1982

En 1982 kiss fait un passage dans une émission "ABC friday' 82..




Il est temps de revenir aux fondamentaux. Le groupe s'enferme en studio pour enregistrer des morceaux plus classiques qui figurent sur une nouvelle compilation sortie l'année suivante, Killers, a la demande de la compagnie de disques. Peu après, Frehley est victime d'un grave accident de voiture et se retrouve immobilisé pendant plusieurs mois. Il en profite malheureusement pour ajouter à ses problèmes d'alcool le goût des médicaments. Pour pallier l'absence de son guitariste, Kiss engage plusieurs musiciens de remplacement pour l'album Creatures of the Night (no 45 aux États-Unis) qui marque une nette modernisation et un retour vers le hard rock pur et dur.





KISS - I Love It Loud, Italie 1982, Ace dernière performance

Joli playback
Mais super période: un line-up d'enfer (qui va bientot changer) et un album carton à défendre.

Espagne 82...

KISS sort en Europe un nouveau Best Of, "Killers", agrémenté de 4 inédits sur lesquels Bob Kulick et Rick Derringer se partagent la guitare.

Merci Lolo   

UNDISCOVERED KISSTORY - THE KISS GUITARIST AUDITIONS OF 1982 Part 1
...AND THE MYSTERY OF WHO ACTUALLY PLAYED GUITAR ON THE CREATURES OF THE NIGHT ALBUM.

chris dale

In a previous article, we looked at the KISS drummer auditions of 1980, when Peter Criss left the band and was replaced by Eric Carr.

This time I thought I'd take a look at which guitarists auditioned for KISS in 1982, when Ace Frehley was replaced by Vinnie Vincent. It turned out to be a much bigger task than I'd thought.

Because of its eventual size, I've split this article into two parts. In this first part we'll look at the guitarists that I researched on the internet and in various magazine and book interviews that have come out over the years.

At the same time let's look at the much debated topic of who all actually played guitars on the 1982 album 'Creatures of the Night'. The stories of the auditions and the recording sessions are intertwined and inseparable as they happened at the same time and often involved the same people.

As a bit of background for the uninitiated, KISS had become massive in the 1970s as four superhero-type characters that played good time rock and roll and always put on a great live show. In 1980, the original drummer Peter 'The Catman' Criss had been replaced by Eric 'the Fox' Carr. By 1982, the original lead guitarist, Ace 'the Spacemen' Frehley was also leaving the band.

Since Peter Criss' departure from KISS, guitarist Ace Frehley had become increasingly detached from the rest of the band. He took very little active part in the recording of their next album 'Music From the Elder' and no part at all in the following two releases, 'Killers' and 'Creatures of the Night'.

It was during the recording of 'Creatures of the Night' that KISS were forced to look for another guitarist to play on the forthcoming tour.

The auditions that KISS held for guitarists were very different to the drummer auditions of 1980 in that they were mostly kept quiet from the public and that they saw a lot more guys over a lot longer period of time.

When Peter Criss was dropped from the band, they announced that he had left and that they were searching for a new drummer. When Ace left, they for a time pretended to the public, the press and their record company that he was still in the band.

They recorded the 1982 albums, 'Killers' and 'Creatures of the Night' with a host of session guitarists while still putting Ace's face on the record covers. It was only on the eve of the Creatures of the Night tour that they announced that Ace would not be playing guitar live and even then initially claimed that he would return to the band when he had recovered from injuries sustained in a car crash.

In fact as the band already knew, Ace had no intention of returning to KISS. All this, as well as the search for Ace's replacement was largely kept from the public.

Also different from the drummer auditions was what they expected from an auditionee. For the drummer auditions they wanted a good drummer who was relatively unknown, was a good singer and who fit the rock image.

For the guitarist auditions they wanted all this and more.


As you can see from the advert above, the guitarist would also have to be a 6ft outstanding onstage performer, a singer and a song-writer.

Height was an important factor this time around. It was OK having Eric Carr and before him Peter Criss being the short guys in the band because they sat down behind a kit. Gene and Paul are both over 6ft tall and wanted someone their height in stack heels.

Though anonymity was becoming less of an issue for auditionees than before with the drummer auditions, as recent newspapers had published photos of their faces unmasked and they themselves were planning to unmask soon, it was a consideration to some extent.

Something that it seems a lot of guitarists failed on was attitude. Gene Simmons said in the Night Flight interview in 1983 that, "almost every guy that worked in through the door was convinced he was a star and that's OK to have that as part of your ego make up, and make up as you know is very important to us(!). But these guys would come in with the biggest attitudes."

In other words they're looking a six foot, good looking, singing, song writing, performing, guitar hero... without an ego. As we'll see they had to compromise on at least two of the prerequisites in the end.

Then there's the consideration of their lead guitar playing style. The new guitarist would have to play in the classic style of KISS. On the other hand Gene and Paul were acutely aware of the new guitar hero phenomenon growing in the early 1980s and now wanted their own guitar hero but one who would take orders and play what they're told.

Bob Kulick who was playing lead guitar in the studio in place of Ace Frehley on the 'Killers' record at the time described Gene and Paul's dilemma in 'KISS: Behind the Mask' by David Leaf and Ken Sharp:

"At that time it was getting way more difficult working with KISS because nothing seemed like it was good enough for them. I think they were reaching a point where they were starting to second guess themselves. It wasn't what feels good anymore, it was 'How does this stack up against the competition? How does this stack up against Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads?'. They were beginning to overanalyse everything."

The indecision over a new member wasn't there as much when they did the drummer auditions partly because on that previous occasion they were forced into making a quick decision by the fact that they had a gig coming up very shortly.

A second and probably more important cause of indecision was KISS was now just Gene and Paul didn't always see eye to eye on matters of musical taste, so a great guitarist to Gene might not be a great guitarist to Paul.

KISS had fired their trusted long time manager Bill Aucoin in early 1982 and were now basically looking after themselves with Howard Marks dealing with their business affairs. The day to day running of the band was done by Gene and Paul. Not only did this mean that Paul made all the personal phone calls to guitarists and that there was nobody there to screen and interview them all but it also meant there was no outside referee to guide and reassure them when they had found the right guy.

To add to the pressure, the new deal with Phonogram Records wasn't going well and their last album 'Music From the Elder' was the worst selling of their career. Everything depended on this new album and to some extent on this guitarist.

As a stop gap between albums, they had released a greatest hits record called 'KISS Killers' with four new bonus tracks (all with Bob Kulick on guitar) in some territories, while they worked on the next full album.

The upcoming new album was titled 'Creatures of the Night' and was being recorded by the band at the Record Plant studio in LA at the same time as auditioning guitarists.

Paul Stanley said in the Night Flight interview in 1983 that for this reason it was tougher than the previous drum auditions: "I think it was worse. We were literally flying in people every day from all round the country and at the same time working on the album. So we would do is probably put in around fifteen hours a day in the studio, go home sleep a little, get up in the morning go audition guitar players then go back to work on the album."

In all KISS auditioned dozens of guitarists at the SIR Rehearsal Studios in Los Angeles, (the same place where the 'Rise To It' video was later shot) playing KISS songs or jamming covers. One auditionee I spoke to described it as a "cattle call of guitarists". They also called some players into the Los Angeles and New York Record Plant studios, recording trail parts over tracks for the new album.

There's plenty of rumours about which guitarists auditioned for KISS, after all the early eighties was a ripe time for guitar heroes. Some of the biggest names in rock guitar playing at the time have been described as "nearly being in KISS".

These rumours include the guitarists from just about every North American band of the late seventies and early eighties: Van Halen, Guns 'n Roses, Bon Jovi, Heart, Angel, Whitesnake, Ratt, Chicago, Meat Loaf, Manowar, Bryan Adams' band, Shark Island, the Bulletboys Mr Mister and even Yngwie J Malmsteen himself!

Like the people rumoured to have auditioned on drums for KISS in 1980, we'll see some of these rumours are true and some are not but most have at least have a grain of truth in them. Let's take those rumours one by one...

YNGWIE J MALMSTEEN


Let's get this one out of the way first off. Despite the rumours, the Swedish guitar god did not audition for KISS. Can you imagine Yngwie calming down enough to do the solo in 'Detroit Rock City'?

That would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? But ridiculous or not, KISS did actually consider him for an audition. One of the people Gene and Paul asked for recommendations of guitarists was Shrapnel Records boss, Mike Varney. Mike had a reputation for finding guitarists and had just discovered the young Yngwie through demo tapes he had been sent from Sweden.

Mike told KISS that this kid was really something special. So they decided to check him out. This is how Yngwie told the story to the Glam-Metal website:

"I remember once, when I was living in Sweden and I got a phone call from KISS. It was so funny because it was like 'Yeah we hear that you are really, really hot' and I'm like 'I don't know, it's quite cold here.'

"Stuff like that. I didn't get it at all. Then they asked if I was at least 6ft tall and I'm like 'I don't know, I'm 1 meter and 83 cm.'

"I had no fucking idea what they meant at the time. There was a real communication problem there."

Inevitably, based on that conversation KISS didn't invite Yngwie to fly to California for an audition. Instead Yngwie went on to become famous as one of the most over the top guitar players of his generation and as a solo artist he has sold over 50 million albums worldwide.

BOB KULICK


This is another rumour we should clear up straight away. Bob Kulick was certainly in the studio recording guitar parts for KISS in 1982 but he was not considered or auditioned for the the job of permanent KISS guitarist at this time.

He had auditioned for them in 1973 when Ace got the job, he had played on several studio tracks songs on 'Alive 2' when Ace was absent, he had also played on Paul Stanley's 1978 solo album but when Metal Rules website asked Bob if he was ever seriously asked to join KISS or audition for them in 1982, his answer was:

"No, I mean it was always the joke when Ace was going to leave. I remember the business manager would always be like, 'Bob's going to be in the band, we'll change his name, we'll get him a wig' and we'd all laugh. It was just a joke. They needed a guy with long hair."

