No Regrets (13 page)

So did the club’s owner. Poor Sid wasn’t even sure he wanted us back the next night, but we returned, and the audience swelled to twice what it had been the previous show. Obviously word had gotten out. This time there were fewer people sitting on their hands, a lot more people drinking and getting into the show. In many ways I’d say that was the night KISS became KISS.

And you know why? Because we had conviction. We looked utterly ridiculous, and yet we wanted to be taken seriously. Here we were, in makeup, costumes, and platform heels, but we weren’t acting like clowns. Whether there were two people in the audience or two hundred, we didn’t take the performance lightly. From the very beginning there was intensity and seriousness about making something of ourselves, about being fully committed to KISS, whatever that might mean. Much more than any group I’d been with in the past, KISS carried itself with an air of confidence and professionalism. Failure wasn’t an option, and I think that came through to the audience. We weren’t just getting up there and going through the motions like some shitty Top 40 cover band. We might have looked like rejects from a science-fiction or horror movie, but we were deadly serious about what we were doing.

The songs themselves were simple and straightforward rock ’n’ roll. Songs about girls and parties and cars and music—universal themes—delivered at breakneck pace and eardrum-shattering volume. An exception was a song called “Life in the Woods,” which was written by Paul in what must have been a contemplative, softhearted phase. It’s a song about love and nature, almost sappy in its sincerity. It didn’t fit neatly into the hard-edged image we were cultivating, and that our fans came
to love, so the song never made it onto a KISS album, for obvious reasons, but I have to say, just for the record, that I really liked that song and enjoyed playing it in concert. It was a nice departure.

Nothing ever seems to happen quickly enough when
you’re starving for success. But the truth is, KISS was on the fast track almost from the day the band was formed. When I look back on it now I can hardly believe the way things evolved, how we went from playing dive clubs in front of almost no one to headlining major venues in less than a year; how we released our first three albums in a span of thirteen months! That would be absolutely unimaginable today. Hell, it was unimaginable even then. But we did it, and it all began with a demo produced over the course of a few short days in the spring of 1973.

As with so many things that happened in the early days of KISS, the demo appeared to be mainly the result of luck and timing. But that wasn’t exactly the case. The truth is, very little about KISS was left to chance. We rehearsed constantly. Hours were devoted to grassroots marketing and public relations. Again, I’ll give credit where credit is due in this case. Paul and Gene were totally obsessed with creating a KISS brand and finding creative ways to attract attention to the band—no small task considering we were completely unknown. Whenever we had a gig coming up, Gene would utilize the resources and supplies available at his magazine job to create flyers and mailing lists, and to spread the word about our performance.

We were not a big-time band, but we acted like we were. It’s humbling to pack your own equipment and drive from one little club to another in a rented panel truck, not knowing whether anyone will show up to see you play. But we plowed ahead, confident that eventually people would figure out that we were doing something unique and interesting. Some of my fondest memories of my time in KISS are from those earliest shows, when it was just the four of us, along with maybe Eddie Solan and a friend or two acting as roadies. We’d unpack our own
equipment, drag it into the club, set it up, go through a quick sound check, and then retreat to whatever space was available to put on our makeup and transform ourselves into KISS. Afterward we’d tear everything down and go home.

In the name of accuracy, I should acknowledge that while I carried my share of the load before concerts, I rarely carried equipment afterward. I liked to drink while I was playing, and after eight to ten beers I was in no shape to haul speakers or amps. I dropped a few things in the beginning, and then everyone agreed that it was best if I just fell asleep in the back of the truck. But it wasn’t a problem then; I didn’t let it affect the show. Not until much later did the drinking escalate to the point where my judgment was compromised and I got into all sorts of trouble. You can get away with a lot when you’re twenty-three years old; I actually believed then that a handful of beers during a show accentuated my ability on the guitar.

And maybe it did. It felt like it, anyway, which was all that really mattered.

When I found out that we were going to be putting together a demo, I tried not to get too worked up. I’d been down the recording road once before, with Molimo, and that hadn’t turned out so well. But then I found out where we were going to be recording, and who would be at the controls, and suddenly I couldn’t help but get excited.

Paul and Gene, it turned out, had done some studio work in the past for which they’d apparently not been appropriately compensated. They also had a relationship with a producer named Ron Johnsen, dating back to their Wicked Lester days. Ron was affiliated with the famed Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, and as a way of evening the studio’s debt with Paul and Gene, he offered KISS a small block of recording time. They could have fought for the cash they were owed instead, but they wisely opted to take the deal. When I found out, I was thrilled. Electric Lady had been around only a few years but had already earned status as a legendary studio. The place was originally built by Jimi Hendrix and had quickly attracted the attention of many of the
top recording artists of the early seventies, including the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Bad Company. The production genius behind albums recorded by those artists at Electric Lady was Eddie Kramer. He was a giant in the business, and I saw no reason to believe he’d want to work with an unproven band, especially one as unusual as KISS.

Apparently, though, I was wrong.

Eddie had been dragged to one of our shows by Ron Johnsen and had been impressed with our energy and ambition; he even kind of liked the makeup and costumes. So when we went into Electric Lady to work on our demo, Eddie Kramer was there, standing right beside Johnsen. The two of them worked together, with Eddie eventually taking over. For a kid like me, who had grown up idolizing Hendrix, this was a surreal moment. To be in that studio, in the same spot where Hendrix had stood, with Eddie Kramer turning the knobs… well, how could this be happening?

But it was happening. We laid down the instrumental tracks on the first day, the vocals on the second, and mixed everything on the third. Within three days we had a five-song demo: “Deuce,” “Strutter,” “Watchin’ You,” “Black Diamond,” and “Cold Gin.”

