Face the Music: A Life Exposed (25 page)

You’re talking about us?

I laughed at the protests at first. As far as I was concerned, they had their hands full monitoring their own practitioners—which turned out to be true, as scandals later engulfed Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, and others. I found it amusing that whenever a televangelist was tempted by the devil, it was usually in a hotel with a hooker.

The person you have to watch is the one pointing the finger
.

I also figured the protests were cynical ploys to get publicity. They used us as a stepping-stone to some sort of local—and later, even national—notoriety. Of course, that pointed to the fact that we had indeed become a bona fide phenomenon.

We’re big enough to warrant some idiot carrying a cross in front of our show?

When you’re successful, everyone wants some, I guess.

Later on I decided I wanted to counter these people. At times I thought Gene took things too far by trying to use them to fan the fire. I didn’t always think that was a good thing—I disagreed that all publicity was good publicity. Antagonizing these people wasn’t the answer. I didn’t want to address them individually or give them the importance they were seeking, but I wanted to stop playing the game. I simply wanted to say the allegations weren’t true: we were not knights in Satan’s service or devil worshippers or anything else.

Yes, we had a bass player who spat blood and breathed fire and called himself “evil incarnate,” but if you went to the movies, you’d also see a guy who wanted to suck your blood and another with bolts in his neck who’d been brought back to life by a mad scientist and a jolt of electricity. If they saw a guy on TV with his face painted white and his hair pulled up on top of his head and thought he was real, and that he was stating facts when he said he was evil incarnate,
they
were the ones who were crazy. Not
us
. Did these people really think we looked like this all day? Did they also think the guy who played Batman was really Batman?

The way I saw it, KISS wasn’t going against anything, whether it was religion or politics. KISS wasn’t even about rebellion. We didn’t tell people to tear anything down or to refuse to play by the rules. We said,
Become who you want to be.
It was about self-empowerment. It was celebratory. For me, it wasn’t about fighting the system, it was about picking your path and believing in yourself. The ultimate rebellion wasn’t fighting the system, it was circumventing the system and living your life fully. And what the band represented for me personally, I thought it could also represent for other people—for fans. Maybe that’s why our audiences were all smiles. We were singing about how good life could be and how much you could accomplish by believing in yourself. Despite what the religious protesters said, KISS was all positivity.

Hell, all anyone had to do was listen to the lyrics from our mission statement off
Destroyer,
“Shout It Out Loud”:

At the same time religious protesters vilified us for being a danger to America’s youth, music critics killed us because in other ways we weren’t dangerous
enough
—to ourselves. Apparently, Gene and I didn’t live recklessly enough and were too business minded to meet the credibility criteria of some hip music magazines. The premise that some desk-bound journalist might deem me worthy of his seal of approval only if I played Russian roulette with my life had an irony to it that wasn’t lost on me. Drug usage was and is sheer stupidity, and sooner or later there was always a heavy price to pay for it. I wasn’t interested in being a dead legend.

Our closest contemporaries were Aerosmith. The difference was how we were viewed. They were a rock band, and we were so much more. In some quarters there was more credibility in being a rock band, but the impact of being an all-encompassing phenomenon was more widespread and diverse. It made us more interesting to newspapers and magazines, little kids, and preachers.

The interesting thing was the way that for some people being a phenomenon didn’t correlate with being a band. As if it undermined our credibility—as if the impact of the image, the logo, and all the press eclipsed what was otherwise as good as a lot of bands the critics did love. Journalists constantly dismissed us with the same basic argument—if we were any good musically, we wouldn’t need any of the visual effects. What never seemed to occur to them was the possibility that we were good
and
that we
wanted
and
loved
all the rest.

Part of the perception problem had to do with Neil Bogart and Casablanca Records. The label released Donna Summer’s disco anthem “Love to Love You Baby,” which became a smash hit over the course of 1976. Hit singles were Neil’s thing, and it altered the way he did business. He made Casablanca into a singles-oriented label and focused on acts like the Village People. He signed a rock band called Angel and positioned them as the anti-KISS, in all white outfits and ballet slippers instead of platform boots. Neil’s forte once again seemed to be novelty acts not that far removed from his bubblegum days. KISS went from being the signature band on Casablanca to being part of a sideshow label—part of a menagerie. Instead of being in the company of rock bands, we shared a label with a bunch of guys dressed up like construction workers and cops and a band that wore ballet slippers. People who wanted to see us as pap or contrived had only to look at the company we were in to reinforce their suspicions. It solidified any negative impressions people had of us.

Part of the perception problem was due to simple subjective differences in how people saw things. If Bruce Springsteen slid on his knees, critics called it showmanship. If I did, they considered it some sort of scam. A circus trick. One guy was a showman and the other was a charlatan. But sometimes it had a darker side that corresponded to things we overheard—things about how we were money-hungry Jews or “kikes.” As if our entrepreneurial ability weren’t a positive trait, but rather a trait of deceit or manipulation—because that wasn’t rock and roll, that was
what Jews did
.

The same sentiments infected the inner workings of the band, too. I think in Peter’s case it had to do with his upbringing and the fact that he wasn’t very bright. Ace owned a lot of Nazi memorabilia. Now, I’m sure there are people who collect that stuff who aren’t Nazis or anti-Semites, but Ace was not one of them. Barely below the surface of the band’s interactions was a simmering and ongoing resentment and anger directed at me and Gene. We ran the band and wrote almost all the songs and generated the ideas—not because KISS was a dictatorship, but because the other guys’ contributions just didn’t amount to much. Their jealousy and envy and resentment got focused on the most tangible thing they could pin it on—the fact that Gene and I both happened to be Jewish. It wasn’t that different from the core of society’s anti-Semitism: take Jewish immigrants out of their native soil and put them in a new country, and the next generation becomes doctors—that’s hard for certain people to take. And so it was inside the band. Ace and particularly Peter felt powerless and impotent when faced with the tireless focus, drive, and ambition of me and Gene. As a result, the two of them tried to sabotage the band—which, as they saw it, was unfairly manipulated by those money-grubbing Jews.