As to whether he played guitar on the 'Creatures of the Night' record, there has been much debate over the years. It was initially denied by Paul Stanley in Kerrang #41 that Bob had played on the 'Creatures' album although KISS have been very open over the years about the fact that he had played on the new songs on 'Killers'.

In 'Behind the Mask' by David Leaf and Ken Sharp, Bob Kulick said that there was some confusion about which songs that he was recording were for which project:

"'Killers' and 'Creatures of the Night' were done essentially at the same time. So they flew me out from New York to do the KISS 'Killers' thing and then I came back to do some stuff on 'Creatures' but it wasn't even defined which was which."

Also in 'Behind the Mask', the album's producer Michael James Jackson confirms Bob's presence on the final version of the album:

"Bob Kulick played a great solo on 'Danger' but we soon decided it was in the wrong key for Paul to sing. Using prototypes of new equipment that wasn't even available yet and with the help of our engineer Dave Wittman we sampled the entire song, modulated it to a different key, sped it up and were still able to keep Kulick's solo!"

Outside of KISS, Bob has had a very successful career as a guitarist for artists such as Lou Reed, Meat Loaf, Diana Ross, WASP and played in Paul Stanley's touring solo band in 1989.

These days he mostly works works as a studio producer where he is known for producing a series of tribute albums featuring major rock artists. So far he has produced rock tributes to many artists including the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Queen and of course, KISS.

Bob won a Grammy award in 2004 for his work on Motörhead's version of the Metallica song 'Whiplash' and recently spoke very eloquently at the funeral of Lemmy, his collaborator on that and many other projects.

VINNIE CUSANO

Well here's one guy we do know that tried out for sure, Vinnie Cusano. We know that because he eventually got the job in KISS as Vinnie Vincent. But oddly enough they didn't seem very impressed with him at first.

In the very early stages of the making of the 'Creatures of the Night' album, Vinnie Cusano had been introduced to Gene and Paul through Adam Mitchell as a songwriter but then as a guitarist in the studio. Eventually Vinnie's contribution to the album was co-writing songs and playing five of the guitar solos on the finished album.

Despite this KISS did not initially consider him as a future replacement for Ace Frehley. In Paul Stanley's book 'Face the Music' he says, "The first time Vinnie came into the studio he started doing a solo and got down on his knees. I thought it was one of the goofiest things I'd ever seen. You just don't do that in an audition. He seemed somehow wrong."

Gene didn't seem keen on him either as while working on the Creatures album, Gene passed Vinnie onto the former New England members to form a band called Warrior (see my previous article on Warrior).

The bassist in that band, Gary Shea told me that, "Gene told us that Vinnie was hot, but too short to be in KISS."

Bob Kulick mentioned Vinnie in 'KISS: Behind the Mask' by David Leaf and Ken Sharp, "I noticed Vinnie Cusano hanging around. He was sitting in the studio one day and I remember asking Paul who was that and he said 'We're writing with him and he also plays guitar'.

"And I said 'Well is he any good?'. And he said 'Yeah, he's really good'. And I said 'Then why don't you take him in the band?' And he said 'Well, we're not sure about him'".

Paul said in the Night Flight interview: "Vinnie had worked on the record. He had co-written three of the songs and done some of the solos but we kinda put Vinnie to one side."

So KISS set about auditioning more guitarists, while Vinnie worked with them in the studio and hoped his chance might one day come...

DOUG ALDRICH (Dio/Whitesnake)

Here's one guy that we know did audition for KISS in 1982. Doug was a teenager when he auditioned for KISS. When interviewed by the Legendary Rock Interviews website he recalled:

"I was asked to audition for KISS in 1982. Ace had just left or whatever. Eric Carr saw me play live and brought me to meet Gene and Paul. It was cool. We played in the studio and twice in a giant airplane hanger where they were rehearsing."

He expanded to the Saultstar website, "Half of the intimidation thing for KISS was that nobody had seen their faces at that time. I didn't even know what these guys looked like and here I was going down to the recording studio to meet them.

"Gene is sitting there with no makeup on telling me, 'Try a solo on this song', or whatever. There was that whole thing going on in my head. 'Wow, this is just bizarre.'".

He told Legendary Rock Interviews though that, "I was much too young for that gig, but Eric gave me a lot of confidence and said I was good. So I got very serious after that."

He did indeed. He went on to play with Lion, Hurricane, House of Lords and Bad Moon Rising. In 2002 he joined the Dio band for touring and also recording the 'Killing the Dragon' album. Doug later joined Whitesnake for more touring and recording the 'Good to be Bad' and 'Forevermore' albums.

Through these gigs, Doug has secured a reputation as a world class guitarist and is currently on tour with Glenn Hughes.

Doug later told Legendary Rock Interviews, "A few years ago, Gene was at a Whitesnake gig in LA. He sent me an email later saying he was proud of what I had done."

ROBBIN CROSBY (Ratt)


At 6' 4" Robbin Crosby of Ratt, was certainly tall enough for the KISS gig. In fact he may have been "too tall and too blonde" as he once joked to a fan about the audition.

There are rumours that Robbin was temporarily a member of KISS or helped out in the studio on the new tracks for the 'Killers' album but these appear to be no more than rumours probably started by the fact that he had simply auditioned for the band, though like some other auditionees he may have tried out in the studio.

An interesting piece of evidence to show that Robbin did attend at least one audition for KISS comes in the form of a handwritten note on the back of a ticket to see Ratt play at the Troubador Club in LA on 2/3 July 1982. The note simply says "Robbin Crosby 2nd audition?" with a phone number and appears to be in Eric Carr's handwriting.


This would lead us to believe that Robbin had at this point done a first audition and that Eric went to check him out live and considered him good enough for a possible second audition.

Robbin of course didn't get the job with KISS but with Ratt he went onto achieve multi-Platinum success with top 40 hits such as 'Round and Round' and 'Lay It Down' both of which were co-written by him. Robbin sadly passed away in 2002 due to a heroin overdose while suffering from complications relating to HIV.

ADAM BOMB

Adam was a young guitarist from Seattle, playing in the band TKO under his real name of Adam Brenner at the time. He told Sleaze Roxx website about how he auditioned for KISS.

"I read an ad in Billboard magazine that a major group is looking for a guitar player. I sent a tape to them with the TKO songs, a photo and a bio and then Paul Stanley called me. I think they already had Vinnie Vincent but were checking out more people.

"First of all they were looking for six foot tall guys that were at least over twenty years old. At this time I was 17, I was a baby. Look at me now, I was shorter than Eric Carr!

"I met KISS and we played a few songs together like 'Detroit Rock City', 'Firehouse', 'Calling Dr. Love' and 'Black Diamond'. I did my guitar solos with them but I wouldn't have been a good fit because I did a few drugs and went on the dark side while KISS was a serious band with all the things they have to do."

In another of the many small world connections that feature throughout KISSTORY, around that time Adam was friends with the young Tommy Thayer and even played for Black 'n Blue at one point. It was Tommy that suggested Adam change his stage name to Adam Bomb and take up a solo career.

Adam has since gone on to release eleven solo albums and collaborate with John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) and Michael Monroe (Hanoi Rocks). He told Sleaze Roxx "I'm happy being Adam Bomb. I built up my reputation. I mean its rock 'n' roll, playing in a dirty rock 'n' roll band."

KEITH SCOTT (Bryan Adams Band)

There are also rumours of that Keith Scott, most famous as Bryan Adams guitarist, auditioned for KISS back in the Summer of 82. Certainly he's a great guitar player and singer and with his dark hair he fits image side of the job description.

The connection was there too, as around that time Adams was writing songs with Gene and Eric Carr for the 'Creatures of the Night' album. At that point, Keith was already working with Bryan but they had not yet had the big singles that catapulted Adams and his band to fame within a couple of years, so it is possible that Keith would have been interested in the job with KISS?

Keith was one of the nice guys that took the time to reply to my queries- "I did not and never have auditioned for Kiss but did get to meet Paul Stanley several years ago!"

There's that rumour cleared up then! Keith has of course spent much of the time since the early eighties playing for Bryan Adams on sold out world tours and platinum albums.

It is estimated that Bryan Adams has sold between 65 and 100 million records, all of which Keith played on.

STEVE FARRIS (Mr Mister)


It's long been known that Steve Farris of Mr Mister fame, recorded some of the guitars on the 'Creatures of the Night' album, including the solo on the title track. It was uncertain though if he had actually auditioned live with the band and been considered for the job or if like Bob Kulick, he was just a studio player as far as the band were concerned.

Paul Stanley cleared up that mystery in his autobiography 'Face the Music'. He tells how Eddie Van Halen "came down to the studio one day... he listened to some of the stuff we had including a solo on the title track by Steve Farris.

"'Why don't you get that guy?' asked Eddie. He was blown away. The fact was we had rehearsed with Farris but the fit hadn't been right."

Farris of course went on to success with Mr Mister including two US number one hit singles ('Kyrie' and 'Broken Wings') and a matching number one album ('Welcome to the Real World'). As session player he has since played in the studio for Tori Amos, Belinda Carlisle and Diana Ross and on tour with Whitesnake in 1997.

That's all you need to know on Steve for now but in Part 2 of this article we're going to take a much closer look at Steve's episode with KISS...

EDDIE VAN HALEN


So as mentioned above we know that according to Paul Stanley, Eddie Van Halen was hanging around the Record Plant Studio in LA while KISS were recording but was he ever considered for the job as some online rumours suggest?

According to Gene Simmons, Eddie Van Halen was begging to be the next guitarist in KISS. The Van Halen News Desk website has tracked several sides to the story from all the main witnesses. Curiously the different accounts don't seem to agree on much.

In an interview on Nikki Sixx's radio show, Gene told how Eddie was in the studio with KISS during the Creatures of the Night recordings, "So I take him to lunch across the street and he actually tells me, 'I want to join Kiss. I can't take Roth, he's driving me nuts.'

