Joe Lynch | Fuse

After KISS and Mötley Crüe announced their joint summer tour at a press conference, the iconic hard-rock bands sat down with Fuse to talk to us about their 40 date, head-banging extravaganza.

“We didn’t wanna just go out and do another tour, we wanted somebody out there sharing the stage with us who was going to blow it up and kick everybody in the nuts,” explained Gene Simmons.

“We played five shows together in 1982. KISS gave us our first tour. We sort of lost our virginity to these guys,” Nikki Sixx joked. “Actually we did lose our virginity to these guys, but that’s another story.”

“I remember about that tour, we didn’t really have any money but we tried to put a stage show together,” Vince Neil told us. “We basically had these sticks with skulls on them and we lit them on fire and I remember your [speaking to KISS] road crew was going, ‘What the f*ck is this sh*t?”

“I swear, I remember seeing that stuff, it looked like a kids’ ride,” Paul Stanley cut in. “Ooh! There’s a tombstone,” he mocked. “A skull on a stick!”

“Everybody kids around, but here’s what really happened backstage,” Simmons said, getting serious about KISS’ 1982 concerts with Crüe. “We’re busy putting on our makeup, they start to play and we stop. It’s happened to us before: We heard AC/DC play when they were opening their first tour, Rush, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and you go, uh-oh, this is real on both ends of the spectrum. They got the candle burning at both ends, when it gets to the middle, the world blows up. This is music to wake up the dead.”

“And we don’t mean Grateful,” added Stanley. Thanks for the clarification, Starchild.