Destroyer

LP] KISS - Destroyer (1976)de LBM le 02 Fév 2006, 10:25

Ok Gene Simmons est un trou du cul, ok Kiss est devenu une machine à fric, un Barnum, une entreprise plus qu’un groupe suant le rock’n’roll, oui c’est un scandale de voir Tommy Thayer et Eric Singer porter le maquillage de Ace Frelhey et Peter Criss (alors que Vinnie Vincent et Eric Carr avaient leur propre personnalité masquée), oui les tournées d’adieu qui n’en finissent pas à la longue.. ça fait long, oui le cercueil « Kiss » c’est de mauvais goût… mais avant tout ce foutoir ridicule il y avait de supers albums, du rock’n’roll, et l’envie de bouffer tout le monde ! !
Acheté au départ pour sa magnifique pochette signée Ken Kelly, auteur également de « Love Gun », cet album est devenu un de mes préférés dans la discographie du quatuor. A l’époque Stanley et Simmons composaient encore de sacrés titres, avec des refrains, des mélodies, le père Frelhey balancaient ses solos, et hop ! le tour était joué, que du bonheur ! Voyez plutôt : « Detroit rock city », « King of the night time world », « God of thunder », « Great expectations » (avec son chœur prépubère, 25 ans avant les « choristes »), « Flaming youth », « Shout it out loud » « Beth » « Do you love me ? »...
C’est pas beau ça ? C’est pas du rock’n’roll ? Ca vaut pas une 5/5 un album comme ça ? ?
Ben non ! ! Parce que moi la chanson « Beth » je la trouve horripilante, insupportable, mielleuse, mièvre, débile.. et une chanson d’amour interprétée par un mec en moule-burnes avec des platform-boots, maquillé en chat.. hum hum… ça fait un peu trop « starmania » ou « cats ».. Je n’adhère pas.
Mais bon, c’est plus pour me moquer, parce que je n’aime pas les ballades.
Si vous pensez que KISS c’est seulement « Psycho circus » et la rubrique « merchandising » de leur site web, jetez une oreille sur cet album, un pur concentré de tubes rock’n’roll !

4/5 (à cause de Beth)

Ah je suis bien d'accord.

Et oui

Album trop cool c'est vrai, 4 grands classiques en un album c'est fort ! Super pochette, super titres ... 4/5 et vote pour détroit rock city ( j'ai mis 1 mois à apprendre le solo par cœur aigu et grave lol ) mais ça aurait pu être god of Thunder, qui est pour moi la chanson qui correspond le mieux a gene, ou encore shout it out loud ...  

L'album qui m'a fait plonger dans KISS avec Alive ! quand j'étais ado, un de ces albums qui viennent à toi comme ça et à l'écoute y'a un truc qui se passe, des frissons, du feeling et à chaque accord, chaque solo, chaque refrain, chaque riff, on se dit : PUTAIN ! C'est ça que je veux entendre!!! (sauf pour Beth, dont j'ai toujours trouvé  qu'elle n'avait pas sa place dans la discographie du groupe, je trouve que seule la version Unplugged est bonne).

C'est ça que j'ai ressenti à l'époque, et rien que pour ça un album INCONTOURNABLE.

Quitte à m'attirer les foudres de tout le forum, Destroyer, j'ai du mal. 1ers problèmes avec Peter et Ace, une production de Ezrin qui me laisse perplexe....
A l'écoute de cet album, je zappe systématiquement Great expectations, Flaming Youth, Sweet Pain et Beth. 3/5.

alors moi j' ai jamais pu encaisser BETH ..... par contre pour moi cet opus est l un des meilleurs ..

par contre BIS la réédition récente est tout a fais inutile limite arnaque .

DOMM a écrit:

alors moi j' ai jamais pu encaisser BETH ..... par contre pour moi cet opus est l un des meilleurs ..  

A l'époque, Beth jouait dans les radio commerciales... Une porte ouverte a la curiosité Dans les années 80s tous les groupes de metal avaient des power ballades (def Lep, Motley Crue...) Quand je dis a un jeune nomme moi une chanson de Metallica, il va dire Nothing else matters, qui est une sorte de ballade!!!