Gene went on to say, "I remember feeling proud of what I said. I said, 'Don't do it. Stay with the band you started. There's no role for you in KISS. You're too big'. And he went back and he was miserable for the next 20 or 30 years. But it would never have worked. Not even close."

So Gene really didn't want Eddie in the band. He may also have seen that Eddie liked a drink or two as had Ace, which probably didn't stand him in good stead in Gene's books.


Eddie was asked about this by Alan K Stout of The Times Leader, his comment was "Not that I know of. If it happened I'm sure I would have remembered. They might have just asked me in passing, and I just kind of laughed it off, probably." So Eddie doesn't remember begging Gene to be in KISS?

Paul Stanley doesn't remember it being discussed either. He was asked about the rumour in Guitar World magazine (April 2014). He said, "No, I never heard that. Eddie did come down to the studio during Creatures, and he spoke to me on the phone during that period.

"There was real dissension in the band (Van Halen) at that time, that much was clear. But as far as him wanting to join KISS? No, not that I know about."

In 1995 Van Halen fan magazine 'The Inside' #8, interviewed Wally Olney, an old friend of Eddie's. When he was asked if Eddie had wanted to be in KISS, he said the opposite was in fact true and recalled earlier events around 1976-77.

"I sat in his (Eddie's) bedroom in their old house in Pasadena. I can remember Ed picking up the phone going, 'No, I don't want to play,' and telling me, 'God, he calls me constantly, and won't leave me the fuck alone'. He goes, 'It was cool that he made that tape for us, but I don't want to be in a band with him. I've got my own band.'

"I can remember going back to my friends, going, 'Guess what? Gene Simmons called Ed!'".

So there we have our proverbial two sides of the coin to choose from. Did Eddie ask Gene but Gene say no, or did Gene ask Eddie but Eddie said no? Either way he didn't audition for KISS.

The one other known fact is that Alex and Eddie did record demo versions of some of Gene's songs in preparation for the 'Love Gun' album. These demos have not yet been heard in public.

ROBBEN FORD

It has long been known among KISS fans that the blues guitarist and five times Grammy Nominee Robben Ford, recorded some lead tracks on the 'Creatures of the Night' album as a session player.

He confirmed the fact in a recent interview for the D'Addario Guitar Strings website he was asked what was the weirdest gig he had ever done. His reply was:

"The strangest thing for me was doing nine days in the studio with KISS. I played on their record 'Creatures of the Night' and wound up playing two guitar solos on that record, 'Rock and Roll Hell' (laughs) and the other was a kind of rock ballad called 'I Still Love You'.

"So I spent nine days in the studio with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. And that was rather unusual, that whole situation was rather unusual. I heard a lot about their stories and was playing music that I don't play and I never listen to."

Robben is undoubtedly a great blues player but from the quote above that doesn't sound like me to be a man who's auditioning for a gig in a flamboyant Metal band, so like Bob Kulick there seems to be no suggestion that he was being considered for KISS in a permanent way.

RICHIE SAMBORA (Bon Jovi)


And talking of blues players, in an interview with Howard Stern, Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi fame told this story: "I got asked to join KISS and I flew out to LA. I ended up staying out there for about two weeks, I had a blast. I was gonna replace Ace when they were looking for a guy.

"Honestly, you know I respect KISS a lot but my music was more into a more of blues oriented kinda thing, more organic. I was into like Zeppelin and Hendrix; guys who played guitar and actually emoted through the instrument.

"I walked into the audition and they were looking for a guy to worship them and I didn't. I just wasn't that guy. "I was like 'C'mon, lets jam!' and they were like 'You better know 'Black Diamond', and I go 'I dunno. Can we just jam I'm sure I can play your music'. They got a little upset."

On Gene and Paul, he said "They were both pretty cool to me. They were taken aback that that I wasn't so into them. It didn't seem authentic to me. I was like, as an artist I was moving in a different direction already."

So, let's get this straight. Richie says he auditioned and was then was asked to join KISS despite not having learned their songs? But that he turned down the job because he didn't like their musical direction? I'm not sure that makes much sense. Did he not know what their musical direction was before auditioning? Perhaps not, if he hadn't learned the songs?

In Paul Stanley's autobiography 'Face the Music ' he offers a more plausible story: "Richie Sambora flew in from New Jersey to audition. He wasn't the consummate player he would become and he didn't get the gig.

"It's funny but years later I heard him say he hadn't really wanted the job because he wanted to be in something more blues based. First of all it's hard to imagine that he flew to California to audition for KISS just because he liked airplane food; also Bon Jovi's done a lot of great things but they don't sit next to Howlin' Wolf in my record collection."

After Richie returned from LA he hooked up with a young singer called Jon Bon Jovi. Ironically the drummer in Bon Jovi, Tico Torres had also auditioned for KISS in 1980. Bon Jovi's first European tour was supporting KISS on the Animalize tour in 1984.

It was Paul Stanley that introduced Bon Jovi to the song writer Desmond Child. He had co-written the KISS hit 'I Was Made For Loving You' and the went onto to write several hits for Bon Jovi including 'Living On a Prayer'.

Since that humble start Bon Jovi have gone on to sell over 100 million albums worldwide with Sambora credited as a co-writer on most of the hits. Richie has also released three solo albums to critical acclaim.

In April 2013 Sambora quit Bon Jovi mid-tour and has not since returned, although he recently stated that a return to the band may be on the cards one day.

PUNKY MEADOWS (Angel)

Punky Meadows was the guitarist in Angel. Angel were discovered by Gene Simmons and signed to Casablanca records. By contrast to KISS they were famous for their white angelic look. (Incidentally, Punky was also immortalised on a song by Frank Zappa called 'Punky's Whips'. He even appeared onstage once with Zappa in his Angel costume!) .

Angel did not however have the same success as KISS and effectively split up in 1981 when Punky left the band. In Kerrang #41, it is stated that Punky then auditioned for KISS.

Update 26th January:
When I wrote the original version of this article I mailed Punky to get the full story from him but I didn't hear back. Instead I posted an internet rumour about him as the only evidence I had to go on. The day after the article went online, I heard from Punky with the true story!

I'll publish that in Part 2 coming soon...

ROGER FISHER (Heart)


In Kerrang #41 it was also reported that the guitarist from Heart had tried out for KISS but it doesn't say which guitarist. There are online rumours that long time Heart guitarist Howard Leese was this man but that seems unlikely as he was a full time member of Heart from 1975 to 1997 and they were very successful in their own right at that point.

The rumour may have started with the story of Paul Fischer, a guitarist and founding member of Heart who had left the band in 1980. On his website he recalls:

"After leaving Heart, KISS approached Heart's manager, saying they were interested in having me audition. I certainly meant no disrespect to a great group but they didn't really turn me on at the time. I had ask them what the pay would be. They responded with 'Come down and audition and we'll take it from there'.

"I was unimpressed with that response so passed on the opportunity and (instead) lived a somewhat hermit like life in the middle of five acres of woods."

I think Richie Sambora should take note as that is the correct way to deal with an offer to audition for a band that you don't want to be in.

DONNIE DACUS (Chicago)


Kerrang #41 also reported that the guitarist from Chicago auditioned for KISS in 1982. It can't have been original Chicago guitarist Terry Kath, as he had died from an accidental gunshot wound in 1978.

His replacement in Chicago was the young Donnie Dacus who had previously played with Crosby, Stills and Nash. Donnie was a member of Chicago for two years and recorded the platinum album, 'Hot Streets'.

He was let go from Chicago in 1980 after the 'Chicago 13' album, mainly because the rest of the band felt his style didn't fit - he was too rock and also that his acting career was getting in the way.

Dacus went on to act in the musical 'Hair' and play guitar and sing on many sessions for artists such as Billy Joel and Elton John but withdrew from public life in the mid-eighties.

So, what's the chances of an unemployed good looking, long haired, singing, rock guitarist being asked to try out for KISS in 1982? Pretty good, I reckon. I think Donnie goes on our list.

If anyone knows for sure if Donnie auditioned or not please let us know here at MetalTalk via the MetalTalk contact page.

MICHAEL ANGELO BATIO


Or if it wasn't "THE guitarist from Chicago" that auditioned for KISS maybe it was "A guitarist from Chicago"? Michael Angelo Batio originated from Chicago, Illinois and is known to have auditioned for the band.

Michael is one of those super fast guitarists, famous for his technique of playing both necks of his unique double guitar at the same time. He didn't try that in the Kiss audition however!

Along with Yngwie J Malmsteen, Michael was one of the guitarists recommended to KISS by Mike Varney. In an interview in Guitar World magazine Michael Angelo said:

"I learned a valuable lesson then because I was completely star-struck. I was on Shrapnel Records with Mike Varney. He set this thing up for me, and I still lived in Chicago. I was just out of school but I had a really good promo shot.

"So Mike sent it to KISS, and they flew me out to audition. I still have the ticket stubs. I was completely star-struck. I mean I was scared to death. And I had played with KISS before. I was 18, I had just graduated from high school and we won this battle of the bands contest in Chicago to open up for KISS, so this wasn't my first encounter with them.

"But when I jammed with them, it was me, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Eric Carr. I sang 'Calling Dr. Love' and I kicked ass. I was a pretty good singer but Gene was laughing because I had some of the lyrics wrong. I didn't buy a songbook; I just kind of picked it up off the record, and he was telling me he was cracking up because I had some of the words really wrong.

"I actually showed Gene Simmons how to play over the neck and he would stop and start, make me play it again.

"But I learned never to be in awe. That if I'm going to be a rock star, I've got to act like one. And one of the biggest reasons, it wasn't my image; it wasn't my age that prohibited me from getting it. It was that I became a fan. And I really didn't realize that. I went in there acting like a fan instead of a guy who could be the guitar player in the band.

