Gene Simmons Interview Goldmine Magazine 11/20/98

That's all us. "No More War" is Paul. I'm doing the line "Why was I not made of stone..." That's a line from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame at the end where he's sad that Esmerelda's walking off. So we were just kidding around.

Your writing on the new CD is very strong overall, I really like 'Journey of 1,000 Years.

That's very interesting. Everybody that we meet picks different songs, without question. Ace's favorite song on the record is Within.

To be frank, that's probably my least favorite track on the album.

Therein lies the secret of the band. If I like AC/DC, and I do, there's one thing, it's that meat and potatoes, that's it, see you, good night. If you like Iron Maiden, it's,that one thing. Kiss is a lot of stuff and styles, good, bad or indifferent. All the different corners, We haven't ever been shy about expressing those comers. By and large it tends to settle into the guitars and kind of an uplifting vibe but there's only one "God Of Thunder." We've never written another song like that.

Journey of 1,000 Years" brings to mind the sound, experimentation and stylistic quality of Music From The Elder.

It does have an Elder quality It was originally written as an acoustic piece that just developed. It originally had different lyrics and began with -a search. Every day you think you learn something but it's just a beginning. Everyone is on a journey of a thousand years. I've always liked the word 'thousand' anyway, "Man Of A Thousand Faces' and so on. To me it sounds like a much cooler number than million. A picture's worth a thousand words. How many girls have you had? A thousand, that sounds realistic. Millions just sounds like lies. The other thing is Bruce Fairbairn suggested that I rewrite the lyric and ask questions and bring back some of the ideas I started talking about on "Within." So that really happened after the fact. I revisited some of the stuff on "Within" which are basically directives, 'fly without wings,' 'cry without tears.' Not to get cornball about it but everything is within. Bruce really brought up the 'did you fly without wings, did you have a nice trip?' Sort of a more, the further you go, the deeper you get, the more you learn that it's only the beginning of a thousand years. No matter what you think you've learned, you've got a long way to go. I play guitar on that song incidentally On some other things Paul plays bass or solos.

Paul plays bass on the album?

Sure. There's no rules. That's Paul playing bass on "We Are One." That's Ace and I on guitars, Paul plays the acoustic. Paul plays bass on the ballad, "I Finally Found My Way." On "I Pledge Allegiance," that's me on the verse, Paul punched in the choruses. I couldn't get the feel.

 Are you playing bass on Ace's track 'Into The Void'?

Yeah, that's me playing bass on "Into The Void." Ace played on a lot of Kiss tunes in the past. Eric Carr played bass on 'I Still Love You." This happens with many bands. Pick up a jimi Hendrix record, you like the bass playing? That's jimi Hendrix. Pick up Rolling Stones records, you like the bass playing? That's Keith. So this idea of what you see is what you get is not so. Not with the Beatles or anyone. Sometimes that's Paul McCartney on drums. On The White Album Ringo quit and Paul plays drums on some songs.

What other Kiss songs in the past did you play guitar?

"Almost Human," "War Machine "Christine Sixteen," "Got Love For Sale Plaster Caster," "Ladies In Waiting." That doesn't mean somebody else isn't playing guitar too. Sometimes when people think it's Ace playing lead, it's Paul. On my solo record all the guitars are me, Elliot Randall played lead.

The bonus track on the japanese Psycho Circus CD is "In Your Face." You wrote that song for Ace.

Yeah, Ace sings it. It's very heavy and the lyrics are very Ace. (recites some of the lyrics) "Some people say I go too far, but I've been saved by my guitar. Some people say I'm from outer space but you better know the Ace is always gonna be in your face." The song will be released as a bonus CD with the "Psycho Circus" 3-D video. We just went to Dallas and filmed the 3-D footage for the 3-D video. And I gotta tell you, it's amazing 'cause there was a big thirty-foot high screen in one room. No closed doors, we can see it. We're filming, doing stuff and look over there with people wearing the glasses, look like you're on Mars and you can see things are just popping in and out. Unbelievable.

Do you have a favorite song on the record written by another member?

just as pure songwriting stuff, "I Finally Found My Way" is just a great song. The way it's written and the way the chords and melody move is very, very clever. I was crazy about it as soon as I heard it. Paul was actually toying with the idea of 'maybe I'll just give this to somebody, I don't know if it should be on the record." I said, "You're crazy, this is classic stuff" And he said, "Well, it sounds a little like 'Beth."' I said, "We're Kiss!, it's okay"

There are many rumors flying about outside musicians playing on Psycho Circus. Set the record straight. First, is Peter playing drums on the entire record?

My mother played every part on the album. if anyone says anything bad about my mother, they're on my shit list.

So it's not Kevin Valentine on drums?

Kevin Valentine absolutely worked with us. We went down to rehearsals. Peter and Ace were in New York working with lawyers and all this other kind of stuff. We had to move on with material. So material has to be sussed out. Tommy (Thayer) played on material, Bruce Kulick helped out. There was a guy named Curt Cuomo who demoed lots of stuff. Everybody,played. But when we got into the studio it's got to be Kiss. Bruce didn't wind up on any of my demos with the exception of "Within," which was an old demo done for the Carnival Of Souls album. I'll tell you something that is important. Kiss can be concerned with the great masses out there or Kiss can be concerned with the fringe. Here's what it is. You've got real diehard'fans who are there from record one who know every single iota, every sub-atomic particle. That is a warped view. It doesn't mean it's good or bad, it's just warped. They do not speak for the fans. Literally they don't speak for the fans when you're talking about one percent or ten percent of millions, it just doesn't fly And its unfair actually for someone to walk up to me at the front of this hotel, which has happened more than once,and say "I want you to do a full concert live of The Elder." He's saying, 'This is what we want'. I understand what he's saying. it comes from a good place. it comes from love and affection and I appreciate it. But it's a warped point of view. If everybody wants that, how come that's the only record that never went gold? So just if somebody corties on the interest which is in itself a warped point of view because anybody who has the time to sit and wonder about sub-atomic particles going into each other doesift really have a life in the big sense of the word. in other words they have the time to sit for hours while the rest of the people are living, fucking, eating, dri king, working and doing all the other stuff. Okay, I get it,'you get on the internet for an hour. Many hours? There's something going on. So it's warped. I appreciate that it's warped. There are sports fans like that. Did you ever see a movie called The Fan with (RoberO DeNiro? That's a warped fan. He loves that guy, so much he wants to kill him. So just because you're a fan, that's good, but everybody only speaks for themselves. And we get the sense of it from the great majority. So if people are concerned that everybody played on the record or if Paul is gay or Gene had his dick cut off again, those are all really good concerns but really don't speak for the masses.

