Makeup to Breakup (38 page)

As disgruntled as I was, Gigi kept me focused. She had talked me into playing the tour in the first place.

“Babe, you’re fifty-six years old. This is your last shot, whether it’s ten grand or two grand. You’re never going to play Madison Square Garden again. Do like Bruce Springsteen, enjoy your glory days. Go out, enjoy the crowd, enjoy the moment, because it will be the last time you’ll have your rock-star moment.”

She was right. I never really enjoyed touring in the seventies. We were on the road all the time and it was too much, too fast. Plus you couldn’t
enjoy anything with Gene and Paul. I certainly didn’t enjoy the reunion tour because I was so upset that they hadn’t changed. So this time I was determined to go out and have fun. I thought, “Do it for yourself, Peter. You are the Catman, you created that image, you bring people alive with that image, you heal people with that image, you’ve changed people’s lives.”

So I had the best time of my life playing for me, really enjoying the curtain drop and the spectacular bombastic roar of the crowd through my headgear. If you were lucky to be at any of those last shows, it was probably the best I ever played and the best I ever sang. I really was reminded why I picked up the sticks when I was a kid. I just felt magical and wonderful.

Until we hit Vegas. There I heard that Tommy Thayer was getting paid $25,000 a night.

“That motherfucker is not even a real member of the band, and you gave him more money than me?” I yelled at Gene and Paul.

We would travel in a little Winnebago to the gigs because Doc and Paco kept crying about how bad this tour was doing. But we sold out every night, and eventually it was one of the top-ten grossing tours that year. Yet we were cutting back on the food, getting cheaper stuff. Meanwhile Aerosmith was pulling up in four limos. It was just more of Doc and Paco’s bullshit.

I did enjoy touring with Aerosmith. I had been friendly with Joe Perry for years, and he’s just a wonderful guy. I’d often be sitting on my balcony in the hotel and Joe would be walking by.

“Hey, Joe, what’s happening?” I’d yell down.

“Ah, just another day in paradise, Petey,” he’d say.

I also liked Tom and Brad. Joey Kramer, their drummer, was an asshole. And Steven was Steven. Steven couldn’t get enough of himself. He wanted attention so bad, he was even worse than Paul. Everywhere he was, he’d be loud, boisterous, laughing, making sure people noticed him. It was like Steven World. I’d be taping an interview, and out of nowhere Tyler would stick his head in and say, “
Heeeey,
what’s happening there? Tyler here.” Then he’d disappear.

Tyler was really nice to Gigi, though. He would go over to her every
day and give her a hug. “Come here and give me my sugar today, girl,” he’d say. And they would talk about sobriety. Deep down, he was a sweet guy. Aerosmith were the best. It was an honor to play with them.

I loved their crew. Their road manager, Charlie Hernandez, was phenomenal to me. He took better care of me than Doc and our crew did.

I was getting sick from all the smoke from our pyro because it would rise and I’d be immersed in it. It got so bad that I would literally have to come down at the end of the show wearing an oxygen mask. That didn,” Ace said. “ventually ed him’t look too good, especially for a fifty-seven-year-old man. Gigi would constantly complain and ask for additional fans for me, but our road manager, Patrick, was so far up Gene and Paul’s asses that he claimed he couldn’t do anything—that Aerosmith was in charge of the stage. So Gigi went to Charlie Hernandez and he immediately put in two extra fans that blew the smoke away so I could breathe again.

It was so obvious on the tour that Paul was jealous of Tyler. Aero-smith had built a ramp in the front of the stage that went way out into the audience. Paul was itching to get on that ramp, but the law was that only Steven and Joe could use it. Paul wanted to fly on his swing over the audience, but it was too expensive to use this tour, so he had no leg up on Tyler. Plus Tyler was one of the best entertainers I’ve ever seen. He’s not a good-looking man, but like Mick Jagger he just oozes sex with those big, pouty lips. He was the chick magnet that Paul only dreamed of being.

So Paul became crazier. He started doing all these bizarre antics. He started going on and on with his raps as if he was an evangelist. Shut the fuck up! Now and then I would bang a drum in the middle of one of his raps to annoy him so he would shut up. It got so bad, we started calling him the Preacher. I’d look at my watch and he’d be talking for five minutes.