"And then later on Gene Simmons remembered me from that. He told me in my Michelangelo band, they had a rhythm guitar player and he goes, 'Your playing is light years ahead of other guitar players'. He goes, 'You play two guitars at the same time, what the hell do you need another guitarist for?' He really liked my guitar playing."

Since the KISS audition Michael has gone on to make numerous solo records and instructional guitar playing videos and featured in guitar magazines around the world.

In another minor KISS connection, Michael was called to record the guitar parts and filmed for the close up guitar playing shots in place of actor Steven Quadros who was playing a possessed guitar hero in the horror film, 'Shock 'em Dead'.

Regular readers of this column will remember that Steven Quadros was one of the drummers who had auditioned for KISS a couple of years before.

ROSS THE BOSS (Manowar)


Several rumours quote that the former Dictators guitarist Ross 'the Boss' Friedman auditioned for KISS in 1982. I'm not so certain of this rumour as at the time he had just formed Manowar and their debut album came out in June 1982.

I doubt he was auditioning for other bands in secret just as his band's first album was being released. Like similar rumours about Mick Mars from Mötley Crüe, I'd tend to cross him off our list unless anyone knows for sure otherwise. Again, let us know here at MetalTalk via via the MetalTalk contact page.

SLASH (Guns 'n Roses)


No, Slash didn't audition for KISS as some rumours would have us believe. But there is a spark of truth in there in that KISS were interested in him and Paul Stanley did call him about a possible audition!

In Paul's autobiography, 'Face the Music', he says, "Another guy I spoke to was a really sweet young kid named Saul Hudson. He told me his Mom had been a seamstress for David Bowie and that his friends called him Slash.

"He was very well spoken and engaging, but he seemed really young. Finally I asked him how old he was. 'I'll be seventeen next month' he said.

I had turned thirty earlier that year and Gene was twice his age. 'You know' I said 'you sound like a great guy but I think you're too young for this'. I wished him well and always remembered him because he was so nice and unaffected."

Slash of course went onto multi-platinum success with Guns and Roses selling over 100 million albums worldwide and later also achieving considerable success in Velvet Revolver with a US number one album 'Contraband'.

Paul Stanley was at one point considered to produce the first Guns and Roses album 'Appetite for Destruction' but that honour later went to Mike Clink.

JOE SHIKANY


Joe Shikani was a Seattle based guitarist who is often mentioned online as having auditioned for KISS and he does seem to meet the profile: a great guitarist and singer of the right age and image. He later played for Paul Rodgers' band.

The Pacific Rim Talent praised Joe highly, "You may have seen lead guitarist vocalist Joe Shikani with Bad Company's Paul Rodgers, or Spike and The Impalers in recent years. Nobody can deliver Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend or Jimmy Page better than Joe. He is truly a legendary guitarist of the Pacific Northwest."

Joe was tragically killed in an accident by a falling tree in 2008. Former Heart guitarist Roger Fisher, who had turned down the offer to audition for KISS commented at Joe's funeral "A lot of people dearly loved Joe, and it was heart warming to see much of the Seattle music scene show up in honour of one fine man."

JOEY HUNTING

Another online rumour says that Joey Hunting auditioned for KISS but that he was considered too young for the job as like Adam Bomb and Doug Aldrich, he was still a teenager at the time. He later went on play with Billy Joel, David Lee Roth and Dear Mr. President.

I have not so far been able to contact Joey to confirm if he did or did not audition for KISS. He's a difficult one to search for because when you put his name into Google a lot of links come up for people shooting young kangaroos!

This is another one where if you know any more, please let us know via the MetalTalk contact page.

MARQ TORIEN (Bulletboys)


Here's yet another rumour I've seen around the internet, that Marq Torien (later famous as the lead singer of the band Bulletboys) auditioned as a guitarist for KISS.

Certainly Marq is a very good guitarist in his own right, in fact that's how he started out as a teenager moving to LA in the early 1980s. In an interview with IndiePower TV, he talked about meeting KISS back then.

"I had a very close friendship with Gregg Guiffria and Greg was in a huge band called Angel. Greg basically took me under his wing, when I came to Hollywood and he brought Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley to my shows at the Troubadour and they would come in and they just thought I was really talented. And Gene would talk to my Mom at shows."

Richie Violet posted on the KISS FAQ forum "Eric Carr told us that Marq was brought down to the studio (during the Creatures era) and he looked like Eddie Van Halen circa 1979 (yellow and black striped guitar, knee pads, black vest, etc). He said Marq was really good but they had already began writing songs with Vinnie and liked the chemistry better with Mr. Cusano."

Marq also auditioned for the Ozzy Osbourne band when Randy Rhoads died that same year (oh, no, you don't want me to research all the potential Ozzy guitarists next, do you?) and he played briefly for Ratt. I guess he had a busy guitaring year!

After Ratt he joined King Kobra as the lead singer and from there went onto form the Bulletboys with ex-King Kobra members Mick Seda and Lonnie having a US Billboard Top 40 debut album helped by the MTV hit 'Smooth Up in Ya'.

Marq still plays gigs with a new line-up of the Bulletboys.

MICHAEL RAY (Wendy O' Williams)


Left to Right: Bassist Greg Smith, Wendy O' Williams, Gene Simmons and Michael Ray

So having heard every guitarist in Los Angeles, KISS moved back to New York for some final work on the 'Creatures of the Night' album KISS moved to New York and kept looking for guitarists there.

Michael Ray, later guitarist with Wendy O Williams is a player that is rumoured to have tried out for KISS around that time. In fact his biography on the Artist Direct website looks suspiciously like it was written by Michael himself telling his own story:

"He first met Gene Simmons of the highly successful rock band, KISS in a club called My Father's Place in Roslyn, Long Island. Simmons was scouting the New York area, looking for a replacement for Ace Frehley, and got word on the street that there was a guy performing there that he should check out. That guy was Michael Ray.

"(Michael's) band performed hard and loud, and as soon as the set was over, Simmons invited Michael to the V.I.P. section where he and Eric Carr were sitting. Michael gave Simmons his phone number. Soon after he received a call from Gene, inviting him to the Record Plant Studios in New York where KISS had been recording the Creatures of the Night album. This was a test to see how Michael Ray's lead guitar sounded with KISS on multi-track."

And that's where Michael's story ends for now. He didn't get to replace Ace Frehley after that trial recording but he did join Wendy O' Williams' band, through Gene's recommendation and later played another interesting part in KISSTORY which we'll look at a later date.

-----------------------------------------------------

I think we'll leave it there for Part 1 of the 1982 KISS Guitarist Auditions. I'm sure you've read enough of them by now, you probably deserve a break.

For now I think we've managed to find a good list of the some of the big name guitarists that did and did not audition for KISS. And I also think that we've got a fairly definitive list of who actually recorded guitars on the 'Creatures of the Night' album.

First the solos, Steve Farris played the solo on the opening track 'Creatures of the Night'. Robben Ford played the solos on 'Rock and Roll Hell' and 'I Still Love You'. Bob Kulick's solo was used on 'Danger' and the remaining five solos were played by Vinnie Cusano, soon to be Vinnie Vincent.

Much of the rhythm playing may also have been Bob or Vinnie although Paul Stanley is certain to have done much of it too.

Gene Simmons played at least some of the rhythm guitar on 'War Machine' and Adam Mitchell, the song-writer that initially introduced Vinnie to Gene, played some of the middle section and outro guitar parts on 'Creatures of the Night' ("What you hear on the record is actually me playing my blue Charvel"- Adam Mitchell in 'The Eric Carr Story' by Greg Prato).

So is that all of them? No, it seems there's possibly one more. The most obvious and yet the most overlooked may actually have made his way onto the album.

Every source in KISSTORY including the band themselves says that Ace Frehley did not take any part in the recording of either 'Killers' or 'Creatures of the Night'. Every source, except possibly the most important one, the man who produced and mixed the album, the man who ultimately chose which guitar parts were used, Michael James Jackson!

In 'The Eric Carr Story' he recalls "We cut the tracks in LA for Killers and Creatures of the Night but Ace was not around for the tracking. Then we flew to New York and recorded Ace on some of it. So Ace made a contribution, he played on both those records but the performances were somewhat minimal."

The story of doing more recording in New York on those albums is not usually told but does tie in with Michael Ray's recollection of going into the Record Plant Studios in New York around that time.

So there you have it, by my reckoning there are at least eight guitarists on the nine songs on the 'Creatures of the Night' album. That's if none of the parts recorded by Doug Aldrich, Michael Ray or any other passing guitarists were ever used!

In Part 1 of this article about the KISS guitarist auditions of 1982, we saw how KISS had contacted and auditioned an awful lot of talented guitarists, some of whom later became very famous in their own right and that they had a fair few of these guitarists played on the 'Creatures of the Night' record that the band were making at the time.

Most of that article I'd researched online and in print, through interviews that other journalists and authors had already done. For Part 2, I tracked down even more guitarists but this time I interviewed them myself to find out every tiny detail of the audition process (except what kind of socks they were wearing on the day) and as you'll read below several guitarists have willingly obliged.

So as a quick recap in case you've not read Part 1. It's the Summer of 1982, Ace Frehley has (secretly) quit KISS and the band are trying to (secretly) replace him by checking out what seems to have been every guitarist in the known world at the time.


Kiss advertise anonymously in Billboard Magazine for a lead guitarist

Despite having heard some of the most talented players in America, they still don't seem to have found their perfect guy, all of them are either too short, too tall, too young, too old, too shy or too full of themselves. Most could play guitar very well but that wasn't enough for Gene and Paul who seemed trapped by a mountain of indecision while searching for the elusive perfect guitarist.

So let's hunt down some more rumours and this time get some complete first hand stories of the auditions, meetings and phone calls that went on between KISS and their potential guitarists throughout 1982. I do hope you're sitting comfortably. This one's quite a ride!

PUNKY MEADOWS

Firstly I'm very happy to set the record straight on Punky Meadows.