So Ace is on the entire record?

Absolutely. Bruce Kulick so help me God didn't play a single guitar lick anywhere.

Did Tommy Thayer play any guitar on the record?

No. Listen, I'm not at all on "I Finally Found My Way." If somebody in the band doesn't play a guitar they're doing backgrounds or something because we were all there.

Bruce Kulick is a fine musician and may be a better player on a technical level but doesn't have the heart that Ace can offer the band.

No question about it.

It seemed like Ace always knew what to play with Kiss, his solos were uniformly excellent.

It's an interesting idea. He didn't know what to play and he'll be the first to tell you. I think Bruce is very clear, he knows what he's going to do, he can see the Jay of the land. Almost like paint by numbers because he knows his guitar fretboard so well. Ace is reckless. It's like a guy in a fast car. He doesn't know where he's going but he's sure on his way So what you get often is something that's reckless and very exciting and dangerous. And Ace is fearless that way, even if he winds up in a wrong key he doesn't care. When he plays it's very stream of consciousness; that's why Ace is who he is.

Several years before the reunion you were asked about Ace and you mentioned he had stopped evolving as a guitar player and that his career was pretty much over Working once again with him, your feelings must have changed.

I thought his stuff really sort of regressed. It's just like anything else, if you stop doing stuff, your abilities start to regress and I told him as much. It's the coolest having him back in the band. He's as sharp as a whistle. Like anything else, if you stay away from a gym for too long your muscles and cardiovascular don't work as well as they should. So once you start visiting the gym you start getting better and better. Basically use it or lose it.

Tell us about the 3-D stage show planned for the new tour.

Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, welcome to the greatest fucking show that's ever existed on the face of the planet. This is far and above anything that any people have ever seen. It will be amazing. It's going to be awesome. it started with a concept called "Psycho 'Circus" that Doc McGhee (Kiss' manager) was talking about. Perhaps he realized what he was talking about, perhaps not. I immediately jumped on that and said 'Say that thing again, say what you said about a Circus' He goes "Wouldn't it be great if it was like a Psycho Circus thing and anything was possible?" Immediately I called lawyers, trademark, copyright lawyers saying 'I want that phrase,, that's ours'. And we actually had to fight some people who thought they owned it. So "Psycho Circus" is ours The first thing I did was call up Todd McFarlane [of McFarlane toys] and said, 'this is what I'm going to do, either with or without you, I want to do a Psycho Circus Kiss comic book. The premise of it being that when the circus comes to town, every kid wants to leave with the circus. The circus holds imagery and fantasy, everybody's colorful. When you're a little kid the circus is every dream comes to life. There's no end to the imagination. So the Psycho Circus comic book came out and, I made another deal with McFarlane to do the Psycho Circus action figures but the first generation were straight ahead action figures. The next step was going to be the Psycho Circus CD full of music. When we started writing for it I wrote two other versions of Psycho Circus the song. The way we always do it with each other, Paul and 1, it doesn't matter who comes up with the title. If one of those titles kicks in you can go -ahead and write your own song.

Like with "Black Diamond," wasn't that originally your title?

Yeah, it was my title. I wanted to do something like "Brown Sugar." "Black Diamond" was going to be about a prostitute who was kind of a jewel in the rough, had just become a prostitute and had lost her innocence. That's what the song was going to be about. And Paul went, "that's very interesting," The next day he came in with the full song. "Hey, wait a minute!"

And Paul came up with the title of "Christine Sixteen"?

Sure, that's his title and then I wrote the song. Payback. So my version of the song "Psycho Circus" had to do with weapons of mass destruction. That was one of the lines. In fact the song was called "Psycho Circus (Weapons Of Mass Destruction)." I was going to the dark recesses, kind of like The Seven Faces Of Dr Lao which is a movie you should rent or Something Wicked This Way Comes which is a Ray Bradbury book and movie. In that version the circus comes to town and nightmares happen. In ours the basic premise is that anything can happen at the Psycho Circus. We're going to take the live performance and raise the stakes yet again because Kiss was created to be the band we never saw on stage. That was the idea. Ever since we were kids we went to see our favorite groups play. Name any band, there was only one guy that you cared about, whether it was Jagger, all down the line. The Beatles were the sole exception. Everyone had their own fans, they all sang, they all wrote. It was a four-wheel drive vehicle and that's what we wanted to do. We wanted to do the Beatles on steroids. I don't think we will ever be able to shine their boots, especially in lyrical and melodic content. But having said that we have every intention of surpassing our heroes in the same way that every son, no matter how much of a hero figure his father is, is going to work as hard as he can to beat Dad. At some point you're going to be able to sink more baskets than Dad and then he's just going to be the old man. On that day iCs going to be a happy/sad event because your heroes, the people who have an emotional tug at your heart. nonetheless are the people who present the biggest challenge. Are you bigger than your heroes? Are you bigger than your dreams? That's the ultimate thing.

Bach to the new stage show, it sounds like with all the surprises planned, things popping up under the seat, above you, it's like you're taking some of B-movie director William Castle's ideas into the 21st century.

That's exactly what it is. For his movie 13 Ghosts they put a bedshect on a wire and it would float above the audience and people would have heart attacks and they'd die. (speaking like a narrator from a William Castle film) 'Ladies and Gentlemen you are watching a movie but I have to warn you that The Tingler's loose in the audience, If you feel a tingle and you get an electrical shock...' That's what it's gonna be. William Castle is owed the tip of a hat. We -ant everything to not be limited to the laws of gravity and life as we know it in this three dimensional world. There are laws but just like in The Twilight Zone where the room explodes and all of a sudden you walk through a doorway and you're in someplace else. You take our CD, which had music on it. First of all the artwork is lenticular, in other words, 3-D-ish so everything moves. You can take the CD and put it in your CD player and hear the music. But then you take the CD and put it into your computer and it's instant access to the website which is called Kissonline.net The website is also soon going to be the only way you'll ever be able to get to any Kiss web site of any kind anywhere in the world. Only with one address and that's being done now. But there's going to be complete freedom. The United States Of Kiss is all going to exist. The rebel web sites with the rebel content will all come under the Kiss umbrella and they can be as rebellious as they want in our world. No content will be reviewed, nothing like that. And the "Psycho Circus" tour is going to be like nothing anybody's ever seen, literally and figuratively because if you've ever been to an IMAX movie and put on your glasses, that's what's going to happen. We've got the biggest screens you can imagine. These are screens - not television sets put together like people expect, like on the last tour. And the technology is cutting-edge. N6body's got this, iCs live 3-D.