Then he’d put his arms behind him, turn his back to the audience, and passionately make out with himself. His hands would be in his hair; he’d be rubbing his ears. I would want to hide. Then he’d go into the Crab, as we called it. He’d take his guitar and stick it between his legs and ride it around the stage and then he’d hump himself with the guitar. Then he’d switch it around so it looked like the guitar was humping him in the ass.
I wanted to shoot myself. To make things worse, he’d go crazy and run from one end of the stage to the other, slapping himself on the ass.

What the fuck does that have to do with rock ’n’ roll? Gene would look at me and shrug. He would just work his end of the stage and let Paulie go crazy. Tommy would disappear and then later tell Paul how great he was. He was Paul’s bitch. He was on twenty-four-hour call in case Paul wanted to go out and look at fabrics or blinds.

In all my years of watching performers from Jim Morrison to Mick Jagger to Steven Tyler, I’d never seen any star make out with themselves, stick a guitar up their ass, fuck the guitar, and then run around slapping their own ass. I didn’t get it. Maybe if there was a song called “Slap My Ass,” then it would make sense. Sometimes I wondered how he ever got girls. But he became a focal point for a lot of gay guys. They would congregate in a section in the front of the stage and just look up at him and drool.

That was partly because Paul used to stuff his pants. He had done it before, but on the Aerosmith tour it was chronic. I guess he wanted to have a bigger dick than Steven. One night I caught him from the corner of my eye putting something down there. All of a sudden he turally?” I

T
he minute I got home from the tour, I went to see my psychologist.
My life was so tangled and stressed from being fucked over and lied to and deceived. I was harboring immense anger toward Gene, Paul, and Doc. I even fantasized about packing a gun and taking a plane to L.A. and shooting the three cocksuckers.

I had been seeing this guy since the end of the Psycho Circus Tour. I chose to see a psychologist instead of a psychiatrist because I didn’t want someone to prescribe me drugs that would numb my thinking and feeling. I wanted to talk to someone and work out my problems in a rational, intelligent way. So we discussed the whole history of the band and how diminished I felt coming back and working as an employee for something I had built from scratch. Over the years we talked about Gene and Paul’s,” Ace said. “ turnedall Machiavellian game playing, Ace’s betrayal, and all the other bullshit.

Ever since I had rejoined the group, I had been subject to relentless emotional battering from Gene and Paul. And on top of that, I had been battered financially. Gene once told Gigi that he was still resentful that he had to pay me a share of the group’s proceeds after I left the group. Now that I was rejoining the band from a position of weakness, they had me right where they wanted me.

Some of it was my fault. I never should have allowed Ace’s manager and lawyer to represent me. They had been Ace’s guys for years, why did I think they would work in my best interests? Ace was always about “I should get
more than Peter” right from that opening negotiation in their lawyer’s office.

But I was so damaged from my divorce and my IRS troubles and my carjacking and its painful aftermath that I was just an emotional wreck and a big, fat target. I had nobody on my side, except for Gigi and God.

The terms of our contracts were always unfair. In the downtime between tours, Ace and I were getting a monthly payment that was a mere fraction of what Gene and Paul were collecting. There were all of these ancillary revenue streams coming in—video games and big commercials like the “Got Milk” campaign and a major Pepsi ad. I never got my fair share of that money that was supposed to be pooled and distributed between all of us.

And when we hired an independent auditor who claimed that KISS owed me a tremendous amount for merchandise revenue in 1999 alone, all they offered me was a puny settlement. I didn’t have the money to fight it, so I wound up taking the settlement for pennies on the dollar.

The worst blow was losing my makeup. The Catman was a character I created and I never knowingly signed over to them. I’m a musician. I want to play drums. I trusted my lawyers and my managers. And I feel that they didn’t have my back on this issue. I regret the loss of my makeup to this day. So is it any wonder that I was ready to go out to L.A. and do damage to Gene and Paul and Doc?

But my psychologist helped me build my confidence up. My anger was overwhelming and was literally making me sick. We talked and talked and he helped me come to terms with the poor decisions I had made and the people I trusted. I should have been happy. I had a nice home and money in the bank. But money doesn’t buy happiness, I don’t give a fuck who you are. When you’re taken advantage of over and over again, it damages you. And it was always over money. But money is what they’re all about. So sad.