Edwin 'Punky' Meadows was the guitarist in Angel. Angel were discovered by Gene Simmons in the late 1970s and like KISS, were signed to Casablanca records. By contrast to KISS they were famous for their white angelic look. (Incidentally, Punky was also immortalised on a song by Frank Zappa called 'Punky's Whips'. He even appeared onstage once with Zappa in his Angel costume!)

Angel did not however have the same success as KISS and effectively split up in 1981 when Punky left the band. In Kerrang #41, it is stated that Punky then auditioned for KISS.

For Part 1 of this article I mailed Punky to get the full story from him but I didn't hear back. Instead I posted an internet rumour about him as the only evidence I had to go on. The day after the article went online, I heard from Punky with the true story-

I'm sorry but you don't have your facts straight. Barry Levine called me up, he was the photographer for KISS and Angel and many other groups back in the day. He was in the studio with Gene and Paul. Gene and Paul had put an add in the paper auditioning guitarist to take Ace's place.

Barry Levine mentioned me to Gene and Gene said, "That's a great idea". Gene called me up and asked me if I would come down SIR and sit in with the band. He asked me to learn side one of the KISS Alive album. I learned a couple of songs.

I went down to the rehearsal studio, walked in and they were playing 'Communication Breakdown' from Zeppelin. I plugged up, we played and it sounded great!! Gene and Paul both were impressed, and Gene said "Let's talk business, you have the gig."

I then said to Gene, that Gregg (Guiffria, Angel and later House of Lords keyboard player) and I are still working together and we're in the middle of shopping a deal. Well I guess I insulted Gene when I said that and he looked at Paul and said "Come on Paul, let's go". I sat afterwards with Eric who was playing drums then and we talked for about a half hour.

I then went home when Barry Levine called me and said "Punky, what did you do? Gene and Paul both came back to the studio with jaws hitting the floor and Gene said : NO ONE HAS EVER TURNED DOWN KISS!!!". Barry then said, "They were going to offer you $160,000 a year plus points".

It's funny because when Gene said let's talk business, I didn't say no or turn them down. When I said to Gene that I was still working with Gregg he got up right away and stormed out. I don't know if I insulted him or hurt his ego, but I never had a chance to say yes or no. I have to say, I did somewhat regret it. I wasn't making any money at the time and sure could have used it (laughing). But woulda, coulda, shoulda ...Right?

So that's the true story. There have been many interpretations over the years, but that's how it happened.

Thank you Punky, for setting the record straight for me and all KISS and Angel fans alike. Meanwhile Punky has a new solo album out this year, called 'Fallen Angel'. We look forward to that one with baited breath...

JOHN VERNER


John Verner was like many others, a talented young guitarist but he stands out in that he was the guy that Ace Frehley recommended to Gene and Paul that they replace him with! I contacted John early on in this project and he proved to be very helpful in telling me how his KISS connection came about and the details of the audition itself.

I started playing in rock bands early on with Frankie Banali of Quiet Riot. Frankie was and is such a great friend. I then went to LA after auditioning for a band called Skylark who had a recording contract with Capital records. The band dissolved and I went on as a studio guitarist in Hollywood.

Then Frankie Banali and Rudy Sarzo approached me about a band they were forming called Shatter Star. I had commitments at the time so could not tour. Later I joined the band, by which time Barry Ackom had joined on bass to replace Rudy. Barry worked for KISS as a guitar tech for Paul and Ace. KISS would come to our gigs when they were in town to see Barry. Ace came out to see us in Chicago. After the show he came back stage and was very complementary. Barry claims later that Ace had recommended me as a replacement but I can't confirm that for sure.

KISS then asked Barry for my phone number or contact information. I was hard to reach being on the road so much, so Barry gave them my old girlfriend's phone number. One night she ran over and said 'You have to be at my house at 7pm, Paul Stanley is going to call!'. She was a nervous wreck.

Paul called at 7pm on the nose. Paul always called himself, which I was impressed by. Up to this point I was lead to believe Paul was signing a new band and looking for new members to produce. But now he said it was for KISS and this was top secret.

So they wired me money (for a flight ticket to LA) and put me up at the famous Hyatt hotel in Hollywood for a few days. I arrived at LAX airport after my little get away from the band I was in, in total secret. I took a cab to the hotel. Then the manager called my room as I walked through the door. He told me Paul was waiting at the Record Plant recording studios on 3rd. I was to take a cab.

I first went to the Record Plant to watch Paul laying down a vocal track for the new LP. Then we drove to the SIR sound stages in Hollywood CA. On the way Paul leaned forward and asked me if I liked Rick Springfield. I said sure and at that moment I knew he was thinking of radio ready type songs to write.

We arrived at this huge sound stage and met Eric and Gene. I didn't bring my guitar as I was endorsed by Dean guitars at the time and our manager kept close watch on the gear. It would have been obvious to him that I was looking at another gig in other words. Paul offered me one of his to choose from, I picked the Cherry Les Paul. I had to restring it while they waited as he plays rhythm guitar and had heavy strings on it, too heavy for me.

I tuned up and plugged into a stack of Marshalls and we played all types of jams from James Gang to funk. I played original jams as well so they get a taste of my skill I soloed safely and navigated through Gene's lead. The reason for not worrying about learning KISS songs was based on Barry initially telling me that Paul was putting a band together to produce. I had told Paul I would have to wing it, he said no problem we know how you play and we need you to fly out ASAP.

During the audition, Paul just watched and studied the stage from the audience perspective. Gene said he loved the power chords and said he was so glad my soloing was not of the busy nature more melodic and straight forward rock. I sang some Bad Company type stuff that seemed to make them happy as vocals are an extra bonus. Eric said that was a key point. We harmonized a bit and so on, very chilled in some regards but intense for me!!!

We played for a few hours and afterwards Gene asked me if I would dye my hair as they thought that it was darker from some gig they saw me at. I said no problem. We talked about makeup or no makeup. There was a big image thing going on and they were figuring the next stage of their career.

They conversed and told me to stay available for 20 days. Vinnie was a friend of Pauls' and Paul told me he felt loyalty towards him but that they wanted to consider me. After I received a call from Paul thanking me, 20 days later.

It sounds like John was one of the guitarists that Gene and Paul seriously considered for the band but like all the rest, they must have found some tiny point to their dislike or thought there might be someone slightly more perfect out there.

After the audition, John moved back to Hollywood to do more session work. Around this time he met his wife, Jeanie. In 1983 he joined the US Army because "they sent me to all the music schools and Jazz schools to develop my craft". John stayed in the army for thirty years of service, retiring in 2013. During this time he played in the Army Ground Forces Rock Band, Loose Canons.

John is too modest to tell me himself but I Googled his musical career in the military and found that the Canadian Royal City Music Project described him as having, "served as developer of a contemporary guitar curriculum for the Armed Forces School of Music for which he received an award from his Commandant. John has a BA in Music from Thomas Edison State and has completed his advanced guitar performance education at the Armed Forces School of Music in Virginia."

Information for the above from here.

Way to go, John!

SPENCER SERCOMBE


Spencer Sercombe is best known as the guitarist for LA rockers Shark Island although he also played with Michael Schenker's band for a while, appearing on MTV Unplugged and in former Black Sabbath drummer, Bill Ward's solo band on the 'When the Bough Breaks' album. The online rumour mill had Spencer listed as one of the auditionees for KISS so I went looking for him.

Spencer wasn't so easy to track down online but luckily his son Jonas, put me in touch with his Dad. So eventually I got to ask Spencer how he'd got to audition for KISS?

I worked for B.C. Rich Guitar company in the early 80's and that's where I first met Paul Stanley. He had acquired several B.C. Rich instruments which we serviced for him. He had a favourite Eagle guitar which was painted in a leopard print and liked it so much that he wanted a second one just like it. I ended up being his liaison there and worked closely with him in recreating that instrument.


Spencer continued; I can't remember where exactly I heard about the auditions but being in regular contact with Paul at the time I simply asked him. He gave me some contact information for whoever was organizing things and I sent in my bio and demo and was granted an audition.

I asked Spencer if he remembered when and where the audition took place?

I'm no longer sure about the time though it must have been late 1981 or in 1982. The place was SIR Studios in Hollywood. It was a huge rehearsal room with a drum riser and though I don't recall the amp set-ups for Paul and Gene, I will never forget the rig that I was given. They had a little Mesa Boogie amp on a chair with a mic in front of it and a ridiculously huge boom mic stand with a mic for my expected backing vocals under a spotlight whose placement dictated the area in which I should stand. It was intimidating and monumental.

I was told before hand that I should prepare Strutter, Black Diamond and Firehouse. Upon my arrival I was greeted by Paul who was, as always whenever I have seen him, a very warm and friendly person. After a bit of small talk he lead me over to the stage area and I think I was briefly introduced to the drummer who then disappeared behind his kit and I had no further contact with him.

Gene said, "Hello Spencer, nice to meet you. My name is Gene. There is a tuner over there. If you would please, go over there and tune your guitar".

As I was unpacking I couldn't help myself and said something stupid like, "Hey Gene, what's going on with Ace anyway?".

Gene said, "There is a tuner over there. If you would please, go over there and tune your guitar."

I said something like, "Yeah, that's a good idea, I'll just go and do that".

After tuning we took our positions and got plugged in and then Gene said, "OK, Hotter Than Hell, ready? One, two, three..."

"Stop!" I said. Gene looked at me as if he had just noticed me for the first time.

"I was told to prepare Strutter, Black Diamond and Firehouse," I said.

"Oh, I see," said Gene. Then let's do Firehouse. One, two, three, four". Me and Paul started the riff. It was awesome. Then came the "Woo-hoo yeah!". I nailed the harmony. Paul smiled at me. We where doing it. It was f'king great! I was in KISS! I nailed the solo. It was over too soon.

Paul said to Gene, "He even moves a little like Ace!"

Gene said "Black Diamond!". I nailed that one too. Then Strutter. I started to imagine my new make up and stage name.

