Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / 1976: The Year KISS Took Over the World [Episode 360]

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1976: The Year KISS Took Over the World [Episode 360] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: It is my favorite Kiss album.
0:01
Speaker 2: It's a lot of people's favorite Kiss albums, but it
0:03
Speaker 2: is a bit of a loved and hated album. And interestingly,
0:06
Speaker 2: when it came out there were some bad reviews. I
0:09
Speaker 2: think it's the one that people think has the most
0:11
Speaker 2: brains behind it.
0:13
Speaker 1: Were totally bummed rock and roll.
0:17
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll leave you.
0:17
Speaker 1: You're reading. Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll, Rock,
0:21
Speaker 1: roll up.
0:22
Speaker 3: I totally booked everybody. Welcome back to book, Don Roth.
0:30
Speaker 3: This is the podcast for those about to read and rock.
0:33
Speaker 3: Martin pop Off is back on the podcast once again.
0:36
Speaker 3: This time he's got another excellent Kiss book. This is
0:40
Speaker 3: titled Kiss seventy six Twelve Months That Define the Hottest
0:44
Speaker 3: Band in the Land. Martin, How you doing?
0:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, Okay, Eric, thanks for having me down.
0:49
Speaker 3: Good to see you again. And absolutely love this book.
0:52
Speaker 3: This is such a cool idea, and I think we
0:55
Speaker 3: got to credit you because I've heard you on three
0:57
Speaker 3: sides of the coin talking about this idea where you
1:00
Speaker 3: weave in politics and sports and cultural events throughout the
1:06
Speaker 3: months of that year. Why was that important for you
1:08
Speaker 3: to frame Kiss within that broader context.
1:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this was my idea.
1:13
Speaker 2: I think back to all the different concepts we've had
1:16
Speaker 2: at Quarto, like the at fifties because they did a
1:18
Speaker 2: kiss at fifty as well, and then the illustrated histories
1:21
Speaker 2: and the album by albums, and I can't remember what
1:23
Speaker 2: are two of those was my idea and one or
1:25
Speaker 2: two of them wasn't.
1:26
Speaker 1: But this definitely, I'm pretty sure this was my idea,
1:30
Speaker 1: you know, I I recall I recall once.
1:33
Speaker 2: Years ago just browsing the bookshelves and saw a book
1:37
Speaker 2: on one led Zeppelin tour, and I thought, that's probably
1:40
Speaker 2: the future of these rock books sort of thing, right,
1:44
Speaker 2: And so so this idea of and then with Quarto
1:47
Speaker 2: we've done, you know, I went and did a whole
1:49
Speaker 2: book on the Who, Quadrophenian, a whole book on Dark
1:54
Speaker 2: Side of the Moon. So I thought, this, this whole
1:57
Speaker 2: snapshot in time idea is happening more or often, and
2:00
Speaker 2: it's something that hasn't been done too much yet.
2:03
Speaker 1: So the idea here was I loved.
2:07
Speaker 2: I loved just just making this a love letter to
2:11
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six more than anything thinking back to that time,
2:16
Speaker 2: you know a little bit, like you say, there's a
2:19
Speaker 2: lot of all the TV shows and films and things
2:22
Speaker 2: that happened in sports and plane crashes and political events
2:26
Speaker 2: and coups and whatever are in here. But so that's
2:31
Speaker 2: that's good to have as you go along, because I
2:33
Speaker 2: think everybody who experienced Kiss in seventy six had all
2:38
Speaker 2: these other things in their lives as well. TV was
2:41
Speaker 2: an appointment TV. You had to show up at that
2:44
Speaker 2: time or you weren't going to see it again. That's
2:47
Speaker 2: you know, we have all have these fond memories of
2:49
Speaker 2: going watching Don Kirshner's rock concert or Midnight Special or
2:53
Speaker 2: the Kiss movie or the Alice Cooper movie kind of thing.
2:58
Speaker 2: But I also wanted to kind of make a point
3:03
Speaker 2: just as a little a little bit of an aside.
3:04
Speaker 2: When I wrote this, I expected all three of those
3:09
Speaker 2: things to be equal month by month, like like the
3:13
Speaker 2: world events what's happening, and world events includes pop culture,
3:18
Speaker 2: but then what else is happening in the music business,
3:21
Speaker 2: and then what's happening in Kisses life?
3:23
Speaker 1: And when it got laid out, all that.
3:25
Speaker 2: Stuff was was more like a like a ticker tape section,
3:29
Speaker 2: and the kiss was highlighted, which is good because you
3:32
Speaker 2: get all the pictures that way. But writing them more
3:36
Speaker 2: so as equal partners. I think the main point I
3:40
Speaker 2: wanted to make is that even though we were all
3:43
Speaker 2: kind of kiss centric or or like this book is
3:47
Speaker 2: kiss centric, there are a lot of bigger bands and
3:49
Speaker 2: bigger albums that are happening in nineteen seventy six as well,
3:52
Speaker 2: So I wanted to make sure everybody had the full context.
3:55
Speaker 2: It wasn't all about kiss that year, but if you
3:58
Speaker 2: live through it and you bought Destroyer and Rock and
4:01
Speaker 2: roll Over and maybe Originals, you were living all these
4:03
Speaker 2: other realities as well.
4:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd brought the book over to my brothers. He
4:08
Speaker 3: invited me over for Super Bowl Sunday, so I was
4:10
Speaker 3: showing it to my two older brothers, and there's just
4:13
Speaker 3: an emotional response as you flipped through the pages. You're
4:16
Speaker 3: looking at, like you said, the bands, you know, Blue
4:19
Speaker 3: Iceterter Called, and the bands that were big at the time,
4:21
Speaker 3: but also the films that were big at the time.
4:24
Speaker 3: I think Rocky is in there right, The Raiders, Ken Stabler,
4:31
Speaker 3: a photo of Ken Stabler Bruce Jenner. That's what's so
4:36
Speaker 3: cool about this now.
4:38
Speaker 1: Look at it. EDIA mean, I'm looking at the CN tap,
4:41
Speaker 1: the Omen, Chuck Barris, the Gong Show.
4:44
Speaker 4: Yes, I love all the little ads we got Bonzi
4:48
Speaker 4: Muhammad Ali, you know, sure, yeah, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob
4:52
Speaker 4: Newhart Show, Ladies are all the shows we watched as kids.
4:56
Speaker 3: That was a watershed year nineteen seventy six for Kiss,
5:00
Speaker 3: and like you said, it places it month by month
5:02
Speaker 3: against the wider entertained world. Now, how conscious was the
5:04
Speaker 3: band of competing not just with other rock acts, but
5:08
Speaker 3: with TV movies, sports for public's attention, because this is
5:11
Speaker 3: a very different band from any other band. Were they
5:15
Speaker 3: conscious of that?
5:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a good point. I mean, they
5:18
Speaker 2: had great management, they were very ambitious. I don't think
5:22
Speaker 2: they were. It's more of a it's more of a
5:24
Speaker 2: two thousands thing to start worrying about being, you know,
5:28
Speaker 2: competing with the internet, video games, competing with the fact
5:33
Speaker 2: that we have streaming now and at your fingertips you
5:37
Speaker 2: have everything even for free.
5:38
Speaker 1: You've got it all on YouTube.
5:40
Speaker 2: So back then I think they were They were probably
5:43
Speaker 2: not so much visionary about competing with competing with Midway
5:48
Speaker 2: or Carry or anything like that, but I think they
5:50
Speaker 2: were quite conscious with competing with Rush and your Eye
5:55
Speaker 2: Heap and Aerosmith and Tech, NuGen and all these band
5:58
Speaker 2: stars Angel you know there. We've all heard the little
6:01
Speaker 2: you know, the rumors of of being concerned about a
6:04
Speaker 2: backup band being better than them or whatever, and then
6:08
Speaker 2: you know, just being a band trying to stay ahead
6:12
Speaker 2: of their expenses, so to speak. They had this this
6:16
Speaker 2: level of franticness or hysteria about their career that will
6:21
Speaker 2: strike while the iron is hot idea. But also they
6:26
Speaker 2: had this, uh, this new sort of concept of being
6:31
Speaker 2: the the most outrageous live show of all time that
6:34
Speaker 2: they were trying to do, uh you know at the time,
6:36
Speaker 2: which is you know, the precursor would be Alice Cooper.
6:39
Speaker 2: But they are carrying this thought in their head at
6:42
Speaker 2: the same time, which is, we're doing something new here.
6:47
Speaker 2: We may not you know, well, we will acknowledge. We're
6:50
Speaker 2: not doing anything completely you know, crazily new when it
6:54
Speaker 2: comes to the music, but we are doing something new.
6:57
Speaker 2: Like when you I either if we're the support band
7:00
Speaker 2: or we have a band supporting us, they're dealing with
7:05
Speaker 2: a different animal when when they run into Kiss because
7:08
Speaker 2: of the massiveness of the stage presence.
7:12
Speaker 3: You mentioned Rush, you mentioned Blue Eyster called starting out
7:15
Speaker 3: the year. What other bands were Kiss effectively competing with
7:19
Speaker 3: and how do they try to differentiate themselves in that
7:23
Speaker 3: crowded rock scene at the time.
7:24
Speaker 2: Well, one point I wanted to make with this book
7:27
Speaker 2: is they're competing against bands that we as kids didn't
7:30
Speaker 2: even really think about that much as the competition. But
7:33
Speaker 2: just think about how much oxygen in the room was
7:36
Speaker 2: sucked out of the room by Peter Frampton Comes Alive,
7:39
Speaker 2: or or Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac or Eagles Hotel California.
7:44
Speaker 2: You know, these are records that came out at the time,
7:46
Speaker 2: or you know bands that were I think we got
7:49
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones black and Blue at the time, but led
7:52
Speaker 2: Zeppel didn't have an album. But none of that matter
7:54
Speaker 2: because the other news that's that's in this book here
7:57
Speaker 2: and there is that, oh, by the way, David Bowie's touring,
8:00
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones are touring America. They're they're they're playing stadiums,
8:03
Speaker 2: and Kiss isn't playing stadiums. You know, they're they're still
8:07
Speaker 2: they're still playing a combination of theaters and hockey barns,
8:11
Speaker 2: that kind of thing, right, So we have to remember
8:13
Speaker 2: they're competing against all that. But the direct competition I
8:17
Speaker 2: remember growing up, and you know what albums did we have.
8:21
Speaker 1: At the time sort of thing.
8:23
Speaker 2: You know, Aerosmith was a bigger band than Kiss was
8:26
Speaker 2: at this time. They were about the same I mean,
8:29
Speaker 2: Aerosmith's still on the Ascendants. But Aerosmith is doing, you know,
8:32
Speaker 2: rather well already with a seventy five studio album Toys
8:36
Speaker 2: in the Attic, and dream On has come back, and
8:38
Speaker 2: and now they have Rocks, which is considered the greatest
8:41
Speaker 2: Aerosmith album of all time. Ted NuGen had Ted Nugent,
8:45
Speaker 2: Ted NuGen and all of a sudden, He's big in
8:47
Speaker 2: seventy six with Free for All, and even bigger than
8:49
Speaker 2: next year, and arguably in seventy seven to seventy eight,
8:54
Speaker 2: Ted well, Ted's selling more records than Kiss. But but
8:58
Speaker 2: they're about the same size band sort of thing. So,
9:01
Speaker 2: and there were all those up and comers, and they're
9:03
Speaker 2: all in the book as well. Angel On Casablanca Stars
9:08
Speaker 2: managed by Bill Ocoin as well. Bluyster Cult is doing
9:11
Speaker 2: well this year with Agents of Fortune, with the big
9:14
Speaker 2: hit Don't Fear the Reaper. You know, we've got Mahogany, Rush,
9:19
Speaker 2: We've got Heart, We've got Rush. Of course, Rush is
9:23
Speaker 2: on the Ascendants and seventy six is a huge year
9:26
Speaker 2: for them. I was just looking the other day. Twenty
9:29
Speaker 2: one to twelve is now triple platinum. Yeah, that's and
9:32
Speaker 2: that's a new thing, I think. I think it was
9:34
Speaker 2: double platinum for a long time.
9:36
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of.
9:37
Speaker 2: Competition, and so a lot of these bands were doing
9:39
Speaker 2: about as well as Kiss. But one thing I kind
9:43
Speaker 2: of learned writing the book is that although although most
9:47
Speaker 2: of the bands I just mentioned got a lot of press,
9:50
Speaker 2: Kiss really was getting all sorts of column inches and
9:55
Speaker 2: press for the notoriety of how they looked in the
9:57
Speaker 2: stage show. And they were on the cover of a
9:59
Speaker 2: lot of these magazines, as were the other ones. Aerosmith
10:02
Speaker 2: got a lot of press at this time as well.
10:03
Speaker 2: But so yeah, this in a way, this is also
10:06
Speaker 2: a love letters to Circus Magazine and Cream and Hit
10:09
Speaker 2: Parader at the time too.
10:10
Speaker 3: That leads to my next question, which is did kids
10:12
Speaker 3: view themselves as part of the mainstream entertainment industry in
10:15
Speaker 3: seventy six or were they still positioning themselves as outsiders
10:19
Speaker 3: that were challenging it. Because now they're on Cream now
10:21
Speaker 3: they're starting to get coverage, a lot of mainstream coverage.
10:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I remember really thought of that.
