Blabbermouth

Original KISS drummer Peter Criss is continuing work on a new rock solo album, which he promises will be “heavier” than the stuff he has done in the past.

Criss‘s last solo CD, titled “One for All”, came out in 2007. Peter produced the album himself for the first time, and was joined by guest musicians that included keyboardist Paul Shaffer and bassist Will Lee of “Late Night with David Letterman“. The album featured a range of styles, from rock and jazz to blues and Broadway, and included covers of “What a Difference a Day Makes” and “Send in the Clowns”.

Speaking to an audience of fans at a question-and-answer session hosted by VH1 Classic “That Metal Show” co-host Eddie Trunk on November 28 at the “All Things That Rock” festival in Oaks, Pennsylvania, Criss stated about the progress of the recording sessions for the follow-up to “One for All” (see video below): “I’ve been sitting on a record … I’d done this thing, like, five years ago and I’m still messing with it. I’m not done, because I don’t wanna rush it.”

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Richard Johnson | Page Six

Gene Simmons — the long-tongued KISS bassist and author of “Me, Inc.” — didn’t suffer from shyness as a kid in Forest Hills, Queens.

Alan Stuart Graf recounts in the book “I Inhaled: Rantings, Ramblings and Ravings of a Hippie Lawyer,” how he and Gene Klein, as he was known then, were in a band together called the Long Island Sounds.

“We were about 14 at the time, and this other guitar player and I were playing Ventures [surf-rock] music with a cool cat drummer named Stan,” Graf wrote.

“But we needed a bass player. So I talked Gene into getting a bass. We went down to Manny’s Music Store in downtown Manhattan and picked him out a Paul McCartney imitation white bass. He was in love with it and kept on fantasizing that he was Paul and all the girls loved him because of his fine bass.”

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