Will people have to wear 3-D glasses for the entire show?

You can watch it without your glasses and you'll see something going on, it'll play with your senses. But when you put your glasses on, which you'll get with your tickets, Kiss glasses, when you put them on, anything that's 2-D, like if I look at you with my glasses on you look the same. But when I look at the screen and you see me spitting blood and the blood is dripping around, you'll see the tongue come right in front of your face and you'll actually feel moisture on you because we're going to throw water into the audience. You'll smell it, see it, feel it, hear it. So the very first show at Dodger Stadium is going to be a one hour Fox TV special. We are basically going to spoil you. The next time you go see a band, whether its Green Day or Oasis or anybody else, you're gonna be bored no matter how much you like these bands because they're just gonna, stand there and strum. And we're gonna take you away. So imagine being inside of a 70,000 seat stadium. First of all, you won't be able to see the stage because its blocked off. In the middle of the crowd. Smashing Pumpkins will get up and play a couple of tunes, they're our guests@ they're our friends but that's at the soundboard in the middle of the crowd. Then all of a sudden things are going to start happening around you, over you, under you. We're going to have a helicopter overhead and we're going to shoot rockets at it. It's gonna be like war. ICs gonna smoke up and start to fall towards the crowd. You think you're gonna die. Then we have the human cannonball who's going to be literally shot into the audience. You'll see this poor guy, his carcass is going to be flying. This will be happening on every show on the tour. There'll be bizarre looking guys on twenty to thirty foot high stilts with extra long arms, lasers popping out of their eyes and heads, all over the place, walking around in the crowd. Then we'll have the "Ball Of Death." Imagine guys with very bizarre chrome colored outfits on bikes with big pipes coming out with C02 that's gonna come out of the pipes. They're gonna be in the audience. They're all around you, in back and in front of you. So the bikes will ride through the audience, the sound is coming through the sound system with techno music of some kind playing. All of a sudden the "Ball Of Death" comes in which is twenty feet wide, you can see through it. Three or four of these doorways open up, these bikes get in it and they start going around each other upside down. It starts to go up and in certain places we make it disappear.

Bringing an event to town that's much more than a show, this has elements of your vision of a Kiss World.

That's exactly what it is. We tried in the '70s as much as possible to throw stuff down on peoples heads. Nobody did that before, the fire marshalls never would allow it. We used to throw stickers and balloons and things. I love being at New Year's Eve parties and balloons and things would fall down. It doesn't matter what it is, you just want to be surrounded by the experience. So we used to shoot confetti out with cannons into the -crowd because we want them to be a part of it.

What other circus type performers will be involved in the new stage show?

There's going to be a guy on a bicycle and he's going to be on fire. it's the "Ride Of Life." It's o. piano wire that's going to go right into the audience. Underneath him is a scantily clad woman and he's on fire. This thing will be going circling around and around and it's goin' into the crowd. We have the cannonball man. We have "Dynamite Lady" In the middle of the crowd there is going to be a box. A beautiful girl gets into the box. It's the size of a small trunk. She gets in and the box gets blown up with her inside of it. She lives but it literally gets blown up. Then there's "Rocket Man." There's going to be a rising stage that comes out from the middle of the crowd and this guy gets out and he's covered in chrome and stuff. He puts his visors down and this guy takes off. He's got a retro rocket pack and he's flying over the heads of people.

Like "Turbo Man'from the movie jingle All The Way...

"Turbo Man" is exactly what's going to happen. But I don't mean with strings, this guy's flying, he's controlling himself.

Tell us more about Kiss'Halloween Fox TV special...

The Fox special will be an hour and half going in and out of Mad TV. So it will be the biggest Halloween party on earth. And Mad ,TV is kind of like Fox's Saturday Night Live. All the bits that we start doing there, they're actually going to be part of it and they're going to be poking fun at it. So you'll see maybe two or three numbers on stage but not the whole show. You'll get glimpses of it, stuff backstage, snippets. Plus we're also going to film before that event episodes of Millennium and some other stuff. We're going to be popping in on other different television shows.

Now tell us about Kiss'stage show

Okay So after all this stuff that happens in the audience, the curtain drops and we're not just going to be on-stage. We're literally going to be in your face. You'll see heads floating out from far away If Paul points his guitar, you'll actually see it coming into your face so close your head tilts back. I saw a ,demonstration of it at Irvine Center, an outdoor facility where it's even brighter, a very primitive version. I saw one technician with a broom handle pointing it towards the one camera we had. We'll have 3-D cameras all over but he just had one. But he pointed it and it was the most mind numbing experience you'd ever seen because your senses tell you it's just a screen but your instinct tells you to pull back because you're about to be blinded by something. That's how close it gets, it's right in your face. No matter where you are, let's say you get a stick that's coming towards you, the very same experience is being seen by someone in front of you, on the side, in back. Absolutely the same, that's the amazing thing about it. I was walking around and I thought the guy was following me around with the broom handle but everybody else was seeing the same thing. Up close or far behind, the experience will be the same. It's almost like those wonderfully religious posters of Jesus where his eyes follow you around the room.

Why did the band elect to wear the Destroyer costumes for the tour and not the Psycho Circus action figure costumes as originally planned?

I'll tell you why, you can't go too far ahead too fast, we don't think. We really always want to make sure we take the fans with us. So you're about to enter The Twilight Zone, you're about to go where you've never been before. It's going to be all new. Different stage show, different effects, brand new stuff. It's too much to take a look at new outfits. There's got to be some familiarity so that you go forward but remember the past too.

Do you like your Destroyer costume?

It's a big pain in the ass for me because that one rips tons of hair off my head because you've got armor against the back of your neck. Everytime I raise my arms, the Jesus Christ pose, it really bugs me. it digs into my neck. My costume is brand new and it's slightly lighter. They have better materials but iCs still going to be a pain in the butt. But here's a very real point, no matter what fans think, oh, they've seen it before,,a large segment who are coming to see us have never seen this at all.

