Makeup to Breakup (12 page)

Paul would literally become the Star. Ta-da! This chubby little kid from Queens became Liza Minnelli, Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger, all beamed into one. He knew he could have any woman he wanted. He has very feminine hands, but he would use them like a Svengali onstage. Like Dracula, he’d gesture to a girl in the audience as if he was commanding her. He’d grab his face dramatically and walk along the lip of the stage and look down on the people as if they were nothing, because he was the Star. And then the white light would hit him and I could see that his brain was bubbling, because everything was “Look at me! Look at me!”

Ace was a true Spaceman, a guy who tripped and fell over himself because he could never quite adjust to the gravity on earth. He actually used to say that to us, and not even when he was in costume!

When I put on that Cat makeup, I truly was transformed. Forget about Peter Criscuola, the kid from on Forty-eighth Street, where er when Brooklyn. He didn’t exist. I believed I was a superhero, the most iconic cat of all cats, sitting up there overlooking my prey. I was a nasty little alley cat, ready to grab whatever I wanted. Don’t get too close to me, because I might just attack. It was insane power tripping. I felt taller. My arms felt stronger. I was really transformed into this powerhouse of energy. I couldn’t hit my drums hard enough. It was almost scary to feel that much power.

Sean fed on that energy. I remember so many times in rehearsals when Sean would be screaming in my face to kill those drums, break those motherfuckers. It was almost militaristic: Everything we did onstage was meant to annihilate. When we opened shows, our goal would be to kill so bad that the headlining act wouldn’t want to come on after us. Sean helped us develop that animal instinct, and all of it began with the drums. The other guys had to keep up with me playing fifty million miles an hour.

Sean worked 24/7 with us. He was like an obsessed drill sergeant. When we’d get in that rehearsal room and were all up together on that stage, he would get in front of us and it was like he was leading the largest orchestra in the world, he was so into it. I was a nobody then, but when I was around Sean, I felt like royalty, like I was the greatest drummer in the world. Both Sean and Bill knew instinctively that it was important to treat us all like stars, and they absolutely did.

Sean was also protective of us.

“I’ll kill any fucking body that touches you four,” he told us. “I will cut their fucking throat from ear to ear. You’re my babies.”

Sean was a tough bastard, too, and if he had to get a little tough and show his butch side to protect us, he’d put on a game face that would scare the shit out of anyone who tried to fuck with us.

He also kept the peace among us. We each spent a lot of time alone with Sean, and he knew which buttons to push for each guy. He helped me with my temper, he helped Gene work on his attitude. Gene had a patronizing way of talking to the rest of us, almost as if he was back
teaching sixth grade, which he had done years before. Sean saw that Paul was developing a rock-star arrogance about him way before we had even released our first album. That would piss Ace off, so Sean had to be like a referee and keep the peace all the time. But when it came time to get honest feedback, we relied on Sean. He’d tell it like it was. He never bullshitted us.

I got really close to Sean, or Seana, as I used to call her when she was in drag. At first I was a little gun-shy around him because I was this macho kid from Brooklyn—God forbid I should be hanging around with a fag, much less a tranny. He showed us photos, and he was hot when he dressed in full drag. But little by little we got close, and Sean used to love to take me to all the gay clubs in the meatpacking district of the city. One time he took me to a club and we went into the back room and there was a naked guy down on all fours. This other guy greased him up and then he rammed his fist all the way up his ass up to the elbow.

“Welcome to the Fistfuckers Club,” Sean said.

“Uh, I gotta go now,” I said to Sean.

I was out of there in a flash. I will never forget that scene until the day I die.

Sometimes Sean went too far around me. He would grab my ass, or grab my dick, and crunch me over. I’d chase him around and wrestle with him and throw him to the ground.

Bill would do the same thing once we got to know him well. We’d be at a party at a club and I at Electric Ladyd ever ’d be in the bathroom and I’d feel somebody’s hand going across the back of my butt and I’d hear, “Oh, what a cute ass you got.” It would be Bill.

“Get the fuck out of here,” I’d say.

“You’ve got the cutest little toilet. I just love your butt,” he’d persist.