Dressed To Kill, Kiss : Troisième cru studio de Kiss, et leur album le plus court : 30 minutes seulement. Contrairement au précédent opus, le son est, ici, franchement bon. Mais il y à un peu moins de grandes chansons (il y en à quand même : Rock Bottom, She, Rock'n'Roll All Nite, Room Service). Dans l'ensemble, ce Dressed To Kill est un très très grand cru kissien de plus, avant un double live (un peu plus tard dans la même année) qui sera démentiel et reprendra le meilleur des trois premiers opus du groupe. Meilleure chanson : Rock'n'Roll All Nite.
source ROCK FEVER .

Destroyer, Kiss : Le meilleur album studio de Kiss. Production épatante de Bob Ezrin et morceaux de haute classe (God Of Thunder, Shout It Out Loud, Detroit Rock City, Beth, Great Expectations) pour un Destroyer très destructif, pochette magnifique par ailleurs. A noter, quand même, une ou deux chansons franchement pas terribles (Flaming Youth) et une intro terriblement longue pour Detroit Rock City (première de l'album), ainsi qu'une conclusion longuette après le dernier titre, qui rajoutent trois minutes inutiles à un album qui, avec ces trois minutes inutiles, atteint seulement 34 minutes. Bref, un disque trop court, dans les deux cas. Mais c'est vraiment, avec Hotter Than Hell et Kiss, le meilleur opus studio du groupe ! Meilleure chanson : God Of Thunder.
source ROCK FEVER ....

Destroyer est un album important!!! Selon les spécialistes c'est leur meilleur!!! Pour moi, aussi, je les meme vus dans un de mes reves!!! BIZARRE BIZARRE!!!  

Pour ma part, Destroyer est un album particulier dans la discographie kissienne.
Contrairement à beaucoup de fans du groupe ce n'est pas l'album que je préfère dans la première décennie de Kiss. Il y a des superbes compositions et des titres que j'adore : "Detroit rock city", "King of the night time world", "God of thunder", "Flaming youth" et "Do you love me". J'ai d'ailleurs voté pour "Flaming youth".
En revanche, il y a des titres que j'aime moins voire pas du tout. Ainsi "Beth", "Great expectation", "Sweet pain" et "Shout it out loud". De ce fait, c'est l'album que j'aime le moins des deux premières triologie du groupe.

As rock masterpiece turns 40, original lineup looks back with producer Bob Ezrin
By Kory Grow March 15, 2016


As Kiss' landmark 'Destroyer' turns 40, the original band members and producer Bob Ezrin recount how they made a rock masterpiece

When Paul Stanley thinks about Destroyer, Kiss' high-concept fourth album, turning 40, the only word he can summon at first is "unbelievable." "It's stunning," the singer-guitarist tells Rolling Stone. And then he regains his humor. "To think that it was 40 years ago is absolutely mindboggling. Because I'm only 40 now."




"It seems like yesterday," drummer Peter Criss says. "I do believe, personally, that album was Kiss's 'Stairway to Heaven.' Let me overstep my bounds [laughs]. But I do believe it was our 'wow' album."

From the opening scene-setting radio broadcast foretelling a Kiss fan's death before the anthemic "Detroit Rock City" to the album's big-beat closer, "Do You Love Me?", and impressionistic, avant-garde hidden track "Rock and Roll Party," Destroyer proved that Kiss were more than costumed headbangers. It presented a wide swath of emotions, from the moving mega-ballad "Beth," which won the People's Choice Award that year, to the boot-stomping, blood-spitting "God of Thunder" to the R&B rave-up "Shout It Out Loud," all of which became concert staples for the group. And even though the fantastical sleeve art presented the group, which also included vocalist-bassist Gene Simmons and guitarist Ace Frehley, as a jaunty foursome on a Wizard of Oz–styled journey of destruction, the songs proved they reveled in positivity. It was a turning point.

The group recorded the LP in a couple of sessions with producer Bob Ezrin, whose prior credits at that time included smash records by Alice Cooper, Lou Reed and Aerosmith. "We had done three albums, all that sold far less than what we expected," Stanley says. "Then our manager, Bill Aucoin, gave us the idea of creating a sonic souvenir, almost like something you would bring home from the circus, a memento that captured what you had experienced. That became [1975's] Alive! Finally, we'd had a hit. Bill said, 'You could easily go back to where you were if we don't come up with something that really ups the ante.' He suggested we work with Bob Ezrin."

