Michael Hann | The Guardian

You have to wash your hands before touching Kiss‘s new book. Given that only 1,000 have been printed, one would imagine the copy being shown to journalists in a hotel basement in London will be given a wipedown and sold along with the other 999.

It would be a very Kiss thing to do. On the one hand, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons – long the only two members of Kiss who matter, and around whom drummers and lead guitarists rotate and revolve – want to make a statement about their legacy. On the other, their chosen instrument is an extraordinary collection of photos, almost as large as life – Kiss Monster Book is 3ft high and opens to 5ft wide – that won’t fit on your bookshelf and will cost you $4,299.

Kiss at their peak permeated American popular culture. Even now, after 39 years, they are still loved around the world, and still working – a new album, Monster, follows later this year. And their story is about more than just pyrotechnics, sexual conquests and money-grubbing.

1973: The first year

Reading on mobile? Watch here.

Gene Simmons Paul and I were in a band called Wicked Lester, and we had a recording contract with Epic Records. It was kinda like Three Dog Night or the Doobie Brothers – everything all over the place. Some pop stuff, some heavy stuff, some of this. There was no identity. We were looking the gift horse in the mouth and saying: “This isn’t real. We don’t believe in it.” We quit. We quit our own recording contract to go back and start with songs. And we started to write Strutter and Deuce and Black Diamond. Once we had those core songs, we understood the musical identity.

Paul Stanley [We] were basically following that same formula of: don’t bore us, get to the chorus. We weren’t about 20-minute jams. By the time you get to the second chorus, you can sing the song. You know it. That’s good songwriting. It’s not an exercise in jerking off.

GS [The makeup] was warpaint. Let me give you a sense of our warpaint – makeup does not give it enough respect. We played a place called the Daisy. There couldn’t have been more than 50 to 100 people there. When we looked across the stage, we felt as if we belonged together. I remember seeing the Beatles as a kid and thinking there must have been a Beatle mother cos they all looked like they were connected. There’s no question that our outfits and our boot-heels and our makeup was a unique definition of who we were and helped us become who we are.

Continue reading →