Face the Music: A Life Exposed (52 page)

Who am I to look down my nose at somebody?

Judging others and being quick to criticize just pollutes your life. Learning how to open your hand is the best thing you can possibly learn.

That lesson has been brought into our home, as well. From a very early age, Evan’s birthday parties were no-gift parties. What kid needs thirty gifts? How about learning what it means to give to others instead? Each year for his birthday he picked a charity, and we collected money at his party to donate to his chosen cause. I would kill to be able to play guitar the way Evan can now, but I’m far more proud of the hardworking and compassionate human being he has grown up to be. As Erin and I have nurtured our three younger children, we’ve tried to make them aware of their part in the world, too, and the responsibilities that come with it.

To paraphrase Bob Dylan: You may know what you want but not what you need. We all run around wanting certain things, but when you reach a point where you can distinguish between the things you thought you wanted and the things you actually need, that is an epiphany.

In my case, it may have been necessary to get what I wanted in order to learn what I needed. Achieving all those things that I thought would make me happy—fame, wealth, desirability—confronted me at each milestone with the fact that what I had chased wasn’t the solution. In each case, I may still not have known what I needed, but I could scratch another potential solution off the list.
Not
fame.
Not
wealth.
Not
desirability. I had to go through it all to find the truth. Fortunately, just because something turns out ultimately not to be the right road doesn’t mean it ain’t fun driving on it.

I’m a firm believer that everything in my life has led me to where I am today. I have few, if any, regrets; after all, if I’d done things differently, perhaps I wouldn’t have made it here at all. There were times when it was tough to get through the day, but even on those days I knew that if I fought my way through, there was something better ahead. When faced with misfortune, you can either sit in the shit or you can clean yourself off and move forward. In my case, I always chose to move forward. I didn’t know how hard it would be to find my way, but I knew I wouldn’t stop until I had.

It was just a question of work.

My quest to perfect myself—or whatever you want to call it—ended up teaching me the impossibility of that goal. It’s not about being perfect, being normal, or seeking approval; it’s about being forgiving of imperfection, being generous to all sorts of people, and giving approval. That, too, takes work.

I’m not what I call a passive optimist. I don’t believe everything will work out if I wish for it hard enough. I’m a realistic optimist: I know that as long as I’m realistic about my capabilities, I can make things work out, or at the very least, I can try to steer things in the right direction. On the one hand, no matter how hard anyone pictures himself or herself, say, flying, it’s not going to happen. You can do something ten thousand times and still be bad at it if you have no aptitude for it. As far as I’m concerned, if you pursue something that’s out of your reach, then you’re a fool; time is irreplaceable, and you are the only person who will bear the brunt of your misjudgments. On the other hand, realistic goals can be achieved through hard work. There’s nothing wrong with limitations. If anything, you get farther when you realize what your limitations truly are. It’s just that many limitations are either self-imposed or based on what other people believe them to be. You need to determine your own limitations and then work toward their outer limits.

Evan called me from his dorm room during his first semester at college in the fall of 2012. He’d just had breakfast with Jimmy Page. Yes,
that
Jimmy Page. I thought back to being Evan’s age: I’d been a lost teen with a dream and a commitment to making it come true, and Led Zeppelin was my biggest influence. Now Jimmy had one of my paintings hanging in his country home, and my son—the same age I was when, as a total outsider, I stared in awe at Zeppelin—hangs out with him. Funny how things can come full circle. Your life and destiny are determined to a large extent by your participation in the outcome. Think big, work hard . . .

Out to dinner in London with Jimmy Page.

“Dad?”

I snapped back from my reverie. Telling me about his breakfast with a legend wasn’t why Evan had called me. The real reason he called was because he wanted to cook brussels sprouts in his dorm room.
Dad’s
brussels sprouts—the way I made them at home. He needed the recipe.

How cool
.

I explained how to panfry them and told him how much balsamic vinegar, dried cherries, and prosciutto I used. “And don’t forget to top them with some grated parmesan cheese and a little lemon zest.”

My younger children already like to help me cook. Lately, they’ve become interested in gardening. We decided to plant a family vegetable garden. Erin and I went to a nursery and bought heirloom seeds and together with the kids planted tomatoes, sugar snap peas, strawberries, carrots, and broccoli. I watched in astonishment as these things that looked like lint balls eventually started to send up green shoots as the kids watered them day after day. As the plants started to grow, I found I too had a desire to nurture them so they would grow up big and strong. It was something I could never have imagined myself feeling.

One afternoon Colin, who is in elementary school, told me, “I have some important work to do.” Then he scurried out the back door. After a few minutes, I went out and checked on him. What could he be doing that was so important to him? He was kneeling in our vegetable patch pulling weeds.

Soon enough we had a bumper crop of tomatoes, and the kids and I made huge vats of tomato sauce. We froze some, but we used a lot in lasagna and on pizzas we learned to bake together. I found a recipe for a thin-crust dough; we all sat around mixing and rolling, and then we topped our pizzas with our homegrown tomato sauce and grilled them in a wood-burning stone pizza oven we had built in the backyard.

There’s something wonderful and almost therapeutic about making your own food, from seed to table. If you told me fifteen years ago that I would have photos on my phone of the lasagna I made with my kids, I would have called you crazy. But the photos are there.