But Bill had such a sweetness to him, it just seemed playful.

Sadly, Sean never got the credit he deserved for making us into superstars. If you listen to Gene or Paul, they were the driving engines behind our success, and Sean maybe helped out with a move here or there. But Sean was there from the beginning and had his hand in everything we created, from our personas to our wardrobe to our staging. He even contributed to the songs.

Bill’s contributions also get minimized in Gene and Paul’s revisionist KISStory. Bill helped us actualize the Beatles concept of four superstars that we instinctively knew we should go for. He treated each one of us as special and gave each one of us his undivided attention.

Bill thought that each of us in the band should get an equal share of the proceeds, no matter who was writing what, unlike the Beatles. We were all onstage for two hours a night and I was beating my drums like a motherfucker and you’re playing your bass, and then when we change back into our clothes, you put on a Rolex from Tiffany’s and I got a fucking Seiko? I don’t think so. He knew that an unequal division of the money would just lead to chaos, especially when you’re a band that comes up together from scratch, comes up with the original ideas and concepts and battles through all the shit that’s in your way. You needed some semblance of equality, and Bill knew it would be through an equal distribution of the monies.

I was totally happy about this arrangement. It was all great. We were having a good time together—we were four brothers in a band. I wanted nothing more than that feeling of unity, being part of a band. I didn’t want to run the band. I just wanted to be an equal cog.

I remember one night, Gene was getting on me in his usual patronizing way about something and we started arguing forcefully and I turned to him and said, “Here’s the irony. You went to college, you broke your ass in school, then you taught school. You have all this knowledge. And I never finished high school, I grew up in the streets, yet with all your vast knowledge, tonight when we get paid, I’m making the same as you. So go fuck yourself.” He shut right up: There was nothing he could say after that. That was the beauty of Bill’s vision.

In his own way, Bill also propelled our self-esteem to the stratosphere. He encouraged us to express our feelings and he never made us feel small or stupid for sharing them. He was a great role model for us, me especially. Sometimes he’d take us up to his place in the country and he’d whip up his famous Aucoin breakfast—scrambled eggs with vanilla extract and other exotic spices. It tasted like shit, but I ate it: I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Who had a manager who cooked for them?

Bill was a mentor to me. He helped to turn me into a gentleman. He
taught me etiquette. He’d make me get dressed up and then take me to a really fine restaurant and show me which cutlery to use, which wine to order, which food went with what wine. Then we’d go shopping and he tried to turn me on to Gucci loafers and expensive watches, but I’d never wear Gucci. Bill knew how insecure I was and that soon I would be in front of the eyes of the world. He wanted me a little uncomfortable.in” ayl to be comfortable in that role.

Bill saw that Gene and Paul would pick on me because I wasn’t as schooled as they were and that it hurt my heart, so he would help me with my vocabulary. Bill knew that my reacting like a tough guy to Gene and Paul was all a front. Deep down he knew I had a heart of gold and that I was really a good kid. I think that he really loved me. I know I loved him.

Just like Sean, Bill was so positive and so shrewd. He did nothing on a whim, like I would. Everything he thought up was bigger and better than what any other band would do. He wouldn’t shoot down any ideas. “You want to fly over the audience? Why not? Be Mary Poppins.” It was never “No, you can’t.” There was nothing we couldn’t try or do in Bill Aucoin’s brain. So Bill and Sean added great finishing touches to the pretty crude canvas that they were presented with. And they both did it with class, style, and panache.

On top of that, we had the craziest record-company president around. Neil Bogart was the last Barnum and Bailey of rock ’n’ roll. He thrived on the spectacular and would spend a hundred dollars to make one dollar. Neil was a showman. You just had to look at what he went on to do. Besides signing us, he shepherded the Village People, Parliament/Funkadelic, and Donna Summer to superstardom.

Neil was a very hands-on guy, and he immediately came up with ideas to help us refine our stage show. He was a big fan of magic, so he brought a magician up to the office one day to see what magic effects we could incorporate into the show. The magician went through his bag of tricks, and we were nixing everything until he got to fire breathing. Immediately, Ace, Paul, and I refused.

