Mike McCready | Rolling Stone

I remember being on a school bus in sixth grade in 1976 with my friend Rick Friel, who eventually played in my high school band Shadow. He had a lunch box that had Kiss on it. “What is that?” Then he played me some music and I was hooked immediately. Then I had a Kiss room and I started playing guitar. They were the Beatles to me. They are the reason I started playing music.

Kiss Forever: 40 Years of Feuds and Fury

They were larger than life, with this intangible thing that I basically think about all the time. I was Peter Criss for Halloween in 1976 (pictured, left). I loved Alive!. “Black Diamond” blew my mind. Ace Frehley came onstage and did it with us at Madison Square Garden a few years ago, which was a total high watermark in my life. When I was 13, I never thought in a million years that I would even talk to him; I’d probably pass out. And here I am playing with him!

Pearl Jam sit down and have conversations about Kiss all the time on tour. My band used to do “C’Mon and Love Me.” Matt Cameron played in a Kiss tribute band when he was 14. They got so big around San Diego that they got a cease and desist order from Casablanca Records. Jeff Ament used to play “She” in his band Deranged Diction. There’s a Kiss through-line to a lot of the music that came out of Seattle, and it hasn’t been talked about a lot.

I got mocked for it a lot. When you’re really young, dating girls and trying to explain Kiss, they just look at you like you’re kind of crazy. I think they got so big in the Seventies and were such a phenomenon – they did the Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park movie, the solo records – some people only know the merchandising stuff. But if you listen to the music, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were really into the Beatles and you can hear weird Beatles harmonies going on. I’ve talked to Paul a few times, which is always a trip, and he talks about how he likes Humble Pie and Steve Marriott. So they’re drawing from pretty cool influences. And there is a power pop thing to some of their stuff that’s immediately catchy.

Ace was their firecracker, their dynamite. He’s what took them over the top with the feel he put into his leads. I really gravitated towards his vibrato. My lead for “Alive” is based on “She,” and that’s based on “Five to One” by the Doors. I remember we were in Surrey, England. I thought about it like, “I’m going to approach this like Ace did on ‘She.'” And I remember the chord pattern that Stone [Gossard] wrote lent it to that kind of a descending pattern. So I kind for went with it. And then I improvised from there.

18 Things You Learn Hanging Out With Kiss

I’ve been watching the Hall of Fame situation play out. My thoughts are: I saw Heart play with their original lineup, and I went and jammed with them when they got inducted in the Hall of Fame. And then they got up with their new lineup, and everybody loved it. And it can be done, and I wish they would do it. It just makes the fans happy. And that’s the point, in my mind.

Mitch Lafon

John Jeffrey created and ran the KISS fanzine, KISS Underground, from 1987-2007. He sat down One On One with rock journalist, Mitch Lafon, to discuss making of and inspiration for a fan generated magazine in the pre-Internet days (when information was, at times, difficult to come by). He walks the listener through stories of how content was generated, how he was fed information from the band, and comments on his interviews with every band member to ever have been in KISS (including Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, Tommy Thayer, Eric Singer, Eric Carr, Bruce Kulick, Mark St. John and Vinnie Vincent).

David Ashdown | KISStorian

KISStorian takes a 70′s deep dive with renown rock & roll radio dj & musician BOB RICE: >>>> How did you end up going to the KISS show in Spokane in May of ’74?  I’m glad you asked this question as I love telling the story. I was 14 years of age and playing bass in my first rock band, Angel Painted Lady. Boasting two guitarists, with one of them doubling on trombone, we also had a trumpet player and a flutist. Our drummer doubled on vibraphone, and I doubled on percussion. This was my first dream band. We performed a mixture of rock, fusion, funk, and jazz, covering the music of David Bowie, Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper, The James Gang, Chicago Transit Authority, Maynard Ferguson, and Chase, as well as playing our own original music. Our lead guitarist/vocalist often wore make up, when we performed. We always played to packed rooms, which I thought was odd at the time, not that I complained. I am pinching myself, as I write this, as all of the members of Angel Painted Lady went on to create professional, if not satisfying musical careers. It was the lead guitarist, the one who wore the make up, that told me that I NEEDED to see this band, KISS, because he believed that they were going to be “the next big thing”.

What are your most enduring impressions from the night?  I arrived at the concert early, which was normal for me, as I always liked to scope out all of the gear on the stage and possibly catch the eye of one of the musicians who might still be on or near the stage. There were very few people in the venue, with the majority being employees and stage and sound crew, and hardly any concert goers. While I was eyeballing how the venue was set up, one of the crew struck up a conversation with me. After inviting me to check out the house mix, we made our way to the stage … talk about an instant high!

Did you have any pre-show expectations? Yes, it was their first appearance in Spokane and their first official tour. Going into the concert I knew very little about the band aside for the fact that they wore make up and dressed in costume portraying individual characters. In fact I have to admit that I had not heard any of their music before seeing them. In respect to their show, I did have very high expectations based on my guitarist’s adamant recommendation that I see them. They did not disappoint me … they fucking blew me away! When they hit the stage it was like a bomb dropping. I looked around me and everyone was wide eyed and picking their jaws up from off of the floor. Within 20 min. of their set I realized that Ace was the true glue in the band. His ability to create bedrock guitar riffs while seamlessly lacing his lead lines around the other player’s parts, and his riffs, found me standing stupefied, laughing and shaking my head in awe.

Was there already a KISS Army to speak or did the band have to win the crowd over?  There was not a KISS Army, in fact it was very apparent that most of those who were there had come to see Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. By the end of KISS’s set they had won over everyone who was in The Kennedy Pavilion. I heard later that The Earth Band was a little reluctant to take the stage after KISS’s set. The last time this had happened was when Led Zepplin opened for The Vanilla Fudge 4-1/2 years earlier in the same venue. I feel as though I personally witnessed history being made in Spokane that night.

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Steve Blevins