10:28
Speaker 2: I have a feeling, if you know, if I know
10:30
Speaker 2: the personalities of those guys, they did not feel like
10:34
Speaker 2: outsiders at all. I think they felt like we were
10:37
Speaker 2: part of this whole thing. You know, they're businessmen, they're
10:41
Speaker 2: from New York City. You know, they're not There's nothing
10:44
Speaker 2: particularly outsider about them other than I'm sure they got
10:50
Speaker 2: their backs up a little bit as bad reviews would
10:52
Speaker 2: come in, and then you know, with reviewers dismissing them
10:57
Speaker 2: as a boy band or a novelty act, that would
11:00
Speaker 2: upset them. But I don't think they ever felt particularly
11:03
Speaker 2: out like outsiders. They were playing with all those mainstream bands,
11:08
Speaker 2: and like you say, they were getting their fair share
11:10
Speaker 2: of press. We can't say they were slighted when it
11:14
Speaker 2: comes to the.
11:14
Speaker 1: Press at all.
11:16
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure in the early days, yeah, come
11:19
Speaker 2: to think of it, I suppose from Kiss through Hodder
11:23
Speaker 2: and Hell, let's say they were probably they probably felt
11:26
Speaker 2: that they were up against some pretty heavy odds, and
11:28
Speaker 2: they were probably frustrated that we weren't catching on as
11:32
Speaker 2: much as we should have.
11:34
Speaker 3: This gives me a good perspective, because see, this is
11:36
Speaker 3: showing my age. I was born in seventy two. I
11:38
Speaker 3: don't remember. Yeah, I wasn't following Kiss as they were happening.
11:42
Speaker 3: So for you, you're a little bit older, we're not
11:44
Speaker 3: going to go into the actual numbers here.
11:46
Speaker 1: Yeah nine years nine years old, all right, but yeah.
11:49
Speaker 3: So you're old enough to remember you followed it as
11:51
Speaker 3: it was happening. I don't. I wish I was old
11:54
Speaker 3: enough to remember and be able to recount, like, okay,
11:58
Speaker 3: I remember when Kiss became huge, you know, so that's
12:00
Speaker 3: an interesting look at it because I wondered, you know,
12:03
Speaker 3: I know we're alive. All the articles you read documentaries
12:06
Speaker 3: is once that album blew up, then Kiss blows up.
12:08
Speaker 3: Prior to that, Yeah, they have a good following, but
12:11
Speaker 3: not a huge following.
12:12
Speaker 2: Well, and I'm proud to say I was there since
12:15
Speaker 2: the debut album as a new release. I mean, we
12:17
Speaker 2: saw that in the stores as kids and freaked out,
12:20
Speaker 2: like we thought, Okay, this has a really good chance
12:23
Speaker 2: of being heavy, and it was right. And but the
12:26
Speaker 2: funny thing about the sound of Kiss back then, it's
12:29
Speaker 2: an interesting band to try to compare them to because
12:34
Speaker 2: it's kind of like, it's kind of like chordal stomping,
12:39
Speaker 2: chordal hard rock rather than you know, the sophisticated bluesy
12:44
Speaker 2: hard rock of Aerosmith or the or the riffier, you know,
12:48
Speaker 2: Detroit based hard rock of Ted NuGen or anything British
12:52
Speaker 2: which brought in classical or doom influences or virtuosity of
12:56
Speaker 2: a certain kind. So Kiss was more like, you know,
13:00
Speaker 2: these days, when we tried to compare them to anything,
13:02
Speaker 2: all I can really think of and and none of
13:05
Speaker 2: this is satisfying to me. It's it's more like a
13:08
Speaker 2: sampling of Slade, uh, heavy Bachman Turner Overdrive and uh
13:15
Speaker 2: sweet singles, you know, Chapman Chin kind of sweet singles,
13:20
Speaker 2: you know, your your early ones like Blockbuster and Little
13:23
Speaker 2: Willy and not so much ballroom Blitz, what else hell Raiser,
13:28
Speaker 2: you know, which are which have that heavy UK glam
13:32
Speaker 2: element of the stomping drums, maybe a little tribal pattern,
13:36
Speaker 2: maybe some handclaps mixed in on the snare, uh that
13:40
Speaker 2: kind of thing.
13:41
Speaker 1: Uh.
13:41
Speaker 2: And that's what Kiss sounded like, kind of kind of
13:44
Speaker 2: all through those first three albums, although they I guess
13:47
Speaker 2: they got riffier through the second and the third, but
13:50
Speaker 2: still it felt it felt like a different kind of
13:53
Speaker 2: music to h to most hard.
13:55
Speaker 1: Rock and heavy metal at the time.
13:59
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14:02
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14:06
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14:08
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14:10
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14:14
Speaker 3: was there a point where a Kiss clearly pulled ahead
14:16
Speaker 3: of their competition in terms of cultural visibility and impact?
14:20
Speaker 2: Interesting question because I suppose it happened immediately, because Alive
14:26
Speaker 2: comes out September of seventy five, and it explodes pretty
14:31
Speaker 2: much right away. So you got three months of growth there,
14:34
Speaker 2: two months of growth, and they're touring Alive, and they're
14:39
Speaker 2: essentially still touring Alive. I love that concept of touring
14:43
Speaker 2: a live album. It's a funny, funny idea. But they
14:47
Speaker 2: are kind of doing that, you know, working super hard,
14:51
Speaker 2: and then even when Destroyer comes out in March of
14:54
Speaker 2: seventy six, they're still kind of touring Alive. And then
14:56
Speaker 2: there's all that weirdness of you know, what cost costumes
15:00
Speaker 2: are we wearing and what you know, how many new
15:02
Speaker 2: songs are into the set and blah, blah blah.
15:05
Speaker 1: And then yeah, so.
15:08
Speaker 2: November they have Rock and Roll over in the middle
15:11
Speaker 2: they have the originals. So there's a lot of stuff
15:13
Speaker 2: happening all along the way, but they're just kind of
15:16
Speaker 2: on like they did in the seventies. They're just kind
15:19
Speaker 2: of on a continuous tour. People don't even really it
15:22
Speaker 2: doesn't even really register in their heads, like, oh, the
15:25
Speaker 2: album's out today, by the way, as we play Kalamazoo, right,
15:29
Speaker 2: it's like and so and when did they record the album? Well,
15:33
Speaker 2: they took two weeks off or three weeks off, and
15:35
Speaker 2: they went on this break and they probably even had
15:38
Speaker 2: gigs in between recording sessions and stuff like that.
15:40
Speaker 1: That's how these seventies bands operated.
15:42
Speaker 2: So they were essentially famous every single month of nineteen
15:47
Speaker 2: seventy six.
15:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, you talk about the originals released by Casablanca. That
15:52
Speaker 3: was July of seventy six, and it re released the
15:54
Speaker 3: first three albums. What role did marketing and branding play
15:58
Speaker 3: and Kiss becoming phenomenon in seventy six, and how did
16:02
Speaker 3: it differ from the other bands.
