Will They KISS And Make Up?AP Photo/Chris Pizzello
Apparently Kiss has absolutely no interest in getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame anytime soon based on recent actions. Just one week after being shortlisted as a nominee for the Class of 2010, bandmates past and present have been involved in a war of the words through the press that reads like notes about one another being passed across the row in a grade school classroom. It’s certainly not going to endear them to the Nominating Committee.
Launching its 35/Alive North American Tour last week in Detroit in support of the upcoming record “Sonic Boom,” remaining original members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley have taken the opportunity to indirectly chastise ex-members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss.
“Love, respect and have pride for the band you’re in,” Simmons told the Detroit News. “When we get up on stage that’s holy ground. No one on that stage, me or anyone else, wears the makeup and platform heels by some kind of birthright. You’ve got to earn it — and when you defile Kiss, you should be thrown out.”
Frehley and Criss have both left the band on different occasions, once in the early 80s and again a few years after the wildly successful reunion tour that began in 1996. But before the second ousting, or desertion depending on which story you believe, the original lineup managed to put out a new record, “Psycho Circus,” though it was later revealed that Frehley and Criss hardly even played on the album, in favor of studio musicians.
“I think we had people who were delusional about their songwriting and musical abilities,” Stanley told the Detroit Free Press. “There was an unfortunate carryover of bad habits that people had sworn they’d never do again.”
Despite the excitement around the reunion, the album was met with a lukewarm response, and Kiss embarked on a Farewell Tour, which resulted in the band on the receiving end of criticism after it continued on well past the originally hyped “final tour,” this time with guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer donning the makeup of Frehley and Criss respectively, in a move seen as anything but respectful by some fans.
“What I learned towards the end of the farewell was, I didn’t want to say farewell to Kiss — I wanted to say farewell to some of the members,” said Stanley. “It was magical at the beginning, but ultimately the only magic I wanted was to make certain people disappear.”
“It had the potential to be much more than a reunion tour but it quickly became clear it couldn’t progress.”
Frehley shot back this week in an interview with Stop Smiling magazine, where he said it didn’t take long for things to go sour with the reunion as old tensions arose and decisions were being made behind each others backs.
“Originally it was put together in the spirit of we were all gonna kind of do this together, and the next thing I know, I’m feeling like a hired gun and I don’t have any say in anything,” he said. “And that’s not fun. The four of us invented Kiss and brought it to the world. It just wasn’t fun anymore.”
“It was a business. It was a machine. After we got into the day-to-day business of it, it made me remember why I quit the group in the first place.”
Stanley has said that, “It would be something to think about,” as far as who joins the band at the podium should an induction into the Rock Hall come to pass. But on the nominee ballot, it specifically lists only Stanley, Simmons, Frehley and Criss.
This far out from the March ceremony, it’s clear that disaster is already on the horizon, something that has tarnished past inductions with the dramatics.
The Class of 2006 saw past and present members of Blondie get into a spat while onstage accepting the award as Deborah Harry and Chris Stein flat out refused to let former members Nigel Harrison and Frank Infante join them during the performance portion.
That same year saw inductees the Sex Pistols reject the idea of even showing up to accept the honor, instead firing off a letter to the Hall which read in part, “If you voted for us, I hope you noted your reasons. You’re anonymous as judges … but you’re still music industry people. We’re not coming. You’re not paying attention.”
Van Halen was represented by two members not even in the group at the time in Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony as Edward Van Halen was in rehab and David Lee Roth refused to show up if he wasn’t allowed to perform. Velvet Revolver, promoting a new record, took the band’s place, butchering two songs; one from the Roth era and one from Hagar’s.
Last year, the guys in Metallica got it right, putting past squabbles behind themselves and former bassist Jason Newsted, having him there to accept the award and jam with the current lineup.
At this juncture, you can’t really blame the Rock Hall for waiting another few years to allow Kiss to sort it out. Simmons is often critiqued for the businessman stance he takes in all things involving the group, but maybe this time it would be welcome for him to treat the outfit like one.