The producer pushed the group to new heights, and helped them craft their commercial breakthrough. Although Alive! was the group's first gold record, Destroyer was its first to sell a million copies in less than a year. It's since been certified double-platinum.

To celebrate the legacy of the record, Rolling Stone spoke with Kiss' four original members, as well as Ezrin and cover illustrator Ken Kelly.

"It's a cinematic album," Stanley says. "It's an album that takes what was the norm and turns it into IMAX. The screen suddenly widened and what we were doing had such atmosphere."


Paul Stanley (vocals, guitar): I had met Bob, funny enough, in a stairwell in Toronto when we were doing a TV appearance.

Bob Ezrin (producer): It was at CITY-TV in Toronto. They were in full regalia with their seven-inch heels and their huge costumes. It was, like, a walking Mount Rushmore coming down the stairway at you. Paul was very charming and very pleasant. I just said to him, "Are you happy with your records?" And he said, "Yeah, why?" And I said, "Well, you know, if at any point you decide you're not, I would love to work with you guys."

Stanley: I was fairly cocky then, although quite honestly, I never liked the sound of our original albums, and to this day it mystifies me how the engineers and people we were working with couldn't capture the live sound.

Ezrin: I don't remember how much longer it was, maybe a year later, I got a phone call and was asked to go see the band play live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They were playing to 9,000 or 10,000 pimply 15-year-old boys, who never sat down for the whole show. It was unbelievably energetic, exciting, theatrical, powerful and just fantastic. It was pure, balls-out, testosterone rock. What was missing for me was the broader audience. So after I told them I'd do the album, the underlying mission behind the record became that we were going to try and reach out to women, as well as young men, and we were going to try to expand past just heavy rock and into the world of pop.

Gene Simmons (vocals, bass): Destroyer was ultimately a major leap forward for us because of Bob Ezrin. We were basically a garage band. We were just knuckleheads, guys who turn it up to 11 just because we can. We didn't know anything. We could barely tune our guitars. Before Destroyer, we just did what we did: We played, we wrote songs up to the level of our musicianship, and that was about it.

Ezrin: With our mission in place, we picked certain kinds of songs to do. We did a lot of the writing in New York City at Paul's place, Gene's place and my place.

Stanley: Preproduction consisted of us sitting in a circle, and Bob would say, "Who's got an interesting piece of music?" And someone would play something, and he'd say, "No," and someone else would play something. Ultimately, he would say, "I like that, who's got a piece to go with that?" Some of the songs were pieced together like that. Other times, someone might come in with a song, and Bob would fine-tune it.

Simmons: I had a song called "Mad Dog," which had the riff in "Flaming Youth." It was an old song, and he said, "OK, we need to take that riff and then we're going to write a verse and a chorus, and then that riff is going to be sort of like the 'Black Dog' riff of the song."

Stanley: It really was a glorious, exciting time, because Bob was the camp counselor, the camp director. He wore a whistle around his neck and called us campers. You have to understand that at this point we saw ourselves very much as "rock stars" and didn't take crap from anybody. But we buttoned our lips and bit our tongues with Bob. He was the voice of experience, and clearly knew more than we did. So it was boot camp of sorts.

   

Ace Frehley (guitar): Destroyer is a great record, but some of the moments in the studio were a little tough. Bob Ezrin wasn't the easiest producer to work with. And I wasn't the easiest guitar player to work with, you know?

Simmons: He literally stopped recording at one point and said, "OK, it's time to learn how to tune your instruments." We just did it by ear. We didn't know that there was a method of using harmonics and doing all that other stuff.



Peter Criss (drums, vocals on "Beth"): Immediately, I could feel he demanded respect. He glowed. I've never met a producer in my life that has his charisma and knowledge of every damn instrument. If you couldn't get the beat, he'd sit behind you and show you. He was a heavy taskmaster. No one got a break. It was one of the hardest albums I ever worked on.

Ezrin: We needed a common language. When we started, I was asking for some things and getting some blank stares from a couple of people. So I brought in a blackboard and was explaining what a quarter note was and time signatures and what keys were. It's not that they didn't know any of this stuff; they just had to be reminded.