16:03
Speaker 2: Well, it's a big deal. They were super into the
16:06
Speaker 2: merchandising right away. I mean, part of this book you know,
16:09
Speaker 2: one of the things it celebrates is those classic shoots
16:14
Speaker 2: with the with the crazy custom cars and Gene over
16:16
Speaker 2: in California, believe that was. But the on top of
16:19
Speaker 2: the Eiffel Tower, the you know, the infamous snow shoot
16:23
Speaker 2: for winter, the Bison You'll shoot with Peter with the
16:26
Speaker 2: marching drum, and the you know, the flag and then
16:29
Speaker 2: and then going to London and being shot in front
16:32
Speaker 2: of a big band and stuff like that. So though
16:34
Speaker 2: those are all iconic, and we started to get Kiss posters.
16:38
Speaker 2: So yeah, merchandising was a huge deal the Originals. I
16:42
Speaker 2: remember when that came out.
16:43
Speaker 1: We all bought it.
16:44
Speaker 2: We all bought it because it's just like, hey, so
16:48
Speaker 2: slightly different. But the album covers a little piece of
16:51
Speaker 2: paper this time and there's a few little do dads
16:53
Speaker 2: and extras and oh, you got to have this. It's
16:55
Speaker 2: a new Kiss album. We all had, we all had
16:58
Speaker 2: the first three albums. But it's still felt like an
17:00
Speaker 2: event if you were if you were a kid back
17:03
Speaker 2: then when the Originals came out, and it made the
17:05
Speaker 2: band seem important.
17:07
Speaker 3: Right, it had the Kiss Army sticker, right, it had
17:10
Speaker 3: the trading cards. I mean that was stuff that other
17:14
Speaker 3: bands was they were not doing, were.
17:15
Speaker 2: They Yeah, exactly, and even Alive had extra stuff in it.
17:19
Speaker 2: And you know, the Kiss Army, the original form was
17:24
Speaker 2: in with Destroyer. The other thing is so that made
17:28
Speaker 2: them feel like an important, big deal band. But the
17:30
Speaker 2: other thing that made them feel like a huge deal
17:34
Speaker 2: was the way that when you saw the ads for
17:36
Speaker 2: these albums, there was not a lot of hype text
17:38
Speaker 2: at all. It would just say is coming, you know,
17:40
Speaker 2: the new album's coming September whatever. So they had this
17:44
Speaker 2: kind of really conservative, corporate staied version of an ad.
17:47
Speaker 2: They would do just picture the album cover on a
17:49
Speaker 2: black background with a little bit of text saying a
17:52
Speaker 2: little bit of something, but not not going, oh my god,
17:55
Speaker 2: the greatest album of all time, wait till you hear
17:58
Speaker 2: the stump and single blah blah. You know, none of
18:00
Speaker 2: that stuff it was in these ads. So that always
18:03
Speaker 2: felt really cool. It's like it's like some big, massive
18:06
Speaker 2: company in downtown New York is writing this dumb ad
18:10
Speaker 2: and they all look the same, and so yeah, they
18:14
Speaker 2: seem larger than life, like right out of the gate
18:17
Speaker 2: kind of thing.
18:17
Speaker 3: Martin pop Off, the author of Kiss seventy six twelve
18:20
Speaker 3: months that defined the hottest band in the land. Let's
18:22
Speaker 3: get to Ezra now. March of seventy six, Kiss released Destroyer.
18:25
Speaker 3: You write the Kiss came into the sessions with a
18:27
Speaker 3: large batch of songs. Ezren rejected most of them. The
18:30
Speaker 3: result is a batch of songs created under his vision.
18:33
Speaker 3: Could Destroyer have become such a landmark record without Ezren's
18:37
Speaker 3: heavy handed guidance.
18:39
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I mean, it is my favorite
18:41
Speaker 2: Kiss album. It's a lot of people's favorite Kiss albums,
18:44
Speaker 2: but it is a bit of a love it and
18:45
Speaker 2: hated album. And interestingly, when it came out, there were
18:48
Speaker 2: some bad reviews and to the point where Kiss fired
18:51
Speaker 2: ezran off of the next album blamed him for this
18:54
Speaker 2: crappy album quote unquote. But of course now it is
18:58
Speaker 2: the most celebrated Kiss autum. I think it's the one
19:02
Speaker 2: that people think has the most brains behind it. It's
19:06
Speaker 2: got the most dynamic range all the way from you know,
19:09
Speaker 2: the super quietness of Beth with no drums whatsoever, to
19:13
Speaker 2: some of their heaviest songs, certainly probably most of their
19:16
Speaker 2: heaviest songs yet in Uh Gott a Thunder Detroit Rock City,
19:21
Speaker 2: King of the Nighttime World, mainly and that and the
19:24
Speaker 2: heaviness was advanced by this this slightly wider, more exciting
19:28
Speaker 2: range even to the heavy end of things.
19:29
Speaker 1: But it had a lot of ear candy on it
19:31
Speaker 1: as well.
19:32
Speaker 2: Uh. Critics still they didn't particularly like it. But now
19:37
Speaker 2: but now they weren't calling Kiss a boy band. They
19:39
Speaker 2: were calling them pretentious, you know, as as if like
19:43
Speaker 2: this is almost too smart in a way. But but
19:46
Speaker 2: but it was like fake smart, so that so so
19:49
Speaker 2: that happened. But as we know, and then you know,
19:52
Speaker 2: the deep angry headbanger fans revolted big time against great expectations,
19:57
Speaker 2: and Beth hated them as I did, but I realized,
20:03
Speaker 2: you know, Detroit Rock City is clearly the most sophisticated,
20:07
Speaker 2: cool new song that they ever did, and just the
20:09
Speaker 2: production in general is really good. You know, Kiss had
20:12
Speaker 2: kind of an odd seventies glam production, Hodder and Hell
20:16
Speaker 2: had that turgid, obscure sound muddy, and then you know,
20:21
Speaker 2: people think dressed to kills a little bit too to
20:24
Speaker 2: clean and neat and polite, and then people think a
20:27
Speaker 2: live sounds great, but this sounded like properly dynamically great,
20:31
Speaker 2: like just good highs and good Lows. It was just
20:34
Speaker 2: a good sounding record. And yeah, a lot of this
20:37
Speaker 2: came down to Bob Azron. He did a lot of
20:39
Speaker 2: this kind of thing with Alice Cooper. Not the greatest
20:42
Speaker 2: sounding albums, the Alice Cooper albums, but the first really
20:46
Speaker 2: good sounding Alice Cooper album to my ears is Welcome
20:50
Speaker 2: to My Nightmare and Destroyer to me feels almost like
20:53
Speaker 2: Welcome to My Nightmare Part two. It just there's just
20:56
Speaker 2: so much about it that you can compare. And I
20:59
Speaker 2: believe how did that some podcast maybe one of my
21:03
Speaker 2: own podcast episodes are our video channel Contrarians. I did
21:07
Speaker 2: a whole comparison between the two and they just seem really,
21:10
Speaker 2: really really alike.
21:11
Speaker 3: Oh I gotta check that out. Yeah, well, this is
21:13
Speaker 3: probably a good time to ask you about Kim Fowley.