But of course, we kept up the mythology: four guys running down the street, jumping in the air, living under one roof. Just substitute New York for Liverpool, and that was us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Yeah, right.

I
always wanted a gold record, and I always wanted to play Madison Square Garden. I already had my gold album. On February 18, 1977, we headlined our first show at the Garden. And it was sold out.

It had been four and a half years since I pulled up in front of the Garden in my cab to drop people off for Elvis’s show.

I had seen the Stones at Madison Square Garden—forged a ticket for that show, in fact. I’d seen George Harrison’s concert for Bangladesh at the Garden. I’d slept outside Macy’s in Queens to get tickets for that show. I’d seen Alice Cooper at the Garden. I’d seen Ringling Brothers Circus at the Garden.

Madison Square Garden was synonymous with success on a large scale. Playing there was big stuff. Really big stuff.

I was so anxious before the show that I took half a Valium. The idea that I might be sluggish? No chance. The adrenaline high was so strong on a normal night, and this was homecoming in a sold-out Madison Square Garden. I probably could have taken several whole pills and still have gotten up onstage and then run a marathon in record time. Shows like this were still new—I wasn’t yet used to the idea that we were
this
big.

Standing on the diving board is usually scarier than taking the dive, and sure enough, once onstage, I felt exhilarated. That first wave of force coming from people screaming and lights coming on is very powerful. Having multitudes of people focused on you and sending you energy creates an undeniable wave of force. That might sound like some sort of New Age concept, but the feeling is staggering.

The entire show carried incredible emotional weight. But by the second song, I was home.

I knew my parents were in the audience, and I couldn’t help chuckling about it: “Yep, that’s my boy—the one in eight-inch heels and lipstick jerking off a guitar onstage.” But I was proving something to them. They were wrong. This could be done. And I had done it.

You see? I
am
special.

And then a bottle came sailing out of the darkness and hit me in the head. I saw it at the last second and flinched just enough so it smacked into my head next to my eye instead of in my eye. The glass cut me. I bled for the rest of the show. In some ways it was cool, but I also felt hurt—not physically, but hurt that somebody would do that. And yet at the same time, I knew it wasn’t done maliciously. I’d seen the impulse before. Fans wanted to touch you in any way they could, and here was someone touching me with a bottle. Our road crew, as devoted as they were, found the guy and beat the crap out of him.

Still, it was the first time I felt vulnerable onstage. There was always a dark mass of people out there while I was in the spotlight, and now I knew I really could get hurt. For the first time it occurred to me that the fourth wall could be knocked down by them instead of by me.

We had about a week in New York around that gig at the Garden, and once again I was confronted with the fact that I didn’t have any real life outside the band. Most musicians I knew wanted to talk about equipment—stuff I could give a rat’s ass about. I thought there was so much more to the world, even if I was still learning what that could be. I liked to talk about music, but on a historical level, an emotional level—not a technical level. I spent a lot of time dissatisfied because I didn’t have friends to talk to about things that might be stimulating, educational, or enlightening.

As far as the women I hooked up with, I knew it wasn’t about deep conversation. I chose them because of what I thought other people would think—and because of what I
hoped
I could convince myself:
I must be somebody worthwhile because this beautiful woman wants to be with me
. It was all about bolstering my sense of self. Being with someone to make myself feel better always meant being with a woman others wanted, a woman others envied me for having. Thankfully, I managed to meet some women who, besides being beautiful, were also smart, funny, and well-read. But even with those women I had little to offer in terms of a relationship. I wasn’t open, and I wasn’t going to give anything of myself. So it was more or less two people trading services.

Though it was hard for me to articulate, all of this made me feel even more isolated than I already felt.

I remember one woman coming to my apartment and starting to get itchy for cocaine after a while. She apparently had a major habit. She began to get dressed to go out and score some blow. “I’ll come right back,” she said.

“If you leave,” I told her, “you don’t come back.”

You can be with somebody and still feel alone.

For me, actually being alone was worse. One evening I drove my burgundy Mercedes down to a hip restaurant and bar—one of those places that was known as a hangout. I pulled up to the curb near the entrance on Fifth Avenue and 11th Street and then sat in my car. I wanted to go in, maybe talk to some people, hang out. But I froze.

You can’t go in there on your own!

I didn’t know anyone. I couldn’t risk being in a situation like that. I couldn’t make friends. I couldn’t hang out. The Starchild? Yes, of course,
he
could. And even the version of the Starchild I could muster at parties put on by promoters or radio stations or our own management. Those were controlled situations. People in that context expected the Starchild; I depended on
being
the Starchild to interact with them. I depended on presenting a likable persona and hid my real self, the one-eared kid from Queens who still didn’t believe anyone could really like him and wouldn’t know what to do if someone did.

Who am I? Where do I belong?

I was supposed to be a big rock star, and there I was paralyzed in my car outside a restaurant, afraid to go inside. The contrast between how I was perceived and the reality of my situation could not have been more stark.

Who would believe this?

With a last look at the entrance, I pulled away from the curb, drove around the block, and steered the car back uptown to my apartment. I didn’t have the basic skills to function in a setting like that. Most people were petrified by the idea of going onstage. Not me. Whatever emptiness or insecurities I had waited at the side of the stage. I lived for those moments. I wanted the crowd to love me because I still hadn’t learned to love myself enough to get over the most basic social phobias I harbored offstage.