At a show on the band's reunion tour in Columbus, Ohio, Peter was unable to perform because of physical problems. He was replaced by his drum tech Ed Kanon who wore Peter's costume and makeup. In retrospect, was it a mistake not to have canceled the show that night?

It was absolutely the right thing to do. I would do it again. Eddie did fine. The road crew are such Kiss fans, so he knew every lick. You have a choice, either it's a total washout or you get 3/4 of the real thing. We took the point of view that some is better than none. We took the point of view that anybody can get their money back, before or after the show. Peter's knocked out, gone, he can't do the show. 'We wanna play for you, should we play?' They all went, 'Yeah.' After the show, no one, not a single person returned the tickets for a refund. It was a combination of Peter being exhausted, carpat tunnel. Hey took, everybody's got their limit. I would lose my voice, Paul would bang up his knees, Ace had his knee drained. I'm not just saying this stuff, we have medical records. We have super eight footage up close of the needle going into Ace's knee. just so people don't think, 'Oh yeah, showbiz!' I don't think so.

Does Kiss have a message?

It's funny when anybody asks us to say anything about a message or the intent of the music. It always leaves me numb because it's like 'what's the message of a circus or fireworks show?.' There is none except that it has an effect on you perhaps without a message. There is no intent of a message of any type but the effect is clearly uplifting We've landed squarely on one side of the- choice that life or God gives us, which if' you're alive, you can live it or not. We choose to live it.

Have you heard Sound Magazine, The Partridge Family tribute band who covered "Shout It Out Loud"?

Oh it's fabulous, it sounds like The Partridge Family. Bob (Ezrin) got off on it so much he said he was gonna mix it. And then there's a great big band version of "Detroit Rock City" that Alien Fashion Show just did. It's great, like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones doing big band.

Moving on, the band is entering all form of entertainment. There's going to be a Kiss movie.

Yeah. The movie has already started filming. I'm the producer, Adam Rifkin is the director. Kiss are the stars. it'll come out next August. Right now it's called "Detroit Rock City" but a title change will probably happen. This movie is closer to The Wizard Of Oz, four guys on the yellow brick road. I mean a lot of movies are about a search on the yellow brick road. The Magnificent Seven is about four gun stingers on the yellow brick road. The idea of a yellow brick road is not a new idea, it's just on a trip each one has a learning experience or rites of passage. And it all takes place within twenty four hours. It's four, kids trying to get into our show and on the way lots of stuff happens. It's gonna be a comedy, it's gonna be wild.

You don't want another Kiss Meets The Phantom...

No (laughs), But again if you listen to a certain segment of the audience it's a classic. So you never know who to listen to. Again, when one fan speaks it's the sound of one vote and no one person speaks for the fans. It's just like when I get on the internet it pisses me off every time. 'We want you to do this!!!' And I'm thinking to myself 'who is we?' Usually it's one person saying this is what the fans want.

And a Kiss car?

A Kiss car. People think this is just like a kit car. No. This is a $75,000 Kiss car. The very first one people will be able to win by calling our 900 number, 1-900-CALL-KISS

What makes the Kiss car special and worth 75 grand?

It's a 450 horse power car. if a car has a 200 horse power you're doing okay. This thing can go zero to sixty very quick. It's a two seater, very sexy, kind of like a super version of The Prowler. You step on the brake, Kiss lights up instead of stop. instead of stop, Kiss comes up on their dash board. Yo"'Il be able to plug in your guitar, right into the dash board into your high powered amplifier and it will blow you away The rear car is kind of a side buggy, kind of a back buggy which will have the guitars, a high powered amplifier, a high powered stereo and a drum machine. You'll be able to hold a concert right back there. imagine one of those motorcycle sidecars and it's in the back. You can plug in your guitar while you're driving around.

Can you explain what the Kiss multi-path interactive video will be?

Imagine pay-per-view, you can order any movie you want, Now imagine those gameboy I toys. Now imagine ctoseto 3-D, you're in there chasing games, Now imagine 26 different games where each game leads to the other. Then imagine you can order them at any particular point or you can order them out of sequence and each one of them will lead you in a different way. And it's all Kiss and it's all on your computer.

Tell us about the Spencer Gifts Kiss stores.

They have exclusive Kiss merchandise. You can buy Axe basses there, you can buv Punisher basses. You can buy limited editions of all kinds of stuff. Demon slippers. You get up in the morning and you've got your robe on and your demon slippers. It's the coolest. I like Spencer's because it's not just a K-Mart. It's Elvis, The Beatles and nobody else. And we kill 'em, three to one.

The dolls are gonna be two feet high. They're fully articulated just like a human being. Anything we can do, they can do. They really took good. If you press them different Kiss songs aye played. They're magnificent. I've seen the prototypes. There's also a special limited edition of all four, 25 of which are signed by the band. All the bells and whistles. The newest deal is Peter Max and Kiss. Peter Max seven foot high, twelve feet wide life sized portraits of the band going for five h'undred and fifty grand a pop. They're going to be a limited edition of 100. They'll be for museums, art galleries and so on. It's just the beginning. There's lots of that kind of stuff that is going to go way beyond what any band ever dreamed about. I basically believe in the concept and I think the band does too that credibility has its own limitations. It's really another word for cowardice. What credibility really means is that a band is scared shitless what somebody might think if they do something. 'Oh my God, we can't do that, we'll lose our credibility!' So they're chickenshit. They won't step up to bat and do-whatever they want to do that's in their hearts because they're afraid that somebody might think differently of them. And we've never had credibility, we don't have credibility now, we will never have credibility I want nothing to do with that word. I always want to be known as the band that simply does what they want to do when it wants to do it for no other purpose than it wants to do it.

There's an almost unprecedented amount Of Kiss memorabilia coming out in 1998, akin to the late-70s. How do you safeguard from the merchandising taking more importance over the music?

You don't worry about it. You boldly go where no band has gone before. Period. That's the difference between Paul and mysell Paul is very much more concerned with the music. And I think the music is important but Kiss has far surpassed the limitations of a band. Here's the music and here's what it is. Kiss have become icons if I may be so bold. it can be comic book heroes, it can be superheroes. I want it all.

Were there any celebrities that you met who surprised you by being big Kiss fans?