21:15
Speaker 3: He's among the exclusive interviews for this book talk about
21:18
Speaker 3: his contributions to the story of Kiss in nineteen seventy six.
21:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a crazy guy. He seemed a little
21:24
Speaker 2: bit mentally ill. I interviewed him, and he is a
21:27
Speaker 2: very boastful guy as well, and you know, wanted to
21:31
Speaker 2: make sure his legacy was in kind of on it.
21:34
Speaker 2: So there's just the elliptical, do You Love Me story,
21:38
Speaker 2: co write Kim Foully and stuff. He's not a big
21:40
Speaker 2: part of this, this whole thing. And he's part of
21:42
Speaker 2: the Runaways of course, as well as a manager of
21:47
Speaker 2: that band and then what Venus and the Razor Blade.
21:50
Speaker 2: So he's got his hands in a few things here
21:53
Speaker 2: and there, more as a co writer or almost like
21:56
Speaker 2: shilling this song and trying to get it over over
21:59
Speaker 2: in to the band. So yeah, he's he's just one
22:01
Speaker 2: of these strange guys along the way. You know, Kiss
22:04
Speaker 2: Kiss has an interesting history. So you know, if you
22:07
Speaker 2: if you go through the credits all throughout that, there's
22:10
Speaker 2: all like, who was that guy?
22:11
Speaker 1: Who's that guy they call? Who's Stan Penridge? You know,
22:14
Speaker 1: Who's what? What's Finnie Pozzia, what's the what's he all about?
22:17
Speaker 1: Where are all these people? Sean Delaney? What is that?
22:20
Speaker 3: You know?
22:20
Speaker 2: Uh? And and so it's he's just another one of
22:23
Speaker 2: these characters along the way.
22:25
Speaker 3: Who's the guitarist that was with Alice that was on
22:28
Speaker 3: some of the Kiss records?
22:29
Speaker 1: O dick Wer Yeah, Wagner's some yeaher in here.
22:34
Speaker 2: So Bob Azron has this has this good thing about
22:37
Speaker 2: him is like he will he will crack the whip
22:40
Speaker 2: if you're not if you're not doing well, he will
22:43
Speaker 2: just say I'm going to replace you, and he'll he'll
22:45
Speaker 2: threaten you with that. And so he made all these
22:47
Speaker 2: guys work hard, and uh, you know, I think I
22:51
Speaker 2: think everybody in the band appreciated it after the fact,
22:54
Speaker 2: but during, you know, is more like it was more
22:57
Speaker 2: like the guys with their head screwed on straight.
22:59
Speaker 1: I e.
22:59
Speaker 2: Gene and Paul realized this is good for us, and
23:03
Speaker 2: and you know, As and Peter were more of the complainers, thinking, oh,
23:06
Speaker 2: this is too much work. You know, we we'd rather
23:09
Speaker 2: we rather drink and do drugs kind of thing and
23:12
Speaker 2: not work this hard and let's be a little more spontaneous.
23:14
Speaker 2: But after the fact that, you know, everybody kind of
23:17
Speaker 2: spoke well, the experience, Yeah, we kind of needed that,
23:19
Speaker 2: We kind of needed to be whipped into shape a
23:21
Speaker 2: little bit.
23:22
Speaker 3: I think Rock and Roll Over would be the last
23:24
Speaker 3: album that was recorded by all four of the members
23:26
Speaker 3: because from that point, moving forward, more and more you
23:30
Speaker 3: you have guests, you have like ghost musicians that are
23:34
Speaker 3: in the studio for Dynasty and Unmasked was Anton fig
23:40
Speaker 3: On drums.
23:41
Speaker 2: Which makes me think, you know, this this book has
23:44
Speaker 2: there seems to be a fair bit of excitement around it.
23:46
Speaker 2: I mean I'm semi talking talking into quarto about, hey,
23:49
Speaker 2: do you want to do Kiss seventy seven? I don't
23:51
Speaker 2: know if I want to do Kiss seventy seven, but
23:53
Speaker 2: that'd be cool. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean there is
23:56
Speaker 2: love Gun. There is a live too with a whole
23:59
Speaker 2: studio side, which I love. I think that's a great
24:01
Speaker 2: studio side they put together there. So yeah, it's interesting.
24:05
Speaker 2: It might be an idea, but yeah, rock and Roll
24:07
Speaker 2: over a whole different thing. People love that album as well.
24:10
Speaker 2: I'm not a massive fan of it, but that was
24:14
Speaker 2: them famously. No, we're not going to work with Bob Asram.
24:17
Speaker 2: We're gonna work with Eddie Kramer, who had a long,
24:20
Speaker 2: you know, interesting history as well as working on a
24:25
Speaker 2: live which is you know that that's such a that's
24:28
Speaker 2: such a corrupty business see sort of thing to say.
24:31
Speaker 2: You know, it's like, oh, let's let's hire the let's
24:34
Speaker 2: hire the producer that.
24:36
Speaker 1: Made our live album quote unquote right.
24:39
Speaker 2: So it's weird, eh, but still, I mean they have
24:42
Speaker 2: good memories, of course of him doing well there and
24:45
Speaker 2: getting along with him and stuff, and then he did
24:47
Speaker 2: a great job on Rock and roll Over. It's it's
24:49
Speaker 2: a very rudimentary, workmanlike production job, but people love it.
24:53
Speaker 1: People love the sounds that they.
24:55
Speaker 2: Got on there, even though they are kind of lacking
24:57
Speaker 2: in dynamic range and kind of mid rangey there. There's
25:00
Speaker 2: something about the vibrancy of a trashy, mid rangey mix
25:06
Speaker 2: that gives you those positive attributes that that people talk about.
25:09
Speaker 2: And so people really really do like the songs on there,
25:13
Speaker 2: and they quite like the production as well.
25:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard a lot of his fancy it's their favorite.
25:18
Speaker 3: The album cover by Michael Dorett. I think that's the
25:22
Speaker 3: pronunciation of the last name he did the art on
25:25
Speaker 3: Rock and roll Over. Before we talk about that, we
25:28
Speaker 3: should talk about Ken Kelly though, because his cover of Destroyer.
25:31
Speaker 3: So both of those album covers are iconic and ken
25:34
Speaker 3: Kelly's How important was that artwork in Shape and Kisses
25:38
Speaker 3: mythic superhero like identity, particularly against the album covers from
25:42
Speaker 3: the other bands that year, Yeah.
25:44
Speaker 1: Super important.
25:45
Speaker 2: People love that cover, you know, immediately, And what a
25:48
Speaker 2: great title to Destroyer, What a killer title.
25:51
Speaker 3: I had the Jigsaw Puzzle, the Destroyer album.
25:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I ever had that, But he also did Rainbow Rising,
25:58
Speaker 2: which came out the same year he and later on
26:01
Speaker 2: he did man O War.
26:02
Speaker 1: He did Love Gun as well.