Frehley: He actually sat us down in a classroom, and he had a pointer in his hand with his blackboard [laughs]. He was trying to explain all this stuff, and none of it made any sense to me, because I'm not a schooled musician. It's ironic, because everybody in my family plays piano and can read music. I was like the black sheep. I gravitated toward the guitar, and the rest is history.

Ezrin: Many people have asked me who the studio guys were that I used on Destroyer, and I have to say to them, they were Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. They played that well on that record. The key to this record was we really rehearsed a lot, and we really knew the material. So by the time they got to the studio, it was just about getting a great performance.        

Stanley: I certainly looked at Bob as a mentor, and he really raised the bar for us in terms of lyrics. Up until then, quite honestly, and putting this as simply as possible, we were writing "fuck me, suck me" songs. Bob wanted none of that. He wanted more of an experience of the psyche, and the mentality of youth and what we were about, as opposed to the physicality of it. He would nix lyrics, and send us back.

Ezrin: I saw them as Technicolor, larger-than-life, fantastical superheroes who happen to play amazing rock & roll. I felt like their albums just got the amazing rock & roll but didn't get all that other stuff. So the idea was to push it up to another level experience-wise.


Simmons: Bob took the point of view that the album as a whole made a statement and that all the songs somehow had to feel like part of that statement, beginning with the car starting up with voices in the background on your way to "Detroit Rock City."

Stanley: When I first wrote "Detroit Rock City," it was just an ode to Detroit as a great rock city. But then I'd heard about someone who got hit by a car and killed right out in front of an arena where we were playing down south. It really struck me. So I turned the song into a story of somebody going on a journey to a Kiss show and never making it, and the disparity of wanting to celebrate life and it ending in your demise. Then it became so much more than just a song about a rockin' city; it had a subtext. Bob really pushed us, and I think we rose to it. I will tip my hat to Bob.

Simmons: "Detroit Rock City" was a demo Paul and I had done of his song in a small, four-track recording studio. And the original song went, "I feel uptight on a Saturday night" [hums quick jazzy bass line]. There was no breathing between the verses, and Ezrin was the one who came up with the bass lick [scats song's bass], which sounded like it came from Curtis Mayfield's "Freddie's Dead" or something.

 

Frehley: Bob and Paul came up with the intro riff. I just put the icing on the cake, with my inverted rhythm guitars. If you listen to a lot of Kiss songs, I'm always playing an octave above Paul to make it thicker sounding. It seemed to work over the years.

Stanley: The arrangements on Destroyer have Bob Ezrin's fingerprints all over them. I didn't realize how much Bob had to do with Alice Cooper until we went into the studio and I started hearing a very familiar point of view and Bob sang some of the parts. He is almost the Banksy of Rock.

Frehley: I've got to give Bob Ezrin credit where credit's due. He was the one that came up with the solos that me and Paul played. He sang them to us note-for-note, and we figured it out on guitar. And I think they're genius.

Stanley: With a gun to my head, I never could've come up with a solo like he did for "Detroit Rock City," which is so thematic and so dramatic.

Simmons: When I first heard it, I went, "What's that? Flamenco music? What kind of solo is that?"

Stanley: It reminded me of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, "The Lonely Bull," almost like a trumpet solo.

Ezrin: It was very emotional and on one hand heroic and, on the other, a little mysterious and almost foreboding. I would say there's a little bit of a "Bolero" lift in the guitar solo of "Detroit Rock City." I think it was a classic Spanish folk-theme. Or maybe I just adapted a whole bunch of things that I'd heard in the past. But it just felt like the right thing to do at that place. I felt it was really powerful to have it go into harmonies like that.


Stanley: On "Detroit Rock City," he had us leave for an hour or two, and worked with Peter and taught him that drum pattern. It really was a time of learning, and I think we were all open to it.

Simmons: Peter Criss just played from feel and wasn't a studied musician. I mean, hell, none of us were. He would get very, very upset because Ezrin would stop recording and say, "You're not playing in time. This is not the verse pattern. You're doing the chorus pattern," and Criss would throw his sticks down and run out and go, "What is this shit? What is this? What is this? Music school?" And actually yeah, it was.

