and on, back and forth like Superman and Clark Kent. So do you think it's any big deal to take some photos with a hired choir if that's what they want the public to believe?

MS: Wow, man, that is so heavy.

BE: One other interesting thing about the song comes to mind. Gene's rough draft is close to the version on the album, but I told him a few times that it was a little silly. He's singing about the audience watching HIM playing guitar, HIM playing drums. I said, "You're going to confuse everybody! People will think you're the drummer AND the lead guitarist AND the bassist. I mean, this is an important time for KISS and people should hear who does what." Well, he tried one version of a song about seeing Peter playing the drums and so on -- it made more sense to me -- but Gene just wouldn't listen. That's one thing I regret about giving into.

MS: And what about the outro, that warped, whooshy sound from the "Alive!" album? That was real far-out stuff.

BE: Thanks. With Ace being essentially shunned on this album, he had a final request. He wanted his fans to hear "Alive!" the same way he hears things on stage when he's stoned. He said he sometimes even hears Paul repeating the same phrases over and over. I must have sat with Ace until 5 in the morning, mixing different things. He'd say, "Naw, that's not it, put it more reverb" and so on until we finally got it to the point where he said I found exactly the sound.

MS: It has been an honor. I can't wait for the readers to see this interview!

BE: Me too.

Packaging:
[Author notes: The cover offers hints of what was occurring within the band by the end of the Destroyer sessions. Paul's arm naturally hovers over Peter in a protective gesture. Paul's suggestion for Peter's new costume - the arrow pointing to "the jungle" as Paul called it - makes its debut on this cover. Ace's affable grin and contorted body is expected at this stage, having been twisted around a bit during recording. Gene offers one solid clue, his new demon boot. Each side of the boot holds three "teeth," which continues Gene's theme of KISS as a trio. And the member to be excised? Follow where the side spike the missing front tooth of the demon boot is pointing. Straight at Paul's head.]

Awards (semi-serious ones, just for fun):
Worst attempt at rhyming: "Fun" and "do" in "Night Time World"

Biggest "Huh?" moment: Instrumental break in "God of Thunder" (kids screaming, bullets firing, guitars sounding like diving airplanes, drums sounding like pterodactyl wings whew!)

Song you could picture Muppets singing: "Do You Love Me?"

The "I could've written that" line: "My parents think I'm crazy and they hate the things I do."

Most poetic line: "I gather darkness to please thee, and I command thee to kneel before the god of thunder."

Best, worst, or funniest sexual reference: "And pain has got its reason."

Classic KISS moment: Intro to "DRC"

Best riff: "God of Thunder"

Coolest/best lead guitar part: "Flaming Youth"/"Sweet Pain" (sorry Ace, but it IS a good solo!)

Coolest/best bass part: "Detroit Rock City"

Coolest/best drum part: "Sweet Pain"

Coolest/best Paul moment: Opening line to "Detroit Rock City"/the "BUT" in "Do You Love Me?"

Eyebrow-raising vocal: Gene singing the second "I am the lord of the wasteland" (he sounds like he really is just then!)

Lyrics I misunderstood when I was younger: I'd like to share the lyrics to "God of Thunder" I wrote up when I was 8 ..

He's got something about you
You've got something on me
Throw the rope on the god day [huh??]
Heel my words sent to kill
I was born on the end loss [or "in Memphis"]
to my father the son
I was raised by the keeblers [as in Keebler elves]
Trained to reign this static war
God of thunder and rock and roll
The spell you're under will slowly rock you off your virgin soul

Want more? Try these from my 8-year-old mind: "far from the city and the neon boys" "Then you feel these eyes grow in sage" "My love in sweet talk around me, it is always beside me" "And flame has got its reason" "My uniform is splendor" "your backstage pass and bites on glasses .even all the fans they know your fame from all uh-of the magazines"

You Wanted The Rest, You Got The Rest. The Hottest Parody Of The Group, KISS!

© 2000 Rich Hund/KISS ASYLUM.
We kindly ask that you please not reproduce this article without prior consent.

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