Gene said, "Let's go over and sit down for a minute and have a talk".

I said, "Hey Gene, I'm just getting warmed up! Let's play Hotter Than Hell!".

Gene said, "Let's go over and sit down for a minute and have a talk".

I said, "Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's go and do that."

My band The Sharks had just released an independent record and I had sent that along in my promo pack. Gene said "This looks nice, nice image and packaging."

"What do you think of the music?" I asked.

"Unfortunately," said Gene "I don't currently own a turntable so I was unable to listen to it. Perhaps at some future point in time." Looking back, I wasn't quite ripe as a person or a player. Big ego. I think I annoyed Gene. I didn't hear back from anyone about the audition.

Some months later I hand delivered a guitar to Paul at SIR that we had worked on for him. He was as friendly and gracious as always. I saw Gene and asked if he had listened to our record yet.

"As you may recall Spencer" he said "I told you before that I don't currently own a turntable."

I (unfortunately) said to Paul " Hey man, you guys are doing pretty good. Maybe you could get Gene a turntable for his birthday or Christmas or something?". Paul laughed. Gene did not.

While we were speaking, I couldn't help but notice a guitarist warming up in the next room. He was dressed in street clothes but was wearing some silver boots with conspicuously high platform soles...

Nearly ten years later I was recording a song with my band Shark Island for the soundtrack of the film 'Point Break'. I think it was at Sunset Sound. We were overdubbing in Studio B and whoever was in Studio A was making some big nasty rumbling bass sounds in there.

Later I was in the lounge and in walked Gene Simmons. I commented on the bass sounds I had heard through the walls and he told me he was pushing his bass hard through some Marshall guitar amps for a particularly devastating tone. We chatted cordially and joked around for a bit and then I asked him if he remembered me. No, he said, he was sorry but he did not. I mentioned the audition and the guitar company. No, sorry, no recollection.

"No problem," I said, "That was a long time ago".

A moment later in walks Paul and Gene says to him, "Paul, do you recognize this young man?"

Paul says "Sure, that's Spencer from the Sharks and B.C. Rich. He auditioned for the band back in the early eighties. How have you been, Spencer? What have you been up to?


I asked Spencer the same question that Paul Stanley had, how has he been and what is he up to nowadays?

I am currently living in Germany with my family and do a great deal of teaching and a little bit of live playing and studio work. My band Shark Island occasionally gets together for a project, but we are scattered over three continents which makes this logistically difficult. I have had the great fortune to have been able to make music with some of my musical heroes including Michael Schenker and Bill Ward as well as many other outstanding musicians who are less known but just as worthy.

STEVE FARRIS

Remember that in Part 1 of this article we mentioned that Steve Farris of later Mr Mister fame is known to have played the guitar solo on the title track of the 'Creatures of the Night' record?

Initially I had assumed that he was another session guy like Bob Kulick or Robben Ford who did some recording on the album but wasn't considered or auditioned for the full time job. Then in Paul Stanley's autobiography 'Face the Music', he confirms that Steve played in the studio, says that Eddie Van Halen heard Steve's work and praised it highly but Paul also alludes to the fact that Steve had actually auditioned with the band.

Clearly there was more to this story than I'd first thought, so now it was time to track Steve down and find out what really happened and also while we're at it, find out what's it like to record a guitar solo for KISS. It turned out that Steve was very helpful. I started off by saying that although it has long been known that he played the Creatures of the Night solo, I wondered how did it had come about?

Chris, Interesting. And thanks for your interest. Amazing that you say it's long been known. Obviously in the original time it was kind of kept under wraps. But I knew it was out of the bag when I was playing guitar in Whitesnake (in 1997) and in Japan I was being asked to autograph KISS albums.

In any event, particularly to those in my life that have nothing to do with the music business, that event has been a story I have told for 33 years. And it's sort of long and drawn out...

Funnily enough, I like long and drawn out KISS stories. So, I let Steve go on:

It was 1982. June, I believe. I was playing with an original band called the Mambo Jets. The three other members were from the band Poco of all things. But we were doing a lot of stuff that featured me and my stereo rim, Jim Kelly and Dumble amps, Rivera mod CE-1 Chorus pedal, a Goodrich Volume pedal, and my custom made Valley Arts guitar with the old original style Floyd Rose. I did long solos in that band.

When I got done with my set one night, a guy walked up to me in the back of the Blue Lagoon Saloon in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles and asked if I would be interested in auditioning for KISS. Eating Campbell's soup everyday and driving a Volkswagen Rabbit that I had to to push and then jump in to pop the clutch every time I started it, I thought, why in the world would I not want to audition for KISS?

So he gave me a number on a napkin (typical networking method of the day) and told me to call it. They were handling the auditions. I called and a girl told me to put together a tape of my playing and bring it to an office on Sunset Bvld, somewhere near Gower in Hollywood.

At that time I had not yet played on an actual record, just demos. So I took this demo tape down to the office where this girl/assistant sat and listened to it while I was there, and looked completely unimpressed. I went back to the house I was renting in Van Nuys with two other starving musicians and thought nothing more about it.

Two weeks later I get a call and the voice on the other end says, "Is this Steve Farris? Steve, this is Paul Stanley of KISS. Gene and I listened to your tape last night and we really like it. We're having people come down to the Record Plant and having them play on a new record as kind of an audition. Could you come down tomorrow about 2pm?".

The next day I went down there as requested. As I walk down the hall, I see Luther Vandross talking on a pay phone in the hall, Tom Petty comes out of one room and back into another, and when I get to Studio D I look through the sliding glass doors at a couple tall New York looking dudes with jet black hair, another shaved-headed guy playing a guitar, and one more sort of serious guy sitting behind the console. Mind you nobody in those days, including me, had ever seen Gene Simmons or Paul Stanley without make up and I first played their songs in a band I was in in Nebraska; opening a set with 'Strutter'. But there they were!

I walked in and introduced myself. They were very polite. They thanked me for coming down, and asked if I could wait in the hallway while they continued to work with this other guy for a while. Anyway, I waited for over three hours while he was doing his thing. Then they introduced him to me as he was leaving. Nice guy... he was Bob Kulick!

I went into the control room with my Valley Arts Strat, my modified chorus pedal and the Goodrich volume, uncased my guitar and started tuning. Paul handed me a chord that lead out to a Marshall in the recording room. I plugged in my little rig.

Paul told me, "It's in G, 8 bars, I'll roll you up to the bridge just before and count you in."

I was working hard in those days to become a studio musician or hired gun and I valued being able to do things quickly and impressively... at least that was the goal. I did a take.

Looking fairly pleased, they said, "Give him another track". They rolled the tape back up and I did a second take. I starting by doing this harmonic thing I used to do, then swelling the volume pedal while palming my Floyd down to nothing, with the strings laying loose on the guitar, before coming back into the downbeat of the solo.

At the end of the sustaining last note, they stopped the tape and said very excitedly, "Will you die your hair black?"

v I said, "Sure".

They asked, "Can you were high heels?".

I said, "I'll give it a try".

They said, "Don't cut your hair... Don't change anything... Let's meet again on Monday... You're f'king great!!!", or something to that effect.

And I remember the engineer (who turned out to be Michael James Jackson, their producer), looked up at me from his seat nodding his head slowly up and down and said, "You're happening Man!"

And to this day, that second take of that audition is the solo that exists on the song, 'Creatures of the Night', album of the same title. It is still one of my favourite studio moments and in fact, that solo is the very first thing I ever played on an actual record.

So it looked for a minute like was going to succeed Ace as KISS' lead guitarist, to the point of them setting up for a live rehearsal at SIR in Hollywood. The day before the rehearsal, I had been down at the studio working with them again and had an interesting moment when Gene asked me if I could give him a ride to where he was staying.

Diana Ross (whose record I would play on years later) being his girlfriend, I shuttled Gene in my Rabbit to her very large house in Beverly Hills. I ended up crashing in the guest room rather than drive back to Van Nuys only to get up and come back to the rehearsal. At her house I got to see some of the KISS boots gene had just had shipped to him... dinosaur/dragon type.

The next day at the rehearsal, they ask me to sing. I said, "I don't sing!" Shit...

After some prodding and a realization that if I didn't sing for them, I wouldn't get the gig but if I did sing, I might get lucky and have a chance to get the gig I sang, obviously. So I have the dubious distinction of having played 'Honky Tonk Woman' with KISS, with me singing lead vocal. And if I could have a video of anything, it would be that!

Needless to say, I didn't hear from them again until one day about two weeks later. I got a call from Paul saying, "We don't think you're the right guy for the band, but we love your playing and want to keep hiring you to do sessions".

And so it was. I went down and did some sessions for them. But almost simultaneously, I got a gig to go on the road with Eddie Money. On one Saturday I remember having to leave the studio from working with KISS to catch a plane to Casper, Wyoming, starting the 'No Control' tour with Eddie, 'Shakin' and all that shit.

Years later, I ran into Paul Stanley who was a presenter on the American Music Awards while we were performing 'Kyrie' with Mr. Mister. He came up to me like we were long lost brothers and told me he and Gene had been watching my career take off and were so happy, etc. I was surprised but was very grateful. After that, he and I even hung out a few times socially like heading down to an elite club called Helena's in Silver Lake, having dinner and chasing girls.

And over the years I have run into those guys in studios etc. and not only are they always great to me, they still like to tell me the story about playing that solo for Eddie Van Halen.

And perhaps one of my favourite KISS moments of oddity I guess, was when I was working with Dolly Parton at Record One in Sherman Oaks and they were in the same studio working with Bob Ezrin. I had meet Bob previously through other circumstances, so we were all having a chat. But then they asked me for an introduction to Dolly. Dolly, gracious as she is, comes down the hall with me were I am then introducing Dolly Parton to Gene and Paul and Bob. Life is crazy!