Criss: Each piece that Bob did was a portrait. Every song had to be up to par. Whether it was "God of Thunder" or "Detroit Rock City," each song had to be as good.

Ezrin: The idea with the special-effects intro was to create a filmic experience on the first song. It struck me that the story needed something of a setup. I didn't think we should start with a big drum fill or a slow build or any of those things you were used to hearing on rock records. So to start with a radio broadcast, and then this little playlet that introduced you to the character, and then to go into the song, it became something like a movie in a song. You hear the story, and then at the end, we get shunted back to the screen and we get to see the crash in Technicolor.  

Stanley: "Do You Love Me" is another song that Bob challenged me on. It's not a "fuck me, suck me" song on the record, but I can remember being in the studio and those were the lyrics that came — no pun intended — most readily and easily and they were immediately nixed. Bob would say, "No, not good enough. That's not what we're doing." But "Do You Love Me" is less carnal and more cerebral. It's like, "I've got all this, but do you really, do you really love me?" But at the end of the day, quite honestly back then I couldn't have cared less.

Simmons: Nirvana covered it on a Kiss tribute record that had the Melvins. I loved Nirvana's cover, but I knew that they were, as the English say, taking the piss. The truth of it is when Kurt and the guys were touring in a van, the side of it was painted with Kiss. It was part of his childhood. But clearly by the time Cobain and the band were doing this Kiss cover, they were like, "Hey, we've moved on from this." Which is great. When I heard that compilation, I decided, "OK, I'm going to do our own Kiss tribute album," which became [1994's] Kiss My Ass.



Stanley: Bob was always the final voice, the final vote. "God of Thunder" is a good example of that.

Simmons: That song began with Paul and I making fun of each other. He says to me, "All you do is write monster songs like 'God of Thunder' and stuff like that." I go, "Hey that's an idea." So he went home and wrote a song called "God of Thunder" the way I would have done it, and I said to him, "All you ever do is write girl songs like 'Christine Sixteen.'" It just came out of my mouth. And he said, "Hey, that's kind of cool." So I went home and wrote "Christine Sixteen." That didn't make it on a record or two, but "God of Thunder" was Paul writing a "Gene song" if you will.

Stanley: Gene thinks everything is done with him in mind. "God of Thunder" was the quintessential "Paul" song. It was very much a song about being the son of Apollo, being one of the gods, and I was the god of thunder and rock & roll.

Simmons: When Ezrin heard the demo, he said, "Yeah I like this, but it's not right. Gene, you're going to sing this one and we'll slow it down." And Paul was flabbergasted. He was like, "What?"


Stanley: That got handed over to Gene. I played it for everybody, and Bob said, "Oh, that's great. Gene'll sing it." If somebody could've taken a photo of my face then, I was absolutely heartbroken and stunned. But, in hindsight, he was right. Now it's Gene's most identifiable song, written by me.

Ezrin: That decision was made not based on sound, but on the fact that these guys were playing characters. To me, Paul was the band's romantic lead, if you will. So he's the guy who sings "Do You Love Me." And Gene was both the monster and also the cocksman of the band. So Gene gets to play the "God of Thunder."

   

Criss: Bob Ezrin came up with this wild idea when we were recording that song. He goes, "There's an elevator shaft, and I think we could hook the mics over it. It's empty, around three in the morning. We'll put the drums in there and you play 'God of Thunder.'" And I'm thinking, "Well, what the hell? I'm a Brooklyn guy. I'm tough. Why not?"

Ezrin: He wasn't the first person I had play in an elevator shaft [laughs]. But yes, he was there in a loading bay in the back of the Record Plant Studio A, where we did this album. There was a freight elevator back there, too. And that was very reverberant. And the drums sounded amazing back there, so I had him do the big drum break in "God of Thunder" there.

Criss: So they set it up. And I'm alone in there and it's a long hallway, and it's full of old garbage cans. All of a sudden, we're into it. I hear Bob on the headset, we're starting, and the door opens and two Mexican guys walk in. Garbage men. And they see me all dressed up, long hair, looking crazy, banging drums in the elevator [laughs]. And they flip out. And I flip out. No one knows what to do. And I keep hearing Bob, "What's the matter?" And then they said, "OK, to hell with this," as New Yorkers do, and they start moving the garbage. Bob is listening, and he hears, like, a war! He's like, "Peter!" And I'm like, "You'll never believe it! You gotta come over here, man. They're moving the garbage." We laughed and laughed and laughed I don't know how long.

