Earlier today (Friday, January 19) at the Atlanta KISS Expo 2018, former KISS guitarist Vinnie Vincent gave his first public interview in more than two decades when he spoke with SiriusXM‘s Eddie Trunk. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).
On why he decided to attend the KISS Expo:
Vinnie: “We have to thank [KISS Expo promoter] Derek Christopher, because he was relentless. He contacted Mark Nolan, my best friend and attorney. Derek spent eight months unrelenting — aggressiveness but nice. He was a really good guy, and I read his e-mails, I read everything that he’d sent Mark, and Mark and I talked. He said, ‘This guy seems like a really good guy.’ And he was. When we first talked with Derek, I said, ‘I really like him. If I’m going to do this, I want to do this with somebody I like, with somebody who cares.’
“My life became small. I wanted to become as small as I could be. I became very happy, very content. All I do is I play, I write, I record, I take care of my dogs. I have a really private, peaceful life now, and I haven’t had that in a long time. A lot of fans know a lot of things, but they also don’t know a lot of things.”
On whether he has any plans to dispel the biggest misconceptions about him:
Vinnie: “When it’s ready to be told, you don’t want to miss it. We’ve had two book publishers. We’re talking to them right now. It’s a hell of a book. You wouldn’t want to miss it. I read Kitty Kelley‘s unauthorized biography of Frank Sinatra, and I’m not a reader, but I couldn’t put that book down. This will top that book.”
On what he’s been doing since vanishing from the public eye:
Vinnie: “I spent 20 years in hell. The broad strokes were very… they could have been not so broad. They could have been quickly and really amicably could have eliminated 20 years of pain. I would say pertaining to KISS, these are my friends. These are guys I love. I love them to this day. I’ve got tremendous memories that are wonderful. Most of them are. Not always can you have a band and have a certain… I hate this word ‘magic,’ but it is a magic. It’s something you can’t put into words. THE BEATLES had that. THE WHO have it. [LED] ZEPPELIN had it. I always looked for that, and I never found it until I met them. It was something that, ‘This is the glue. This is the ingredients that I never found.’ It was everything you put into a mix that blows up. Good and bad.