Steve Farris of course went on to success with Mr Mister including two US number one hit singles ('Kyrie' and 'Broken Wings') and a number one album ('Welcome to the Real World'). As session player he has since played in the studio for Tori Amos, Dolly Parton, Belinda Carlisle and Diana Ross and on tour with Whitesnake in 1997. These days Farris splits his time between his music and his passion for bird hunting. He has developed four waterfowl hunting clubs in his native Nebraska.

STEVE HUNTER


Also in Paul Stanley's book 'Face the Music' he says that Steve Hunter, known for his work with Lou Reed and Alice Cooper tried out for KISS in 1982. I didn't manage to contact Steve for Part 1 of this article but recently his wife, Karen kindly replied to me on the subject:

Steve was never invited to audition for KISS and he is not sure the make up would have suited his complexion!

That made me laugh! So it appears on that occasion Paul Stanley perhaps remembered wrongly.

ROGER ROMEO


Roger Romeo is best known as the guitarist in the American 70s rock band, Legs Diamond. Rumours on the internet also implicated Roger in the KISS auditions, so I tracked him down and asked if those rumours were true. Roger was good enough to reply to me:

Yes, it is true I did audition for KISS in the early 80's!

Gene was a friend of Legs Diamond. We had opened shows for them so I knew all of them. Gene actually wanted to manage our band and they wanted to record one of our songs but we wanted to keep it for our album... bad choice! The song was 'Satin Peacock' off our first LP. Gene and I kept in touch after I left the band in 1980. The audition was presented to me not as a KISS audition but that Gene was doing a solo project and he wanted to jam.

Unfortunately, since I didn't know it was a KISS audition, I didn't learn any KISS songs so we just jammed. I actually don't remember what we jammed on but it was the full band at the time with Gene and Paul and Eric Carr on drums. They were super nice to me.

They actually chose the next guy that auditioned after me. Vinnie was right outside the door when I came out. I had met him before hanging out around town. I think Vinnie got it because he was a pretty crazy showman at the time, possibly too much for them eventually.

I've always wished I would have know it was KISS prior to the jam so I would have been more prepared. If they would have chosen me I'm sure I'd still be in the band!"

Roger and Michael Prince are currently working on the 40th Anniversary Legs Diamond CD and hope to have it out this summer. Roger also plays and sings in an excellent new bluesy rock band, called the Funkin Maniacs.


TOMMY LAFFERTY


I found another internet rumour saying Tommy Lafferty (known for his work with Crown of Thorns and From The Fire) was one of the guys who auditioned so I got in touch with him. Tommy was very kind in answering me straight away when I tracked him down and asked if the rumour was based on fact.

"Yes it's true," he said, "and a good story for sure."

More good guitarist stories? Yes, please Tommy,

So, I was living in Westchester County in NY at the time Circa 1982-83, I received a phone call from an assistant at an attorney's office asking if I would be available for a phone call regarding an audition, I said yes, hung up and waited by the phone.

The phone rang again and a different person asked if I could be at S.I.R. studios in Manhattan at 10:30am the next day and I said sure, I asked what band it was, they were unable to comment. After that I received a few other calls alerting me that the audition was for Kiss. The phone rang again, this time it was an attorney explaining the pay structure and that a new Mercedes would also be included as well as their percentage of my salary.

I asked if the audition was for Kiss, their answer? "I cannot confirm or deny the question". The reason (for the secrecy) being was that they did not want any leaks and cause a ruckus down on 52nd Street and flood S.I.R. with a crowd. They told me that they would call me back with the song list.

The next phone call gave me the song list, 'Calling Dr. Love', 'Detroit Rock City' and so on. So I said, it is Kiss then, their answer, "I cannot confirm or deny".

So, I stayed up late learning my parts and showed up at S.I.R. around 10am. They didn't do a very good job keeping it a secret because 52nd street was packed with fans.

I entered the room and there was Gene and Paul, with no makeup. We talked a bit and I plugged in my Gibson Explorer to the massive Marshall stacks and turned them up to 11, this was a really loud audition. We ran the songs and it was super fun, surreal!

Suddenly Paul went into 'Heartbreaker' by Zeppelin. I joined in and it was loud, rocking and good! When it came to the guitar break everyone just stopped and watched me, no pressure...it was really fun, as I like this kind of action.

After we finished Gene asked what I was doing that night and if I wanted to come with them to see Van Halen at Madison Square Garden, "Uh...," I said "Yes!".

At 6pm a Black Limousine appeared in front of my apartment at 26 Carmine Street in the West Village. We arrived at the Garden and had a blast, great show. Back stage it was quite the scene, I got to meet Eddie of course and David who as a really fun guy. I remember Billy Squire being there as well.

This was when Van Halen had their midget security guards whose basic function was to hold a bottle of Jack Daniels and when you needed a swig you would lift them up and they would pour it down your throat. It didn't take very long and then I was assigned my very own small security guard.

I didn't get the gig but we all became friends after that and that in itself was very cool. I heard through a third party that they liked me a lot.

At the time I was playing with Jean Beauvoir in a power trio called BovWar. We later went on to record and tour as Jean Beauvoir. In the late 80's I helped to form Voodoo X and recorded The Awakening Part I, (with Paul Stanley co-writing and singing backing vocals on 'A Lover Like You'). After that I helped to form the band From the Fire and recorded Thirty Days and Dirty Nights.

Eventually I ended up in Crown of Thorns with Jean but now have resurrected From the Fire as well and we are currently in the studio recording our third album that should be out around the end of the year. We are also editing a show we played in New York to be released as a DVD and a live album.

You can check out some of Tommy rocking with From The Fire playing 'Same Song' here:

JACK STARR


Back in the 1980s Mike Varney ran the Shrapnel record label that was responsible for unleashing a whole generation of guitar heroes onto the scene including Yngwie J Malmsteen, Vinnie Moore and Tony MacAlpine.

KISS called Mike for advice about a possible new guitarist and one of the guitarists that Mike recommended (along with Yngwie and Michael Angelo) was Jack Starr from the band Virgin Steele that had appeared on a compilation album on Shrapnel Records called 'U.S. Metal Volume 2'.

So I rang Jack to get the full story. He told me that KISS had called and asked him if he was interested in auditioning but first they'd like to see him play live if he had any upcoming shows in the area. As it happened he had a show coming up at a club called Cheers in Long Island, New York. So Gene Simmons and Eric Carr arrived in Eric's Porsche to see him play.

I knew Eric previously, before he was in KISS which was kind of cool. I thought I played well that night, I had a Dean Flying V, a Marshall 100 watt head. I was getting a killer sound.

Jack told me that after the show Gene said to him:

You played great but KISS is more than a band, we're an extravaganza. You don't fit the part." He towered over me, I felt like one of the little people. "You played great but you don't fit the image." I was overweight at the time which did not help. We spent a long time talking about music, about bands like Blue Cheer and so on.

I asked Gene what he thought of this band the Music Machine and Gene said he thought they were great and seemed to agree with my assertion that they may have been the very first heavy metal band I told Gene that what I thought was amazing about this band was that thought they came out in the hippy flower power days, they wore all black and even dyed their hair black and sang about non hippie subjects like alienation and the dark side of life.

Gene seemed to agree but I did not push the subject because I suspect that this band the Music Machine which was only a footnote in the history of rock had a profound effect on the making of KISS at least from Gene's perspective.

I'd never heard of the Music Machine before but when I had a look online I kind of saw what Jack meant. All us old school KISS fans know that KISS were influenced in their music and image by other bands of the era but this was one that I'd personally not heard at the time.

Then Gene said an interesting thing to me. "To be a great metal musician you have to be a fan as well. I'm just a regular guy who got lucky. Gene told me, "Next week we're seeing Steve Mironovich from the band Cities".

I knew Steve and said "If you don't take me you gotta take Steve!" I think I would have added a neo-classical side to KISS, a little progressive. I think we could have gone a little more like Dio or Queensrÿche. But I guess when you have a formula that works like KISS...

My experience was a good one, who knows what would have happened if I had been in KISS but I'm happy where I am in life these days still making better and better music.

Indeed he is. Here's Jack Starr's Burning Starr performing 'Sands of Time' live at the Keep It True Festival in Germany, 2013.

STEVE IRONS


So clearly my next task was to find this Steve Mironovich. Jack told me he looked like Randy Rhoads and that he played in the band Cities in NYC. Cities was the band that the late, great AJ Pero had played with prior to joining Twisted Sister.

Steve wasn't so easy to find until I discovered that he now works under the name of Steve Irons and currently teaches guitar in NYC and plays in his new band Circle of Thorns. I messaged him and asked if he was the Randy Rhoads lookalike that Jack had described?

Haha, yeah I guess I did look like Randy from a far distance! Wow, Jack Starr and Virgin Steele... Yes he was a very nice guy. We did some shows together when I was in Cities. We were playing theatres and clubs back then.

I asked him about his shot at being in KISS and found there was something unique and unfair about Steve's story. Everyone else who Gene and Paul showed and interest in or auditioned had failed on their own terms. Either their playing, singing, height, age, hair colour or something they said had let them down.

In Steve's case he didn't get the job because someone else messed up his chance before he even knew it was there. Steve was gracious enough not to mention the name of the particular individual but he appears to have been the kind of scum that gave the music industry such a bad name back in the old school days.

So anyway, Steve what happened with the KISS job?

I haven't though about that in quite a while but I remember it like it was yesterday it was a pretty big event for me. I was just seventeen years old, I was in Cities and we were doing really well early on. We got a following very quickly and played L'Amours really regularly; we were kind of like the house band.

I remember our manager telling us he got us an audition to play for Gene and Paul, that they were looking for a warm up band to take out with them. I wasn't actually aware that they were auditioning guitar players, I had no idea and I'm pretty sure the manager didn't either at that point. We simply thought we were being auditioned to be taken out on tour.