Frehley: I always thought that song had a great guitar riff.

Simmons: Bob Ezrin's kids were very young at the time, and they came to the studio with ray guns and space helmets, and he let them go into the studio and ran the tape. They heard the riff, and Ezrin said, "What do you guys hear?" "Oh, Godzilla! Godzilla!" And those little sounds were the little ray guns that the kids had.

Ezrin: It started out just as a fun game for the kids when they came into the studio. I had just bought them this walkie-talkie set, where one piece was a space helmet and the other was a walkie-talkie, they could talk back and forth. I just recorded them talking while I played "God of Thunder" to them. I was telling Joshua, who was four years old, to be a monster. So he was the little growly voice — "rar rar rar" —  but then he started yelling, "What? What?" He couldn't understand what I was saying to him and he yelled out, "I don't know about monsters!" So that's in there if you listen very carefully. And David, his older brother, was nine at that time, and he got it completely. He was making the wolf noises and the gnashing of teeth and the howling in the background. I thought, "This is awesome!" I stuck a butt-load of reverb on it, and the band was great about me putting it on the track.

Simmons: "Great Expectations" started off as a song I wrote called "I Am a New Man." It went, "I am a new man, born in the ashes of ruin/Born in the meadows of lies, born in the meadows of your lies." The chordal patterns were more English and less bluesy. It was kind of ethereal. And then I saw the movie Great Expectations, which I felt was slow, but then the lyrics hit me: Gee, if you're a sad girl, and you're looking up on that stage, you watch me playing guitar and you wish you were the one I was doing it to, well you've got great expectations. I played it for Ezrin, saying, "Here's some other Beatle-esque things I do," he goes, "Yeah. I really like that. Why don't we get Kiss singing along with a symphony orchestra?" I'm going, "Wait, wait? We've never done that." So we hired the Brooklyn Boys Choir to come in.

Ezrin: One of the melodies in "Great Expectations" is a lift from Beethoven, from the Sonata Pathétique. I didn't think he'd mind. I wasn't gonna hear from his lawyer. I felt like if Beethoven were alive, he would've loved Gene Simmons. So I figured it was OK.


Simmons: When we started in Wicked Lester, we did a song that was written by, I think [Roger] Cook and [Roger] Greenaway, the guys that used to write lots of hits for English bands called "We Want to Shout It Out Loud." The Hollies had done a demo of it, and we recorded it for a Wicked Lester record that Epic signed and we subsequently bought back so they wouldn't put it out when we reformed the band and started Kiss.

Ezrin: "Shout It Out Loud" happened in my apartment on 52nd Street, with both Gene and Paul sitting beside me at my piano. We just knew that this thing was going to be huge-sounding. Having the two of them there at the same time, co-creating and defining their spots, and finding where they would be in the song, that was really exciting. It was really thrilling for me.

Simmons: I started humming, "Shout it, shout it, shout it out loud." He goes, "I like that. I like that. OK, hold on." And then we started tossing some chords and melodies around. It was written in about a half-hour.

Stanley: "Shout It Out Loud" certainly tips a hat to the Four Tops. It's a lead vocal and has vocals in the background that answer it, which was something the Four Tops did a lot of. Levi Stubbs would sing, "You're sweet, you're sweet as a honeybee" in "Same Old Song." That's really what it was patterned on. We didn't necessarily get inspired solely by the influences that you would expect. I think our love of different genres of music always found its way into what we were doing.

Criss: The drum beat on "Shout It Out Loud" came from "Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch."

Ezrin: Paul was a perfectionist. He was really, really aware of every single note and really concerned with making sure that everything was as perfect as it could possibly be. And Gene was more raw energy and swagger. So when you put that together, you get those two sides of the creative coin. You come up with a thrilling result. Which is not to say that Stanley didn't have fire. Talk about one of the greatest rock singers of all time. His voice had such high energy to it. Still does. It made my job so much easier. He just had to stand up to a mic and open his mouth and it sounded amazing.


Simmons: "Beth" came about differently than the other songs. Peter hummed a song to me in the back of a limo on our way to Flint, Michigan, of all places. The other two guys were in their own car. And Peter starts going, "Beck, I hear you calling."