We have a family-friendly, food-friendly, wine-friendly household. We sit and eat together as a family, and I look forward to it every day. Sometimes I’m reminded of a sunny afternoon in the 1980s when I watched from the pool at the Sunset Marquis as the band Mike + the Mechanics checked in with their kids and strollers and nannies. I remember shaking my head, thinking it was the most uncool thing I had ever seen. These days there’s nothing I consider cooler than being on our jet with the kids running up and down the aisle. Or standing onstage in front of one hundred thousand people at the Download Festival while my kids watch and wave from the side of the stage. Or walking backstage and seeing Emily, Sarah, and Colin in their pajamas. It’s amazing.

And to have it at my age is even more amazing. Perhaps it’s unusual to be sixty-two years old and have a two-year-old. Certainly, I feel blessed. People equate getting old with shutting down, with the joy seeping out of your life. But me? I’m in love with my wife. I love my kids. There’s a part of my life that’s over, but what’s taken its place is so much more fulfilling. Sure, every once in a while I look at a hot young woman and think for a fleeting moment about what I will never again have. But when I think of what I have instead, it’s no contest.

That’s also why I finally decided to write this book. Because despite the odds, I managed to go from a very unhappy place to a peaceful, harmonious place. If
I
found a path—no matter how long and arduous—to happiness and satisfaction, I firmly believe others can, too. It may not be an easy road, but sticking to that road and pushing forward is the most worthwhile thing you’ll ever do.

We tend to compromise through life and lower the bar; we settle for relationships or jobs because we’re not sure that we can do better—or that we even deserve better. But we
can
do better, and we
do
deserve it.

Life is not about surrendering
.

B
ecause of the makeup, KISS today looks pretty much the same as we did forty years ago. But the longer I keep at this, the more I realize that I’m not invincible. It’s an ever more daunting task to get up there and sing and play guitar and dance and do it in a way that appears effortless. Nobody wants to see somebody killing himself onstage. I enjoy every minute of performing, but it has always been physically grueling, and it certainly is more so now.

When I was younger, people asked me, “Doesn’t it hurt when you jump up in the air and land on your knees like that?”

“No,” I said.

Well, I wish I had their phone numbers. Because all those years of doing jumps without pain have left me with a reminder: my knees hurt now.

I don’t know whether people in the audience can fathom just how difficult it is—or the extent to which they themselves make it possible. I could never jump around like that at a rehearsal. I depend on those people. I depend on the rush of adrenaline I get from them. Every night I find myself up there with a huge smile on my face, laughing, having a great time.

It’s a gift, and it’s terrific that I love it and have fun doing it, and it’s doubly terrific to look out into the audience and see other people loving it, too.

I never understand bands who say they’re sick of playing their hit songs. I’m thrilled to play our big songs. I’m proud of those songs. And the people at our shows deserve to hear the music the way they love it. God knows how many times I’ve played “Firehouse” over the course of the past forty years, but I still love it. When Gene, Tommy, and I rock back and forth to “Deuce,” it’s the ultimate middle finger to the people who don’t like us and the ultimate salute to those who do. Each night is the only night that counts to the people at that show. They weren’t at the show the night before, and they won’t be at the one tomorrow. I won’t let them down.

Most rock and roll is so age-specific or demographic-specific—your favorite band can’t be your older brother’s favorite band, and god forbid it be your parents’ favorite band. A KISS show is different: it’s a gathering of a large, long-lasting society that transcends any demographics.

There’s nothing better than seeing people holding up their children during a show. People want to share this cult of millions with their kids—it means that much to them. Those people are happy. They’re getting a break from whatever else is going on in their lives. Even as citizens of the world with a sense of morality and purpose, everyone is entitled to a day off. All the problems of the world will still be there tomorrow.

What KISS does is timeless. We sing about self-empowerment, celebrating life, believing in yourself—and sex.

It ain’t a crime to be good to yourself.

Is there anything more truthful than that?

We’re all here one time, and why should anyone but you get to decide who you love and how you spend your time?

We sing about the joys of being alive.

On the
Sonic Boom
tour, Gene, Tommy, and I would get into a caged-in platform behind Eric’s drums before the first song started. As we played the first song, the platform would go up and over the drums and eventually put us down at the front of the stage. It was a spectacular effect. I can’t tell you how many times, as we came over the top and I first saw the audience, I got choked up and teary eyed.

I looked out over the crowd and was amazed.

What a blessing
.

My God
.

Had somebody told me KISS was going to last forty years with no end in sight—that I would be wearing the same outfit and not getting laughed off the stage, that on the contrary, we’d be selling out arenas and stadiums—I would never have believed it. I think the longer we’ve survived, the more potent we’ve become. There’s something inspiring about longevity. There’s something inspiring about going against the odds and thriving.

Perhaps the best way to win is not to play the game.

Twenty or thirty years ago, I couldn’t imagine the
world
without me, much less the
band
. But at some point, you can’t ignore the reality of your own mortality. I won’t be physically capable of performing in KISS forever. Something I’ve come to understand, though, is that I’m not immortal—the band is.

Nowadays I don’t confuse my role in the world or the band. I realize that KISS could—and should—go on without me. KISS isn’t like other bands. We’ve never subscribed to the limitations other bands impose on themselves. People come to see the characters we created and what those characters represent. It’s not me they’re coming to see, but what I embody.

There was a time when people said nobody in this band could be replaced. It had to be the four of us. Well, they’re already 50 percent wrong. And they’re going to find out at some point that they’re 75 percent wrong, and then 100 percent wrong.