26:04
Speaker 2: But no, that's a great, great album cover and it
26:07
Speaker 2: was just so super reproduced on everything.
26:09
Speaker 1: People loved it, great, great pictures of the band in that.
26:14
Speaker 2: Later on we got to see the alternate versions, which
26:16
Speaker 2: are kind of the same but but just cool as well.
26:19
Speaker 2: But yeah, what it looked cool kind of floating above
26:23
Speaker 2: that rubble and then on the back it was classy
26:25
Speaker 2: because it was just sort of a continuation of the
26:28
Speaker 2: scene with nothing much in it, just some smoking ruins
26:31
Speaker 2: kind of thing. So yeah, it was it was really
26:34
Speaker 2: really cool that way. I mean, it's it's still it's it's.
26:38
Speaker 2: All of the album covers were cool, I mean, especially
26:41
Speaker 2: Alive the debut was cool, Hotter in Hell. So they
26:44
Speaker 2: had had great album covers, but yeah, against it it
26:47
Speaker 2: really it really showed you what this band was about.
26:50
Speaker 2: You know.
26:50
Speaker 1: The other interesting thing about that album cover.
26:54
Speaker 2: Subconsciously, as kids, we always felt this and I still
26:57
Speaker 2: feel this to this day that when you when you
27:00
Speaker 2: illustrate a band, it makes them seem more important than
27:03
Speaker 2: when you photograph a band. So it's like, oh, somebody's
27:07
Speaker 2: doing or painting, you know, So that's kind of cool.
27:11
Speaker 2: That's kind of cool as well. But yeah, it made
27:14
Speaker 2: the band look, like you say, larger than life.
27:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, rock and roll Over is more like a comic
27:19
Speaker 3: book type of energy to it.
27:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I remember getting that and feeling a little
27:25
Speaker 2: bit disappointed in the idea. You know, it still looked
27:29
Speaker 2: great and it blew our minds that, oh my god,
27:31
Speaker 2: a new Kiss album. But you were starting to feel
27:34
Speaker 2: that am I outgrowing this band a little?
27:37
Speaker 1: Is this a little too goofy looking?
27:40
Speaker 2: It certainly doesn't look as manly as Destroyer, did you know?
27:45
Speaker 2: It just it did feel like you know, so in
27:49
Speaker 2: seventy seven, I'm like fourteen, and now I'm thinking, is
27:53
Speaker 2: this a band for twelve year old? You know? And
27:56
Speaker 2: I'm getting more and more and more great albums all
27:59
Speaker 2: the time. At that time, Rainbow's out, We've got Judas
28:03
Speaker 2: Priests in our lives now, I mean Sad Wings a
28:05
Speaker 2: Destiny in nineteen seventy six, I mean craps on both
28:09
Speaker 2: of these albums from a height of several miles, you know,
28:13
Speaker 2: it's it's that when we heard Sad Wings, it was
28:15
Speaker 2: just like a masterpiece. This is like our favorite band
28:18
Speaker 2: of all time. Now, how come this band is so genius?
28:22
Speaker 1: Right? You had ac DC.
28:24
Speaker 2: Coming out, but it was more like Sad Wings. It
28:27
Speaker 2: still felt like certainly Sad Wings by a large margin,
28:31
Speaker 2: but even Rainbow Rising and even you know, two or
28:36
Speaker 2: three UFO albums in our life at this point, Deep
28:39
Speaker 2: Purple's got a whole slew of good albums by this
28:41
Speaker 2: point and actually broken up.
28:43
Speaker 1: Deep Purple is gone by seventy six, So yeah, it did.
28:48
Speaker 1: It did feel.
28:49
Speaker 2: I remember, going through all these years, Kiss was never
28:52
Speaker 2: my favorite band. I mean, they were probably close in
28:55
Speaker 2: seventy four seventy five, but by seventy six, there's no
28:59
Speaker 2: way they were the favorite band. They almost seemed like
29:02
Speaker 2: the closest to us. But at that point, you know,
29:05
Speaker 2: having all those Black Sabbath records and like I say,
29:10
Speaker 2: Sad Wings, and then soon as you get to the
29:12
Speaker 2: new wave of British heavy metal and on and on,
29:14
Speaker 2: and we had Derringer and Stars and Moxie and Riot
29:17
Speaker 2: and Teas and more Rush albums. You know, it's had
29:21
Speaker 2: a lot of competition and as as as they are
29:26
Speaker 2: staying kind of in that in that young teen zone.
29:31
Speaker 2: You know, we're we're becoming in our older teens and
29:34
Speaker 2: we're listening to bands that seemed a little more grown
29:37
Speaker 2: up too.
29:39
Speaker 3: Hey guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
29:41
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30:05
Speaker 3: Booked on Ron. Also find a link in this episode
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Speaker 3: show notes, or just go to booked on rock dot
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Speaker 3: com and click on my deals. Obviously one of the
30:13
Speaker 3: most maybe the most photogenic bands in rock? How much
30:16
Speaker 3: did that help them up against those bands and those
30:19
Speaker 3: albums that you say, like the Priest album better than
30:22
Speaker 3: the two the Kiss put out that year, yet Kiss
30:24
Speaker 3: more visible? Right? They were the most photogenic band, oh
30:28
Speaker 3: for sure. And how did that contribute to their explosion?
30:31
Speaker 2: They made great, great magazine covers. So magazines loved putting
30:35
Speaker 2: Kiss on the cover. And I remember in later years.
30:37
Speaker 2: I don't know if this was the case early on,
30:39
Speaker 2: it'd be an interesting question, but I remember in later
30:42
Speaker 2: years when we had our own magazine, Kiss would only
30:45
Speaker 2: interview with you if you put them on the cover.
30:47
Speaker 2: It was kind of this neat sort of management thing
30:50
Speaker 2: they had. It's like, oh, yeah, you can interview Kiss,
30:52
Speaker 2: they have to go on the cover. You promise me
30:55
Speaker 2: they go on the cover. It's kind of neat. But
30:58
Speaker 2: so they made great covers, great posters, they made great merch,
31:01
Speaker 2: They made great Halloween costumes. You know, you you couldn't
31:05
Speaker 2: go out as Brad Whitford on Halloween, uh you know,
31:09
Speaker 2: but but everybody went out as their favorite Kiss characters,
31:12
Speaker 2: right right, So uh so yeah, it it was a great,
31:17
Speaker 2: great competitive advantage. Everybody knew they were going to get
31:19
Speaker 2: a great show with jeans, spit and blood and flames
31:22
Speaker 2: all over the place. And just and and we used to, uh,
31:25
Speaker 2: you know, our our favorite our favorite hockey team was
31:28
Speaker 2: the Philadelphia Flyers, the broad Steep Broad Street Bullies because
31:32
Speaker 2: they were always in fights. Our favorite football team was
31:35
Speaker 2: the Oakland Raiders. You know, we we we called them,
31:38
Speaker 2: you know, we called Kiss. Which direction does this go?