Ringo. Hey, to me that's the ultimate. I first met him at a roller rink. I've met him many times since. The last time I saw him was at a party he had at one of his shows when he played in L.A. I'm so fond of The Beatles when I see Ringo it's like a windup doll or something. He's not really a human being but a kind of mythical figure, Ringo's always been kind of cute. Unfortunately, when Ringo sees me coming he says 'oh boy, here comes that guy again. He's gonna pick me up off the ground again and squeeze me and hug me.' I get choked up and I have to pick him up itff the floor and hug him. Ringo's about 5'5", 5'6" and to me he's just sort of cuddly and he's supposed to be mine.

Has he ever mentioned that he likes Kiss?

Oh yeah. His son Zak was a major fan and I remember scolding him when I first met Ringo at that rink. He was telling me "oh, Kiss means everything" and Ringo was coming up in back of me. I said, "excuse me, that's Ringo, I gotta stop." And he said, "Oh yeah, that's Dad." I'm going, "Are you kidding! Your Dad's one of The Beatles. Drop to your knees and kiss the ground!"

What about the Who?

Yeah, Townshend and Entwistle, we've sort of run into them all. If there's anything, maybe it's a mutual admiration society It's very strange, Kiss fans are bizarre. rm proud of them and all. In the '80s we used to tip our hats to a couple of people who we held in high esteem. So we used to do "Won't Get Fooled Again." And fans would be not only puzzled but furious. 'Why are you doing somebody else's songs?!! We don't care about that, we want you to do Kiss songs!

I thought the band's cover was great, the two guitars playing the synthesizer line from "Won't Get Fooled Again" was terrific.

It's interesting, you've got wider tastes. It's like Your- friend who came over to the interview. Think about it. He's talking about Kiss and Cheap Trick and who he loves. But when you mention The Who he says@'nah, it doesn't mean anything to me.' Music is 'about emotion not logic. If it connects, it connects. it's beyond logic.

Gene, you discovered Angel in 1975. They were signed to Casablanca Records and were a great band who were promoted as the antithesis to Kiss, wearing white instead of all black. How does Angel stand up today?

Well it's funny, when I saw them in a club, Paul was there too, but I made the call to (Neil) Bogart and said "this is too good." They were punky like Punky (Meadows). They dressed in jeans and were just so rocked out. It was Neil who dressed them in white. I think today they stand up as a bit gimmicky but look who's talking, it's Kiss (laughs). You know gimmicky is only a negative if it didn't work. Kiss is gimmicky but it worked.

Why do you think Angel never completely broke through?

There was no individuality, everybody dressed in white. I don't know, sometimes it's just the right song. The Beatles looked alike.

Neil Bogart, the head of Casablanca Records is a misunderstood figure, celebrated more for his mastery of hype than anything else. How do you remember him?

All politicians and record company guys by their definition have to have some of that huckster quality. A huckster is a salesman and that's what you've gotta be. When he first heard our tape he immediately wanted to sign us but he never saw us. And when he came to see us at Carol's Rehearsal Studio on 42nd Street, he saw us and he went, 'look, I'll sign you guys but I don't know about the makeup.' So help me God. We sort of went "we like you but it's our way or the highway".

This is the "bubblegum" thing?

Oh yeah, he loved schtick, he loved gimmick but he just didn't get the makeup initially. And when he saw our passion for it he said, 'that's it, I wanna be where these guys are.' So few people in life actually believe in what they do. People usually buckle under and go for whatever works. We were dumb enough to basically say 'it's gotta be this vision 'cause we know this is what it is.' When we started Neil, God bless him, tried to go for his.vision. He didn't dig Paul's makeup. He thought it was too gay. So he said: "Why don't you change your makeup to kind of like The Lone Ranger. The star's a little too faggy" Paul tried that for a while and just basically said 'forget it, I'm not playing a game, I've gotta be me.' But Neil was really one. of Kiss' true early believers to the extent of whatever it cost he reached, he went for it. It was Neil Bogart who came up with the idea of "Why don't the drum platforms levitate?" He also came up with the idea of Peter's exploding drum sticks.

It's been said that your manager Bill Aucoin took on Kiss because he saw that Alice Cooper was retiring and that void needed to be filled and what better way than with our Alice Coopers. Was the band thinking along those lines as well?

Nope, not at all. I love Alice. To this day, I think his early stuff is fabulous. To me "Eighteen" is a really important song, "I'm a boy and I'm a man" I think is a brilliant lyric.

So that was Bill trying to fill the niche.

Well, we were completely set, we did our own makeup and we built our own outfits and wrote all the songs. Everything Nvas done. When Bill got on, and I didn't mean to denigrate what he accomplished but what he did was he connected us with Neil Bogart. Sean Delanev had more of an impact on the band. Sean came forward and said: "You guys are doing this, you guys are doing that. How 'bout if you move like this? I love it when you move together, that works more naturally than that."

He's working on a book now.

Oh, that's okay. I love Sean.

For this interview, I wanted to shed some light on the band's two concept albums, Destroyer and Music From The Elder. Although Destroyer is now recognized as the benchmark of all Kiss' studio albums, when it was initially released fans and critics viewed it as a tactical misstep.

The fans really hated it. We had to do the record because once you do a double live record you go, 'okay, that's the bookend to that part of our career.' Either you become trapped by your own doing or your undoing in this case or you try to move on and evolve. We were writing these songs all along but we wefe editing ourselves a lot more 'cause I had always written Beatlesque stuff. And Ezrin let some of that through. "Great Expectations" was really a song about the band. (Sings) "You watch Paul playing guitar, you see what his hands can do, and you wish yo were the one he was doing it to.

Did Ezrin and the rest of the band pull a trick on you with "Great Expectations," saying the master tapes were destroyed?

Yep. I was always the serious one and the rest of the guys were doing whatever they were doing. There's only two things I like, hard work and good fucking. I like to work hard and play hard and no in betweens. A lot of people like to goof off, kind of like life is a joke. I like a good laugh as much as anybody else but I approach anything I do very seriously, whether it's an interview or work or play I play very seriously, That's why getting high I don't get. Stupid man's dalliance.

As "Flaming Youth" was in a complicated 618 time signature, was it the most difficuft track to record for Destroyer?

No. It was probably "Great Expectations" because of the chordal changes. I wrote the tune but Ezrin kept changing and modulating the chords. It was probably the most sophisticated song on the album. I remember that took forever (to record).

Gene, "Sweet Pain' is one of your best songs, a song the band never played live.

I like it. That one was written very fast. It was a very linear kind of song. Ace doesn't play at all on it. Dick Wagner plays the guitar solo. Ace never showed up. He was busy playing cards in upstate New York and drunk. He'd be the first one to tell you.