Then it all started again. In May of 2004 KISS was going to tour again, starting first in Australia and Japan. I was still under contract to them, but I hadn’t heard from them one way or the other. Finally, the afternoon that my contract was set to expire, I got a call from Paul.

“You know your contract runs out today,” he said.

“Yeah, I did notice that,” I said.

“You didn’t seem too healthy that last tour, Peter. You were coughing a
lot. The corporation thinks that it might be for your benefit that you don’t go out on the road again.”

The corporation? The guy didn’t even have the balls to take responsibility. He had to hide behind the corporation? Plus I was coughing because night after night I’d inhale all that smoke from the bombs. Yet they were so concerned that they didn’t do anything about it until Gigi complained to Aerosmith’s people, who,” Ace said. “e s” were pissed off because the smoke was affecting Steven Tyler’s throat.

“The corporation just thinks it’s better for both of us that you don’t come out,” Paul continued. “You’re not that young anymore.”

Yeah, I was young enough the last seven years when I made them very wealthy men. Paul just relished calling me directly so he could personally cut my throat and taste the blood. I was lucky not to be going on that tour. Now they could rehire Eric and have Thayer imitate Ace and pay them peanuts. Good riddance. I guess the fans had the final word. In the States, they played to half-filled houses and had to cut the tour off prematurely, they were losing so much money.

It wasn’t like I was just waiting on pins and needles for them to call me. I had begun my solo album. I had written about five songs on the Aerosmith tour and Angel, my guitarist in Criss, now living in China, started sending me new songs that needed lyrics.

I decided to do a CD of ballads and draw on my experience of the last few years. So I wrote a song about my daughter and a song about my ex. I had been in New Jersey when the world turned upside down on 9/11, and I wrote a song about that harrowing experience. The plight of those first responders to the Twin Towers hit me so hard that I volunteered and played for a concert that raised millions for the heroes of 9/11.

And then there was “Doesn’t Get Better Than This.”

“Old-time movies, up till three / Another night, just you and me / The trip was lonely but now we’re here / Let’s lock the door and disappear / It doesn’t get better than this.” It was about getting away from the bullshit and going into a different world once we closed that hotel-room door. I wrote a song called “Faces in the Crowd” about our fans, and how the spotlight should be shown out onto the audience’s faces—because they really were the stars. I wrote a number of songs about Gigi.

I even wrote a song about Ace for the album: “Space Ace.” You might think it was a tribute, but I was really writing about Ace’s betrayal of me.

Have you ever been locked in a spaceship? / And lost in your lies? / Flying high above the highways / still trapped in the skies / I know the meaning of success / oh, but you got to believe / Evil has a way of showing its face

I had put all my experiences of my last go-round into these songs and I just knew the fans would love the CD for its honesty.

I called Tall Man, my old bass player, and he came and stayed in my guest room in New Jersey so we could work on laying down the tracks. But working with Tall Man again was a disaster. I had come off years of touring so I was smoking hot: My chops were like nothing he had ever seen when I was with Criss. As soon as he started playing, I saw that he was sloppy and unsure of himself. He just couldn’t jam anymore. Tall Man was one of the best bass players I had ever worked with, but now he had a kid, was raising the child as a single father, and had given up the bass. He felt uncomfortable, and I felt bad for him. I loved the guy, but it just wasn’t working, so he went home. But not before he wrote some great music for the “Space Ace” song.

Meanwhile Angel was sending me stuff from China, and one song was better than the next. I was taking the music and writing lyrics and working on arrangements. By then I had met an engineer named Tom Perkins who seemed to be very knowledgeable, so I called him and he helped me get whatever equipment I’d need to record professionally.,” Ace said. “ out aed him

When we had fifteen or so good songs, I flew Angel in from China. I had set up a small home studio so we could work there. We buckled down and worked eight hours a day. Now it was time to record, and Angel was a Pro Tools genius. He said that he could engineer the recording, but I wanted his brain on his guitar playing. We started out recording with just me and Angel, figuring that we’d add the bass later, which was a big mistake. But Angel could play enough bass to fake it. Tall Man was supposed to come back when he regained his chops, but he never did. We tried sending him the tapes so he could add his bass, but that didn’t work out either.