Kulick offers a front-row perspective of what went down with Kiss in the ’80s: the tension between the past and future, his six-string independence from Ace Frehley, and the coming grunge asteroid
Kiss’s non-makeup era is often relegated to “persona non grata” status – at least for original-lineup diehards. But things were different for Kiss fans growing up without Ace Frehley – as they only knew Bruce Kulick. Of course, before Kulick, there was Vinnie Vincent, who some fans say “saved Kiss”. And then there was star-crossed shredder Mark St. John, who Kulick replaced.
But the truth is that despite Frehley’s iconic foundational licks, Vincent’s cult following and St. John’s… well, never mind about him… without Kulick holding down the fort as the lead guitarist of rock’s most bombastic band between 1984 and 1996, Kiss wouldn’t have had a house to bring down thereafter, let alone a non-makeup era to forsake.
“When I came into Kiss, I wasn’t asked to imitate Ace,” Kulick says. “I’m very thankful for that because it allowed me the freedom to be myself. If I was asked to do what Ace did, I’m not sure things would have worked.”
And that’s a good thing, as after Kulick joined in 1984, Kiss experienced success with records like Asylum (1985), Crazy Nights (1987) and Hot in the Shade (1989). But for purists, none of that “mattered.”
“There are misconceptions about ’80s Kiss,” Kulick says, “the biggest of which is that we sucked! Old fans maybe didn’t get it. But the fans who grew up seeing Kiss without makeup knew how good we were. Certain years of my era were magical; I stand by the ’80s; we were a cut above. You’re always in the winning circle when you have two leaders like Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons.”
The ’80s might have been alright for Kiss, but a problematic era was ahead in the early ’90s, as drummer Eric Carr died of heart cancer in 1991. Meanwhile, music was changing; hair metal was out, grunge was in, leaving Kiss – a band of men in their 40s – to stare their musical mortality in its face.
That led to producer Bob Ezrin being called in for Kiss’s ’90s opener, Revenge (1992), which Kulick has long championed. “We put so much into Revenge,” he says. “But it wasn’t received well as, by that time, Nirvana had hit.”