Who are the female voices on "Sweet Pain"?

You know, R&B singers that were bought in.

Did Bob Ezrin help write your bass part on "Detroit Rock City"?

Yes, he did.

Did Bob play bass on that track?

No, I did. That was very non-typical of me. It's very R&B, almost like the song "Freddy's Dead" by Curtis Mayfield. That's the bass line from "Shaft." The bass line from "Detroit Rock City" is similar but not the same thing note for note. He also came up with the guitar solo that Ace played. It's very flamenco. We thought he was on crack when he suggested it. We said, 'what are you, out of your mind? This sounds like we just came from Spain like we were Los Bravos or something.' But as soon as we heard it put together with the drums, he knew more than we did. What can we say?

Did you like "Beth" when you first heard it?

I was crazy about it. I was the one who told Peter, he was singing the melody in the car. We would ride together, Peter and I, Ace and Paul. That's how usually we divided it up. He started singing the melody and I went, 'whafs that?' And he goes, 'its a song called 'Beck'." And I go, "'Beck'? What the fuck is that, is it about Jeff Beck?" "No, it's about a girl named Becky.' I said, "You should change the title to 'Beth' and when you go back to New York you should play it for Bob Ezrin because thacs a good melody." Ezrin rewrote the lyric for "Beth," "me and the boys will be playing," that's all Ezrin and he wrote the middle section and arranged the entire thing.

If Destroyer was an out and out massive success when initially released, would the band have done another record in that direction or was it just a one off?

We wouldn't have done another album like Destroyer. "Beth" was a massive hit but we didn't do another one of those until this record. We were capable of doing that kind of stuff but it was Bob (Ezrin) who kind of put the pieces together. We tried to work with him soon after Destroyer but he'd moved on to something else. Take something like "Flaming Youth," riff-wise it was taken from a song of mine called "Mad Dog." I have the demo, it's the same demo session where Paul sings "God Of Thunder." We were talking to Ezrin about one of the New York bands, a band called Flaming Youth. We opened for them on the first show at the New York Academy Of Music- So it was Kiss, Flaming Youth, iggy Pop and Blue Oyster Cult. Erzin just immediately went: "Flaming Youth, what a great title. We're gonna write a song called 'Flaming Youth"' So we all submitted a piece. "Shout it Out Loud," I came in with the title because in Wicked Lester we used to do a Hollies song called "We Wanna Shout It Out Loud."

Moving on to the Music From The Elder, another conceptual record that has grows immeasurably in stature among fans, You and Paul were both really "cited when the record was done.

I have to say in Paul's defense he was not as excited about it as I was. He wanted to rock out more. It was Ace who wanted to rock out most. And when he couldn't get his way he simply didn't show up. He just stayed home and refused to come up. We had to send twenty-four track tapes to Ace's home. We were trying desperately to hold the band together and Ace took the point of view rightfully or wrongfully that he didn't believe in it and he just wasn't going to show up.

Do you lay most of the blame on the band, the producer Bob Ezrin or your manager Bill Aucoin?

I blame me. I realty believed in the vision. I always dabbled in Hollywood anyway. I wrote this short story and I wanted to make it into a film. Ezrin said it was a great idea for a concept record. So when he held up the mirror to my face, poor delusional Gene really bought it hook line and sinker. I'm going, "Yeah, I am great!" I take full blame for pushing it. I wanted credibility which is very stupid really when you think about it. If you,ve got everything else, who cares?

The fans love the album.

I do like the album. There are some songs I like. I think "Only You" is interesting. I would have liked to have sung "Odyssey" Initially I was going to sing it but at the last minute Paul sang it. I thought it could have been much more of a Beatles-esque kind of song, less operatic. That was written by a guy named Tony Powers. We started playing "I" and Eric (Carr) had just joined the band and he couldn't cop the feel so we had to use Allan Schwartzberg, who played on my solo album. Eric just couldn't play that feel and he was devastated.

Who brought Lou Reed in to work with the band?

That was Bob Ezrin. We barely knew Lou, I think we had met him once or twice. Lou's a big fan today of the record. World Without Heroes started with the song "Every Little Bit Of My Heart," which was a kind of melody that Paul had. I'm never @eally a big fan of some of the lyrical stuff that Paul brings in but we all have our crosses to bear that the others don't like. I tend to veer towards dark, here comes the monster from MY ass kind of lyric and Paul always thinks that's kind of cartoonish. We each try to push the other in the direction we think the other should go. So f always loved the melody of "Every Little Bit Of My Heart" and once that didn't make it on a record, Paul just put it aside and went to work on something else. I wanted to revisit that. Lou would always write little bits and pieces on a piece of paper. I don't know if it was me or Bob who circled the phrase 'world without heroes' that Lou wrote on a piece of paper. And that was mostly Lou's contribution to the song. The rest of it was mainly Bob and I writing a lyric and Paul's melody That's why all four of us are credited on there.

Would you ever consider pursuing The Elder as a  film project today?

Sure, but all we need is time. We're swamped. In the meantime, The Elder comic book is going to ' be in our magazine that is going to come out shortly This is the Metal Edge people who are going to put out another Kiss magazine that we own. I have the two guys who did the Kisstory comic book doing The Elder comic book, Oh, it's out there, you'll see.

One band rarely cited by the group as a pivotal influence is Slade. Listening to Slade's back catalog, you can hear how they infiltrated Kiss'sound. Deuce" sounds more like Slade. "Let Me Know" also could have been a Slade song with the structure of the chords. (Sings "Gudb'uy T'Jane"). And also pieces of "Rock And Roll All Night," the chordal patterns. The part "you drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy'. (Sings a line from Slade's "Mama Weer All Crazee Now") "ma, ma, mama we're all crazy now." They were a big influence on me but not until I saw them. My girlfriend at the time, Jan Walsh, had Slade records in her basement and I put them on and I was floored. The album was called Slayed and the other one was Slade. The stuff just floored me with its simplicity and guitars. Ironically enough it was the bass player, Jim Lea, who did most of the songwriting. So when I finally saw them with Paul, it was Frampton's Camel, Slade and the J. Geils Band. Slade did not actually go over well but they floored me. I went, Wow!.

Any Kiss fan can't go wrong by buying some Slade records.

Oh yeah, they'd love it. If you like early Kiss, you'll love Slade.