“I’ll try that,” Gene said.

The fire-breathing effect was done by keeping a small amount of fuel, like kerosene, in your mouth and then blowing it into an open flame on
your torch. The first time Gene tried it, he almost burned down the office. Then it became a staple in our live act.

I was once talking with Neil and half-jokingly said that it would be cool if the drums could levitate right off the stage. We started discussing it, and we came up with the idea of using a pulley to get me into the air. We devised a drum riser that would levitate eight feet into the air using a very unreliable chain-link setup. They bolted chains to each corner of the platform, bolted the drums to the platform, and then connected the chains in each corner to a big hook that was attached to another chain. Then they got four big roadies to pull me up on pulleys.

It was always an adventure. Some nights, some of the crew were shitfaced and they didn’t pull up evenly, so the drums would go sliding off to one side. Many nights the chain would drop slack and the whole kit would drop down two or three feet. It was enough of a jolt to knock the drums over and almost knock me off the platform. I was petrified every time they cranked me up. My life was literally in those guys’ hands until we had enough money to come up with a hydraulic lift system to get me airborne. But that was the beauty of Neil. He was as much of a dreamer and a showman as we were, and he had the balls to take everything to the next level.

Eventually Joyce married Neil, Bill bought out her share of the management company, and Joyce and Neil went on to have a beautiful marriage.

With such a great team surrounding us, we were firing on all cylinders. And we were all happy. We were all looking out for each other in whatever way we could. Gene used his book smarts to make sure that all the business dealings were on the up and up. I handled the physical. When we got ” ayl. If you dared to touch Gene or Paul or Ace, I’d kick your ass. I loved those three guys and they were as close to me as family, maybe even closer. I was easily the most dangerous of the four of us, so if we got in a situation where we were threatened by tough guys from other bands or their crew, I was immediately right in the front going, “Oh, really, you’re going to what?” And the situation would suddenly change, because you really didn’t want to go up against a twenty-eight-year-old Peter Criss. I always loved the adrenaline and I loved the battle.

In those early days, Paul likened KISS to a car with four wheels. It was
true: We needed each other to move on smoothly. And at the beginning we did move smoothly. We were true brothers in arms, brothers onstage, brothers in the darkness. All for one and one for all.

If any of us ever deviated from this team effort and began to get a swelled head, we had a very simple reality check. Maybe it came from putting on our makeup so much. But if someone got off by putting other people down, one of us would say, “You’re going to talk about so-and-so? Look in the mirror and then say that again.”

On October 10, 1973, we went into Bell Sound Studios to record our first album. We had hired Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise as producers, which to me was baffling. We had done a dynamite demo with Eddie Kramer, why weren’t we using him? I didn’t know it at the time, but Kerner and Wise went back a long way with Bill and Neil. They were in a group that recorded for Neil and they went on to produce for him. So they got the gig. I really liked Kenny, but Richie and I didn’t get along at all. To me, Wise was the best ass-kisser I’d ever seen. “You’re right, Gene.” “You’re right, Paul.” It was nauseating.

I put my whole heart and soul into everything I played on those sessions. Warren Dewey, the engineer, and I went through hundreds of snare drums to try to get a really big drum sound. When I was finished laying down the drum tracks, I left—my part was done, unless I had to sing a song or do harmonies. But when I came in for the listening session, I was dumbfounded. Kerner and Wise’s job was to capture the energy of the live show on vinyl, but it wasn’t there. There were no balls between those grooves. I guess it was unrealistic to expect otherwise, because Kerner and Wise were too old-school. They were making us sound like a pop band. I hated the way they mixed the drums. To my taste, they had great, great songs—masterpieces, even—and they made them sound pedestrian. The strength and the energy and the power of our band had been blunted. We were all really let down.

But 1973 had been quite a monumental year for us. And we were going to ring it out with the first gig of our new era. We were booked to do the New Year’s Eve show at the Academy of Music, opening for Blue Oyster Cult, Teenage Lust, and Iggy and the Stooges. In the dressing room, Gene set the tone.