Gene and Paul set up time in SIR in Manhattan. That's a really big beautiful studio where bands like KISS and Judas Priest would go and rehearse when they were in town, the stage was like the size of Madison Square Garden so they could work their show out. So that was pretty epic alone.

That was at the time when KISS hadn't taken their make up off yet. I was a huge KISS fan till I was about sixteen and this was pretty fresh after that so this was a pretty huge deal. You know, we were getting to meet KISS! We were assuming they were going to come with no make up, which was epicly huge in itself. In my opinion, they probably should have never taken it off and could have kept that mystique.

So we got to the studio, waited around a while and Gene came in and he talked to us about half an hour, telling jokes, talking about all kinds of stuff, all the KISS history and how the band started. I remember I told him I wrote Ace Frehley a letter when I was fourteen, to ask if he could send me one of his Les Paul's rather than smashing at one of the shows, if he could send me a broken guitar to fix. He got a kick out of that.

On a side note, a funny thing. I'm not a small guy, I mean, I'm 5' 9" but when Gene came in he was a big guy and he had these six inch heels on, he just looked huge, he towered over all of us. I just looked up at him and it just came out and I was like "You're f'king huge!" and he was laughing and he looks down at me and says "You're f'king little!". So this went on for about half an hour, joking about.

And Paul Stanley came in about half an hour later, and then the two of them were like stand up comics, really nice guys, telling jokes and the whole time we were all like, "Wow, we're getting to see them without make up!". So after a good amount of time, we went and did three songs for them. There's actually a recording of this audition that the singer Ronnie Angel did, he's probably still got it.

But it was really cool because after we were done, Gene made a B-line right up to the stage and he came right up to me and he said "You know Steve, you look f'king huge to me right now" and man, I felt so good! That was pretty epic for me.

A week or so went by and we didn't hear anything that I knew of. Now remember I was seventeen and Cities was signed to this manager, we had a contract with him and apparently that's when the manager got hold of us and let us know. He told us "Listen, KISS wanted Steve in the band. They wanted him to dye his hair dark and put him on extra heels to bring him up to their height- they had it all worked out."

And that M-F'ker turned them down!

He was trying to get them to buy out the contract for an insane amount of money. He didn't want to break up Cities. He figured if Gene and Paul wanted me that he had a commodity there that he wasn't looking to part ways with.

So I was furious, I was insane. It was too late at that point, they had already gotten Vinnie Vincent. Yeah, I was furious. The guys in the band said they were really pissed too because I could have played with KISS a while and come back and their minds I could have still been in Cities and it would have helped the band out as well. So we were furious! That was a ballsy move, not to let us know.

So KISS found out what happened, they didn't have any idea that I didn't know about any of this, and they met with us and they felt really bad and being gentlemen I guess they...there wasn't much they could do about getting me in the band but they did try to help me and Cities out.

They didn't dig Ronnie's lead vocals, he was playing rhythm guitar and singing, so they wanted us to get a different lead singer and have Ronnie play rhythm guitar. They said they had a singer in mind called Outlaw Alan and we should audition him. It was cool, we probably met with them another three or four times. We'd go and meet them up in the office.

The first singer, he was really flaky to say the least. We did one rehearsal with him and it didn't go real well. And we'd go back up to them and we'd meet Chris Lendt, their road manager at the time, then we'd go up and meet them. I remember going up and meeting Eric Carr, nicest dude you ever met, he was always so happy, always in a great mood always real positive, just a really nice guy. This went on for the course of a year but none of the singers really panned out and after a while we just slowly lost contact. I guess it didn't go the way Gene was looking for it to go. I wish it had gone another way but that's just not how it worked.

Yeah, that manager, needless to say we fired him and he used to come to the shows and actually try to picket the shows and stop people from coming in. I remember him being outside L'Amours with a picket sign, because we fired him and that was apparently against the contract. He tried taking actions against us but I guess there wasn't really anything he could do.

But yeah, he really F'ed up. He totally f'ed me up. Live and learn, man.

Steve is currently teaching guitar in New York and fronting his new band Circle of Thorns. See www.circleofthorns.com.

BRUCE KULICK


Now here's one of the bigger surprises on this list of guitarists. Bruce Kulick, who joined KISS in 1984 had been rumoured to have auditioned for them in 1982 and was not chosen for the job at the time. Back then Bruce was playing in the Good Rats (with Joe Nevolo who had auditioned as drummer for KISS two years previously) but was recommended for the gig by his brother Bob who was playing guitar for KISS in the studio around that time.

This sounded like an odd rumour so I got in touch with Bruce and asked him if it was true. He told me:

Yes, I was part of the cattle call of guitar players!

They were super loud, I mistakenly took a Boogie head I liked from my Blackjack days with Bolton, and I don't think I was my best. I couldn't hear myself! I was sporting a full BK moustache at the time, and was quite shy.

Gene said, "Great vibrato," but honestly I knew it wasn't to be.

Of course KISSTORY happened in 1984 when a no facial hair BK did a session for Paul for 'Animalize', and he instinctually told me NOT to cut my hair. I filled in for Mark (St.John), and it became the beginning of my amazing 12 year journey as the KISS guitarist.

The irony here is that Bruce Kulick turned out to be a much better fit for the band musically and personality-wise in the long run. Bruce is an awesome player, he had the height, the image, mutual friends and similar backgrounds. I think this says more about Gene and Paul's indecisive nature in 1982 rather than any weakness on Bruce's part.

Here's some KISS with Bruce Kulick to enjoy:


Incidentally, Bruce also confirmed to one of our spies that Joey Hunting mentioned in Part 1 of this article (later of Mr President and the twin brother of Union bassist, James Hunting) was another guitarist who auditioned for KISS in 1982.

More recently Bruce has released an album of seven songs by his first band KKB, recorded back in 1974. Bruce describes it as:

Three young men pouring their hearts out making music, never concerned about anything but the music. That was the intention. It was pure, it was real. And now it's available for all to enjoy.

For more details and to order the KKB CD go to http://www.kulick.net/kkb/

VINNIE VINCENT


So now having considered everyone from Yngwie Malmsteen to Richie Sambora, Steve Farris to Bruce Kulick, Gene and Paul ended up choosing the guy they didn't like right at the beginning of all this. In Paul Stanley's book 'Face The Music' he says of Vinnie that: "He seemed somehow wrong but we were between a rock and a hard place."

And thus it came to be that Vinnie Cusano joined the band in time for the opening of the 'Creatures of the Night' tour. Gene renamed him as, Vinnie Vincent and Paul designed his onstage character as the Egyptian Warrior.

I personally loved the music Vinnie made with KISS but soon disputes between Vinnie and the rest of the band led KISS to fire him in just over a year later and start the search for a guitarist all over again.


-------------------------------

At the end of that marathon search, we have concluded that the following guitarists did audition live with the band to potentially replace Ace Frehley in 1982 (in no particular order):

1. Vinnie Cusano
2. Doug Aldrich
3. John Verner
4. Tommy Lafferty
5. Adam Bomb
6. Michael Angelo
7. Robbin Crosby
8. Bruce Kulick
9. Joey Hunting
10. Richie Sambora
11. Punky Meadows
12. Steve Farris
13. Marq Torien
14. Roger Romeo
15. Spencer Sercombe

In addition, I have strong suspicions (but no confirmation) that Joe Shikany and Donnie Dacus also auditioned.

And we now know that Gene and Paul considered the following enough to check out as potentials but did not go as far as to audition them in a live rehearsal:

1. Slash
2. Yngwie J Malmsteen
3. Roger Fischer
4. Michael Ray
5. Jack Starr
6. Steve Irons

There may still be many more to add to the lists of those who auditioned or were considered. Please let us know via the MetalTalk contact page if you know of any more guitarists that auditioned for KISS.

We can also conclude that the rumours of the following auditioning for KISS are not true:

1. Bob Kulick
2. Eddie Van Halen
3. Robben Ford
4. Howard Leese
5. Keith Scott
6. Steve Hunter
7. Mick Mars
8. Ross the Boss

In addition we've learned such useful KISS trivia as:


1. Paul Stanley personally rang most of the guitarists himself.


2. Gene Simmons did not own a record turntable in 1982.


3. Bruce Kulick used Mesa Boogie heads in Blackjack before joining KISS.


4. In the 1970s KISS considered doing a cover version of Legs Diamond's 'Satin Peacock'.


5. Gene and Paul are Dolly Parton fans.


6. The band Music Machine may have been an early influence on KISS as the darker side of the Beatles.


7. The type of volume pedal used by Steve Farris on the intro of the 'Creatures of the Night' guitar solo was made by Goodrich effects.


8. Gene's dragon boots used on the 'Creatures of the Night' tour were delivered to him at Diana Ross's address.


9. Vinnie Vincent rehearsed with KISS for the 'Creatures of the Night' tour in his street clothes but wearing stack heeled boots, presumably to acclimatise himself to the altitude.


10. No other band in the world has fans so dedicated that they would still be reading number ten in this list of incredibly trivial trivia. Well done, KISS ARMY!

SOURCES AND THANKS

All the sources for this article were personal interviews by Chris Dale with the guitarists in 2015/16. Thanks very much to John Verner, Jonas and Spencer Sercombe, Steve Farris, Karen and Steve Hunter, Roger Romeo, Tommy Lafferty, Jack Starr, Steve Irons, Bruce Kulick, for taking the time to share their stories with us.

A big thanks is also due to Richard Buffet who had looked into this topic before and so was able to give me some great clues about where to begin my searches.

25.03.16

Une photo qui doit dater de cette période, je ne sais pas si Ace était toujours dans le groupe, ce qui est sur vu la taille des cheveux d'Ace, c'est que Peter n'y était plus.

Une lettre de Gene Simmons adressée à Stan Lee datant de 82.

ITW avec Vinnie de 82, fraîchement intronisé

Creatures of the Night "est le 10e album studio de KISS. Il est sorti le 13 octobre 1982. Joyeux 38e anniversaire!

La grosse ambiance, quoi...