Going back to your early musical days, Steve Coronel is the one who really brought you and Paul together Yeah. Steve was my school chum. I grew up with him. We had bands together, The Long Island Sounds and others. I lost my guitar player in Bullfrog Bheer. It was just over one summer. It was a college beer bash group that would do half my songs and half covers.

What original songs were you doing back then?

Iwas doing stuff like "She," "Amen Corner", "Simple Type." "Leeta" (sings), "Leeta, please remember me..." It was a very McCartney-esque song with keyboards,. almost like "Let It Be." By that point I had written about a hundred and fifty songs. We also did some covers, some Mountain, "Cinnamon Girl," "Mustang Sally," "Walkin' The Dog." R&B, StaxNolt and some rock.

Can you pinpoint the time when you stopped playing rock '-n' roll and became afolk artist?

It happened for a short time before Wicked Lester and after Bullfrog Bheer. I'd come down to the city By that point I'd met and lost track of Paul and Steve. I needed Steven Coronel for a summer to come up because I lost my lead guitar player and that's when I met Paul at Steve's house. They had a band together which was a trio, no bass player, two guitars and drums. It was called Uncle Joe. The other guy in the band was Marty Cohen who had also played with me in a band called Cathedral. After Steve played on that summer gig he went back to play with Paul and then by that point I had come down to the city. I'd graduated community college and entered the city college, Richmond College in Staten Island. So I didn't have a band and Uncle Joe needed Marshall amplifiers and a sound system. I had tons of equipment. For some reason I was always able to amass money, equipment, power. How's that? Love that! Still works. I think I rented it to them for $35 for the night. And then I went to see them play Before they got on I got up with an acoustic guitar and played some of my songs with my fringe and everything. I played "Leeta," "Put On Your Slippers"... (sings) "Put on your slippers and drag away the tears and then you'll hear yourself grown and creak with years, yesterday was hard to live..." It was very Be.atles-sque, or like The Kinks. Very melodic kind of stuff, very domesticated, coffee percolating in the morning, that kind of stuff. I was writing about a song a day back then, all styles, everything. It just came out.

Didn't you encounter Steely Dan in the studio back then?

Yes. I walked in off the street while Gary Katz was producing Steely Dan's first record. And I didn't know anything about anything. I walked into the studio and went, 'Hi, I write songs." And they went, 'Really? Okay, go out there and sing some songs.' So they stopped the recording of the Steely Dan record and they heard me play.

What did they think?

It was pretty much, Kid, leave me a tape, babe.

Before Wicked Lester formed, you worked with future Wicked Lester member Brooke Ostrander a trained musician. What kind of tracks were you cutting with him at his home in New Jersey?

Brooke had a little four-track and he played keyboards. it was a way for me to record my songs. I'd describe the music we were doing as being like a Badfinger record.

Songs like "Eskimo Sun," Put on Your Slippers," "About Her." I've got at least two hundred songs sitting around.

Speaking of your unreleaed songs, tell me about some of them. Let's start with "Penny Arcade.

It was written at Record Plant. I always was fascinated by the nickelodeon idea at the turn of the century. Sticking a penny and putting it into one of these things. You either get prizes or naked lady would start taking their clothes off. The idea of "Penny Arcade" was really the beginning of "Radioactive." "Penny Arcade" became "Radioactive." (Sings to tune of "Radioactive") "Penny Arcade, yeah yeah, she's radioactive." It basically changed to that. Rotten To The Core.

"Rotten To The Core" was really written for Johnny Rotten, believe it or not. We recently cut it. The core tiff became "Sweet & Dirty." We just recorded it.

Elements of one of your early songs, "Stanley The Parrot" later became "Strutter"

If you look at the chordal structure you'll hear it. (Sings chordal notes). It's the verse of "Strutter." Paul came up with some of the melody and some of the lyric. I came up with the chordal structure and the tiff And both Paul and I believe we came up with the title "Strutter."

Another one is "Mistake."

It's a kind of "Hard Luck Woman" song. Great song, we're gonna record that someday It was written for the first album.

How about "Black Moon June" and "Against The Grain," were they songs written circa Wicked Lester or Kiss?

Neither. They were songs that I never did with a band. "Black Moon June" kind of sounds like Jethro Tull. It has a Celtic feel (sings some of the melody). "Against I he Grain" kind of sounded like Supertramp (sings some of melody). I wrote it on acoustic guitar. The stuff I was writing then was all over the place. just anything that would pop out would pop out.

There's a demo circulating of "It's Gonna Be Alright,' which is a very strong song.

I like it. It was written in '82, Theres so many songs, I'm not sure why we didn't record it. You just pick the ones that rise to the top. I'm as Surprised by what comes out as anybody else.

So when you write songs, like with the Psycho Circus album, you're not trying to write within the constraints of a certain framework or style.

Right. I mean for the new album, 'Within' was written before, "You Wanted The Best" was written in 1977 with the different lyric. 'Journey of 1,000 Years" but the lyric was written at the end. "We Are One" was written for the record with the record in mind, the whole thing.

Most fans seem to be,happy with the overall stylistic diversity you employ on the new CD.

We're trying not to be trapped by ourselves. Everybody has a tendency to paint themselves into a corner so you becom e a prisoner of your own doing. In essence you wind up blinding your own prison cage. And you only have yourself to blame. So any rule that we make we try to break. That rhymes but that also makes a tot of sense because whatever 'It is that we think we are, we shouldn't be.

Okay, getting back to the unreleased tunes, how about "Mongoloid Man"?

"Mongoloid Man" is a demo I made which is very heavy, I have if-demo of it with me and Joe Perry and Michael DesBarres. That'll be on the box set someday. Over the years when something strikes me I immediately go into the studio and do it before I forget it. "Rock And Rolls Royce" and 'Jelly Roll."

"Jelly Roll" was the first version that morphed into "Rotten To The Core" which morphed into "Sweet & Dirty"

You're a recycler?

Oh, I do it all the time. "Rock And Rolls Royce" became "Love 'Em, Leave 'Em," it's the same riff (sings riff). In fact the chorus to "Rock And Rolls Royce" I ripped off for "Burn Bitch Bum" many years later.

Getting back to Steve Coronel...

Actually I feel bad,for Steve because Steve was kicked out of Wicked Lester, something about the vibe of it just didn't fit even though Steve and I wrote songs together. The styles really jived.

There's a new Wicked Lester bootleg featuring early versions of some of the group's songs. Were these done with original lead guitarist Steve Coronel?