31:42
Speaker 3: We got?
31:42
Speaker 1: We either called Kiss.
31:43
Speaker 2: The Oakland Raiders on acid or we called the Oakland
31:45
Speaker 2: Raiders Kiss on Acid. But but to us, they were
31:48
Speaker 2: the Kiss of the NFL because they wore the exact
31:51
Speaker 2: same color costumes, right, and they had Kt Stadler, bad
31:54
Speaker 2: ass Kenny Staylor, you know his long hair and stuff.
31:56
Speaker 1: We love that, right and.
31:58
Speaker 2: So uh so, yeah, they were just they were kind
32:03
Speaker 2: of the coolest band, if they weren't the greatest when
32:06
Speaker 2: it came to the actual music.
32:08
Speaker 3: Speaking of Halloween, their appearance on Paul Lynn's Halloween Special
32:12
Speaker 3: October seventy six, that is it's a pivotal moment in
32:16
Speaker 3: their career. It's one of the strangest things you'll ever see.
32:19
Speaker 3: Manager Bill o'coyn actually was skeptical about putting Kiss on TV.
32:23
Speaker 3: In hindsight, why do you see this appearance as one
32:26
Speaker 3: of Kiss's key media breakthroughs in nineteen seventy seven.
32:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was great because Paul Lynn is We every
32:32
Speaker 2: loved Paul Land. He's a great comedian. He was great
32:35
Speaker 2: in that show. And then you had the Wizard of
32:37
Speaker 2: oz connection in there as well with Margaret Hamilton and
32:40
Speaker 2: Kiss looked amazing and they were kind of part of
32:43
Speaker 2: skits and they did pretty good with that too, and
32:45
Speaker 2: then they played. But again it's this idea of you know,
32:51
Speaker 2: back then, you had to show up. There were not
32:55
Speaker 2: even really video recorders yet. Video recorders were still a
32:59
Speaker 2: couple couple of years away, so you had.
33:02
Speaker 1: To be there.
33:03
Speaker 2: And if you missed it, you miss it. There may
33:05
Speaker 2: be a second showing or a rerun, but probably not.
33:08
Speaker 2: It's it's a one time thing. It's like you had
33:10
Speaker 2: to go to the concert. You know, I grew up
33:12
Speaker 2: in a small town, so we didn't have the going
33:14
Speaker 2: to the concerts thing. But you know, you had to
33:17
Speaker 2: see that because you couldn't go to school the next
33:20
Speaker 2: day and be the only guy who you know, missed it,
33:22
Speaker 2: and then everybody's talking about it at school the next day.
33:26
Speaker 1: So that that was always important.
33:27
Speaker 2: And the midnight special who got to who got to
33:30
Speaker 2: stay up to see midnight Special or who had the
33:32
Speaker 2: dedication to go to bed and then and then wake
33:35
Speaker 2: up again at midnight to watch midnight Special, right, And
33:39
Speaker 2: that that proved you were dedicated with the music. So
33:42
Speaker 2: so anytime these things all happened too. It was super important.
33:45
Speaker 2: Like I say, just just like the Welcome to My
33:47
Speaker 2: Nightmare movie earlier.
33:49
Speaker 3: And you round that out with relentless touring.
33:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they would play everywhere and sometimes they got
33:55
Speaker 2: big crowds, sometimes not. But they had such a great
33:59
Speaker 2: touring etha to put themselves in front of everybody. They
34:02
Speaker 2: weren't they weren't scared uh to uh to do this
34:06
Speaker 2: as a support band or a uh at the headliner
34:11
Speaker 2: and uh yeah, that just uh you know it, and
34:13
Speaker 2: it's part of the whole you know, they did play everywhere,
34:17
Speaker 2: but but they had that ethic that they they knew
34:22
Speaker 2: that whole thing about you know, Aerosmith's Blue Jean Army
34:25
Speaker 2: or the rust Belt. You know, Middle America is where
34:28
Speaker 2: you make your bones as a band. Rush did it,
34:30
Speaker 2: Aerosmith did it. So all those playing all those Cleveland's
34:34
Speaker 2: and Chicago's and Saint Louis's, that was that was the
34:36
Speaker 2: bread and butter sort of feeling. And and you know
34:39
Speaker 2: they probably had their backs up a little bit of
34:41
Speaker 2: being one of these bands that that was too stupid
34:45
Speaker 2: for the coasts kind of thing right where you know,
34:48
Speaker 2: the fans would be a little more skeptical and they'd
34:50
Speaker 2: be crossing their arms watching you. Okay, just just uh,
34:53
Speaker 2: you know, sell us on what you do sort of thing.
34:56
Speaker 2: Whereas you know it was it was a band for
34:58
Speaker 2: the kids. It was a band for the kids, you know,
35:00
Speaker 2: between the coasts.
35:01
Speaker 3: So, after immersing yourself in this era, what do you
35:04
Speaker 3: think the lasting legacy of Kiss in nineteen seventy six is?
35:09
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think the thing I learned the
35:11
Speaker 2: most and can appreciate the most. And it's a fascinating
35:15
Speaker 2: topic because I've thought about this, like say, comparing Judas
35:21
Speaker 2: Priest versus the Pretenders in nineteen eighty two and always
35:24
Speaker 2: go I always think, is Judas Priest the bigger business
35:30
Speaker 2: than the Pretenders because of the trappings of the stage show?
35:34
Speaker 1: And do they sell more.
35:36
Speaker 2: Tickets than the Pretenders even though they both have a
35:39
Speaker 2: platinum album? Like I've always it's a fascinating concept thinking
35:43
Speaker 2: are the Pretenders playing the same size venues as Priest
35:47
Speaker 2: or No?
35:47
Speaker 1: And so without.
35:49
Speaker 2: Answering that question, maybe you know the answer because you're
35:51
Speaker 2: smarter than me on all this time, I don't know. Well,
35:54
Speaker 2: back to seventy six, what I appreciated about this is
35:58
Speaker 2: that I get the feeling or or in my gut,
36:04
Speaker 2: I feel like, even though even though there are bands
36:07
Speaker 2: selling more records than Kiss, Kiss is selling as many tickets,
36:11
Speaker 2: if not more than those bands, and there's more excitement
36:14
Speaker 2: around them, and they're getting they're getting more press because
36:18
Speaker 2: the press is all more exciting. So it's almost like,
36:22
Speaker 2: you know, Kiss famously, they've got this strange, strange golden
36:27
Speaker 2: platinum history where they have not too many huge selling
36:31
Speaker 2: albums but everything went gold kind of thing. So they've
36:35
Speaker 2: got this it's kind of like Rush a little bit,
36:38
Speaker 2: but Rush is starting to pull away, like I think
36:41
Speaker 2: Moving Pictures is now five times platinum, so so they're
36:46
Speaker 2: they're pulling away a little bit. But otherwise whole ton
36:50
Speaker 2: of gold records right and and platinum single platinum records.