The last of these, “Cold Gin,” represented my first writing contribution to the band. It was a song about loneliness and poverty—hard times in general—and the comfort that can be found in a bottle, a concept I’d come to know well in the future, but that I understood only in the abstract at the time:

It’s time to leave and get another quart

Around the corner at the liquor store

The cheapest stuff is all I need

To get me back on my feet again

“Cold Gin” is a good song. It became a KISS concert staple and it holds up well today; it’s withstood the test of time. But I have to admit—I’m not even sure what I was trying to say, or why I wrote a song about
gin (let alone
cold
gin). I didn’t drink gin; didn’t drink liquor of any kind very often. I was a beer man then, and not even a connoisseur. Gimme a can of whatever you had in the fridge, and I was happy. I wanted to write a drinking song, and “Cold Gin” sounded like a great title. So I went with it.

Working with Eddie Kramer was a trip, in the best sense of the word. Right from the start (and we would go on to work together on several projects), Eddie and I got along great. We had a terrific working relationship and, later, a friendship as well. Eddie wasn’t just a brilliant producer and engineer; he was gifted when it came to managing talent. Not in a business sense, but in the sense that he understood how to get the best out of a musician in the studio. He tolerated, maybe even appreciated, quirks and eccentricities, and I had a shitload of both. What I liked about Eddie was that he seemed to respect my ability as a guitar player. I wasn’t the most secure guy. I needed a pat on the back once in a while. Eddie used to offer praise and criticism in roughly equal amounts. At least where I was concerned, he was a generous guy. When I was around him, I wanted to play well, and I wanted to give my best effort. I needed the encouragement, and I got it from Eddie.

In fairness, we all did, and it was Eddie’s encouragement and skill that helped make that demo one of the best recordings KISS ever did. I think everyone in the band would agree that even though it was only five songs, the demo is a stronger record than the first “official” KISS record. It was cleaner, harder, better. It came straight from the heart… from the gut. We were all proud of it and felt like it would be the perfect calling card when it came time to land a deal with a major label. And that’s exactly what it was.

As much as we all wanted to succeed, we couldn’t
make it on our own. There was no way for KISS to become the juggernaut it did without some serious muscle behind it. After we finished recording the demo, nothing really changed. Not right away, anyway. We
just kept rehearsing and working odd jobs to help pay the bills. A series of shows in New York attracted some people within the industry—both artists and management types—which made it fairly clear that word of KISS was getting around. In July we rented out a ballroom at a sleazy little place called the Hotel Diplomat, and more than five hundred people showed up to watch us play. Our makeup had become more refined by this time, and our special effects had finally begun to creep beyond goofy stunts that were better known as staples of the Harlem Globetrotters (you know, tossing buckets of confetti into the crowd). Mainly, though, the music was good. The music was
always
good, and we delivered it with our usual intensity and volume.

On August 10 we played the Diplomat once again, on a bill that included the bands Street Punk and Luger. But it was totally our show. We paid for the hall, and we did our own advertising and promotion. As usual, we put on a dynamite show, totally overwhelming the audience. One of the things we had going for us was our physical presence. With the help of gigantic platform shoes, we were all approaching seven feet tall. Add the costumes and makeup, and put us all in a small, sweaty club, and you have a seriously intense, claustrophobic atmosphere. I honestly think some of the people who showed up for those early shows were literally scared of us.

One man who wasn’t scared, in any sense of the word, was Bill Au-coin. Bill was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met, a real eclectic guy who, on the surface at least, probably seemed like exactly the wrong person to manage the career of KISS. For one thing, he’d never been a rock ’n’ roll manager. For another, he didn’t exactly look like the hippest guy in the room. But Bill wanted the job and that’s why he came to the Hotel Diplomat that night—to see us in person, and to pitch his services.

Bill was a former television producer whose credits included a show called
Flipside
, which was actually about the record business. Gene always figured that KISS was a media venture as much as it was a rock band, so he was intrigued by Bill’s television experience. That’s why Bill
was one of the hundreds of industry executives who regularly received information about KISS. Gene saturated the marketplace, targeting anyone who might possibly be of use to the band, in almost any capacity. And remember, in those days it took a ton of effort to communicate this type of information. You didn’t just send out an e-mail blast. You wrote letters and made flyers and brochures (sometimes including fake reviews of your concerts), and you made hundreds of copies, and then you put them all in the mail. Multiple lines in the water, so to speak, waiting and hoping for a strike.

We never would have guessed that Bill would turn out to be the big fish, or at least the right fish, but he was. By this time he owned a company that produced television commercials, usually related to the music industry. Bill had been worn down by our persistence. I guess he figured that any band with that much ambition was at least worth investigating. So he showed up at the Diplomat… and we blew him away. And very quickly our roles were reversed. Bill came backstage after the show and said that he wanted to manage our band. Suddenly we weren’t chasing him anymore; he was chasing us. He showed up backstage again a few days later, after another show, this time making an even stronger pitch.

“Give me two weeks,” he said, “and I’ll get you a record deal.”

I was skeptical. I think we all were. But Bill seemed so genuine, and so enthusiastic, that we were willing to give him a shot. Anyway, what did we have to lose? There was no contract, no risk. Just a handshake agreement with a guy who promised to turn KISS into a household name. All he wanted in return was a small and exclusive window of opportunity.

So we gave it to him.

We also gave him a copy of our demo, in case he wanted to introduce the music of KISS to people in the industry. In fact, Bill did have someone in mind. Someone very specific. Bill was a shrewd guy, far more savvy than he appeared. Think about it. Who in their right mind would guarantee that he could line up a recording contract for
an unknown band? In a span of two weeks? Unless, of course, they had a close, personal relationship with someone in the industry. Someone who had power and influence.

Someone who could make miracles happen.

Someone like Neil Bogart.