Wicked ' Lester did do some recording's with Steve so maybe that's what's on that bootleg. We finished off the entire album and his leads just didn't fit. Steve's stage persona just didn't fit. I speak with him every once in a while. He lives in Queens someplace. He's a terrific artist. Ronnie Leejack (Steve Coronel's replacement), though,, was let go from Wicked Lester because this guy would quite literally never stand up when he played, he'd sit. He refused to stand up, he said, 'Hey man, I'm a musician, not an entertainer.'We said, 'Okay, you can be a musician on your ass, you're fired. We're entertainers.' It was a bizarre idea. He basically said, 'Okay, we're gonna play for a record company and that's fine.' So imagine, we're auditioning for Epic Records and we're standing up, jumping up and down and he's sitting there playing solos. We're going, "Get up!" "No man, I'm a musician. I don't run around like a clown.' "Okay, you're fired."

Gene, you've spoken in the past about Kiss' early songs being very derivative of your influences, The Beatles, The Who, Rolling Stones, The Move, Chuck Berry. At what point in your songwriting did you.begin to exert more Of yourself and become less emulating your musical heroes?

I really believe that by the time we had started writing our own songs, even though the influences were clear, they were clearly our songs. You could pick out an influence but you couldn't pick out a chordal structure or a melody and go 'wait a minute, that's 'Satisfaction."' You hear a song and go, 'Oh, that's a Kiss song.' You can't say, 'Oh, thafs like "Jet Airliner" by Steve Miller which is 'All Right Now" by Free. It's exactly the same melody.

That's interesting. I was playing the guitar chords of "Calling Dr Love" the other day and it hit me, the opening chords come from another song. "Tin Soldier" by The Small Faces.

So help me I didn't know that. Somebody showed that to me and I heard it and I went "yeah."

Getting back to my point, when you looked back on Kiss' early work's you thought the band was much more derivative then.

Well in the sense that I was so knocked out when "Brown Sugar" by the Stones first came out. I loved its simplicity and directness, the title, the idea, the chordal structure,the ' melody, the harmonics based on the chordal structure. It just floored me. The song's simplicity and beauty made me want to write my own Stones song. So sometimes it just starts front the title and that was "Black Diamond."

I think Kiss'favorite guitar chord, often employed by The Rolling Stoites and The Who is the suspended chord.

I would say so. It's called a sus4.

Name one Kiss song you hate that you wish you could burn the master tape. What song would you choose?

It's kind of a mixed blessing because it's one of our biggest songs.- I'm still not crazy about "I Was Made For Loving You." But so what? Of mine, probably "While The City Sleeps."

When the band does break up, will you Paul remain friends?

Oh, sure.

How do you characterize your relationship with Paul?

It's a big mystery to me. On the surface of it, if a scientist looked at it with a magnifying glass he would see nothing in common. I think a lot of him. He lived in my guest house,for many months, he's building a new house. it goes beyond friendship because we don't really hang out. It's not like, I'm gonna go to the movies, I'll call Paul, maybe he'll want to go. It happens sometimes. It's not like I've gotta call Paul'cause I wanna go do something. But I'm always there for him if he needs me and vice versa. Like when girls go shopping they take their girl friends and go together, we don't do that. There's no real commonalties except for the work ethic and belief in yourself, strength of character. Those kind of things. Maybe the thing works because at the core of it there's a strong connection, except the core is covered by the outer stuff which looks nothing alike. Neither one of us could have been in The Beach Boys or Abba. We both look like we belong in Kiss. But we walk, talk and sound different than each other.

Select five albums that you own that you think should be in everyone's record collection.

Patsy Cline's box set, absolutely, I'm very serious, without question. She's one of the best vocalists. (sings Patsy Cline's "Crazy"). $he's the Connie Francis of country. James Brown's Greatest Hits on King Records. From "Papa,'s Got a Brand New Bag" to "Please Please Please," just that sound, the way the drums and the bass and the syncopation are almost never together and yet there's a pulse. The Beatles' VVhite Album, I love that album because it's. so eclectic, iCs all over the place. How about The Hollies Greatest Hits, a very underrated band, all the way from "Look Through Any Window" to "Bus Stop" to "Carrie Anne" to "King Midas In Reverse," just fabulous, fabulous stuff. The obvious thing is to go for something like Slade or The Move, I love The Move. Okay,@Dave Clark Five, they never get any respect, I'll pick their Greatest Hits. I love them. I like the simplicity of the songwriting, the chords, great melodies and straight ahead quarters on the drums (imitates Dave Clark's powerful drumming style) and harmonies singing throughout. it's like when Slade did "Run Run Away," they almost sounded like the Dave Clark Five.

Tell us about Kiss' forthcoming home video The Second Coming.

It's coming out for Christmas. It'll be a double video with a booklet. It's really almost as if you became the invisible man or if the walls had ears and you're there, it's that intimate. You see the good stuff with the bad. We filmed everything, this guy Tommy Thayer always had a Super 8 camera with him. You actually see us getting together for the very first time, you actually see us arguing, complaining. If we forgot to wipe our asses, it's in here. You see us putting on makeup for the very first time at my house complaining to each other, arguing, the real human stuff.You'll see Peter going down to the boot maker, this Italian guy, Pasquale who worked with us in the '70s. They're arguing back and forth (adopts Italian accent) "Why can't everybody be Italian!" And you see photo sessions, all like you're there. Live clips. 'You see concerts where I've Not by any chance. Unfortunately, having some self respect doesn't come into the quotient (laughs). They're going to have to drag me kicking and screaming off that stage. I am not going anywhere.

Like the lyrics say in "You Wanted The Best.

You bet your ass.

Lastly, Gene, I heard you met Karen Carpenter of The Carpenters back in the '70s. That sounds like an interesting match, fill us in.

That's true. I really got along with her. She was terrific. She was fascinated by Kiss. She went to see the show that night because the next night The Carpenters were playing. She loved the show, was crazy about it. Never saw anything like it in her life. She called me in my room and said, "Come on down." I thought she wanted to play. So I left my guest in my room and I went downstairs and we sat for hours talking about stuff and music and just life. I was fascinated. There was not a sexual bone in her body that I ever got. She was also fascinated by the idea that there was a girl waiting for me upstairs. "Isn't she getting angry?" "No, she'll be fine, I'll make sure she's happy" She said, "and she just loves you because you're in the band?" "Yes." "Amazing!"