36:53
Speaker 2: So Kiss, I think, is rolling through this this this
36:58
Speaker 2: uh year as a big band but not particularly selling
37:03
Speaker 2: a lot of records. They but they are as big
37:05
Speaker 2: as anybody else, and there's there's as much buzz about
37:08
Speaker 2: them as anybody else. But still, you know, when Led
37:12
Speaker 2: Zeppelin rolls through town, they're playing a football stadium.
37:15
Speaker 1: Oh yeah kind of thing.
37:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I think one interesting an interesting Kiss book
37:20
Speaker 3: would be the fact that the audience has got younger
37:24
Speaker 3: led to the downfall of Kiss But then I don't
37:28
Speaker 3: think they would have the comeback that they had in
37:31
Speaker 3: the nineties without that audience. Who is now that would
37:35
Speaker 3: have been what twenty years later because they came back
37:37
Speaker 3: in ninety six, so fifteen to twenty years later. Those
37:40
Speaker 3: kids are now in their twenties and thirties, and so
37:43
Speaker 3: they're going back and seeing the band. I don't know
37:45
Speaker 3: if there's something to that or I don't know if
37:46
Speaker 3: you're following with yeah, going because you know they now
37:50
Speaker 3: they're older and it's a nostalgia thing for them, bringing
37:53
Speaker 3: them back to their child I was right in that
37:55
Speaker 3: strike zone. I was seven years old in nineteen seventy nine.
37:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. So I mean there's a couple things there.
38:01
Speaker 2: Number One, the downfall of the band is a little bit,
38:04
Speaker 2: I think because well, they they lightened up a little,
38:08
Speaker 2: that's for sure. But also I think they just kind
38:13
Speaker 2: of got locked into their audience. Never particularly they never
38:19
Speaker 2: they never matured and brought along a maturing audience with them.
38:24
Speaker 2: They stayed in that We're the perfect band for twelve
38:28
Speaker 2: and thirteen year old's things. So that's the first thing.
38:30
Speaker 2: App I always find it fascinating how they were probably
38:35
Speaker 2: the most hair metal band of the entire hair metal
38:38
Speaker 2: decade and yet they're they're this old band from the seventies.
38:42
Speaker 2: I mean, nobody was more prolific and looked more hair
38:46
Speaker 2: metal than Kiss all through all through the eighties, even
38:51
Speaker 2: if you were a baby hair metal band, Kiss was
38:53
Speaker 2: literally the ultimate hair metal band through the eighties, which
38:57
Speaker 2: is pretty fascinating.
38:58
Speaker 3: To me, especially Paul in the video, all of them, the.
39:01
Speaker 2: Way they dressed, I mean they're all dressed fully like
39:04
Speaker 2: they all looked like White Snake at their worst or
39:07
Speaker 2: the David Lee Roth band.
39:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were so hair metal all through that time,
39:12
Speaker 1: in all the lyrics and all the album.
39:14
Speaker 2: Covers, and you know, they're they're they're they are on
39:19
Speaker 2: on the spot for the very first year of hair
39:21
Speaker 2: metal nineteen eighty three, and they got an album in
39:25
Speaker 2: eighty four, they got an album in eighty five.
39:28
Speaker 1: Do they have an Alben eighty six.
39:29
Speaker 2: Eighty seven, Crazy Nights, eighty eighty eight and eight is nine.
39:35
Speaker 3: I think eight eight is Smashes, Thrashes and hits.
39:38
Speaker 2: Eighty So eighty seven is it? Would be Crazy Nights.
39:40
Speaker 2: Then so Smashes, Thrashes and hits, which I think is
39:43
Speaker 2: double platinum. Then they have a niny album. Then they
39:46
Speaker 2: even have Revenge. Hot In Yeah, Hot, Okay. Hot in
39:50
Speaker 2: the Shade is eighty nine. Okay, so I thought it
39:52
Speaker 2: was ninety, so, so ninety two for Revenge. So they
39:55
Speaker 2: are they are operating full bore right through that whole thing.
40:00
Speaker 2: You know, they probably are the only band. They are
40:04
Speaker 2: probably the only band that is a hair metal band
40:07
Speaker 2: that is operating full bore. Well no, I suppose, I mean,
40:12
Speaker 2: does Rat operate full bore from they start in eighty
40:14
Speaker 2: four with their full length? But really they are there
40:17
Speaker 2: for the entire run, and whereas you know, your police
40:21
Speaker 2: and Cinderellas and Warrens aren't there for the entire run.
40:26
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
40:29
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40:33
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40:35
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40:37
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Speaker 3: episodes on the book down Rock YouTube channel. Find it
40:59
Speaker 3: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
41:03
Speaker 3: to the show. Kiss is my second favorite band behind
41:07
Speaker 3: Van Halen, So I want to thank you for this
41:09
Speaker 3: great book and the folks at Motor Books Steve Roth
41:12
Speaker 3: as well for hooking me up with this copy. On
41:15
Speaker 3: the back is the greatest year in the career of
41:17
Speaker 3: rock's most dynamic band. There you go. Now, this book
41:19
Speaker 3: is out on February twenty fourth, Kiss seventy six, twelve
41:22
Speaker 3: months that defined the hottest band in the land. I'm
41:24
Speaker 3: assuming people can preorder it now.
41:26
Speaker 2: Well, actually I have been. I'm on my third batch
41:30
Speaker 2: of them. I've been sending them out for a few
41:32
Speaker 2: weeks now, so I have them. You can get them
41:35
Speaker 2: at Martin popoff dot com. I signed them, send them
41:37
Speaker 2: up from the office here. I'll sign them to whoever
41:39
Speaker 2: you want. There's PayPal buttons there.
41:41
Speaker 1: Easy to do.
41:43
Speaker 2: And also I've got about thirty five of my one
41:46
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty five titles for sale there. I cut
41:49
Speaker 2: down a little when it came to the tariff thing.
41:52
Speaker 2: It's long story. It's just a little more complicated to
41:54
Speaker 2: do business. But but I've got also through Shiffer Books.
41:58
Speaker 2: I've got my big fat right above my head here,
42:00
Speaker 2: the big deep Purple, the big Iron Maiden, the big Deal.
42:04
Speaker 1: And then a bunch of updates came out lately, and
42:07
Speaker 1: I think I still am.
42:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I still am selling Kiss at fifty
42:11
Speaker 2: as well, which is not that long ago.
42:13
Speaker 1: I think that's only a year or two old.
42:15
Speaker 3: All right, well, Martin, thanks man. This is great as
42:18
Speaker 3: always and we will look forward to having you back
42:21
Speaker 3: on again. But folks could go to your website to
42:23
Speaker 3: get copies of Kiss seventy six signed copies as well.
42:29
Speaker 3: All right, cool, Thanks.
42:30
Speaker 1: Martin Wicked, thanks for having me man. That's it. It's
42:40
Speaker 1: in the books.