Criss: I sang it at a faster tempo than I was thinking for it because I knew that we'd never do a ballad.

Simmons: And I'm going, "Beck? What is that? Is it about Jeff Beck?" "No, it's about a girl named Becky." And in the car I said, "Oh, that's fun, but why wouldn't you want to say Beth, which is simple, with a softer syllable so it doesn't stop you like Beck. Why don't you sing that to Ezrin?"

Criss: Stan Penridge was a guitarist in a band I was in called Chelsea. The lead guitarist, Michael [Brand]'s wife's name was "Beck," Rebecca. She constantly called rehearsal. It's just like, "Holy shit. Kill this girl." Stan started messing around, as a joke, "Beck, I hear you calling, Beck come home right now," and then I jumped in and added some more lyrics and we started messing with it, the two of us. And it became an inside kind of thing, about this guy's old lady. I kept it in my brain forever.

Ezrin: Peter Criss showed me "Beth" at SIR studios. It was more jaunty and had a little bit of a twang to it, almost kind of a country thing, and it was called "Beck." I took it back to my apartment and sat at my piano and came up with that little piano figure that kind of informs the song, and then started steering it down much more of a romantic, bittersweet route, so it wasn't so cocky as the original was. The original was more about "Tough luck, I'm not coming home." And we ended up with a song about feeling separation, and the melancholy that comes with a feeling of loss. That appealed to women hugely.

Criss: [Kiss manager] Bill Aucoin, rest his soul, said, "Look, put on makeup. We're going to record with the New York Philharmonic. Come down to the big, orchestrational session." It was like rock & roll Sinatra.

Ezrin: We decided to turn it into a theatrical experience and invite the press. It wasn't the whole New York Phil, but it was members. We had them all wearing tuxedo T-shirts and we had the Brooklyn Boys Choir in their formal choir-wear, and I had my whole team in tuxedos. The members of the band were in full costume. I think we called it, the "Kiss First Grand Orchestral and Choral Recording Session."

Criss: We all sat in the booth in makeup, listening to this masterpiece. Ezrin was playing the baby grand. After we were done, he said, "Peter come on out," and I come bopping out. And I get up there and the orchestra all stood up and tapped their bows and they had my heart in my balls. I was never so overwhelmed in my life.

Simmons: Before "Beth," were hardly on the radio at all. We had a medium-sized hit with "Rock and Roll All Nite,' but it wasn't until Alive! was released that it became a hit.

Criss: I never thought the song would do so well. As a drummer, songwriter-singer, coming out into the front, I'm so proud of that.


Stanley: When Destroyer came out, it stalled [at] around 860,000 copies, which today, people would give their left nut to sell, and there we were, quaking in our seven-inch heels. At that point, when you sent a single to radio, it was a 45-RPM record with two sides: You would have the side that you felt was your strong song, and the rule was to put the weakest song, the song that had no chance of ever becoming anything, on the B side. So we released "Detroit Rock City" as the A side, and said "Well, hell, let's put 'Beth' on the B side." You know, "That's a no-brainer."

Simmons: A disc jockey turned it over and people thought "Beth" was Rod Stewart or somebody and it became a major hit. It won the People's Choice awards and all that. I hasten to add it won the People's Choice Award along with "Disco Duck." I'm not making it up.

Stanley: The one least likely became a massive, massive hit, and propelled the album further.

Ezrin: I absolutely knew "Beth" would be a hit. I've heard many times that certain children were conceived to "Beth." It was, like, a big romantic hit.

Criss: I've never heard from Rebecca. I wrote about her in my book, thinking it might stir something up, but nah.

Stanley: The success of "Beth" caught us by surprise, but then again, everything caught us by surprise. We were reveling in this incredible phenomenon that we were becoming, and were taken by surprise by many aspects of it, from "Beth" to the sold out arenas to the notoriety to the women, it wasn't unlike when you pull the one-arm bandit in Vegas and all the cherries line up and suddenly money starts pouring out. Success was a geyser. It was gushing.

Ezrin: It was sex, drugs, and rock & roll all through the Seventies, so yes, there were drugs, and yes, there was sex, and yes, there was shenanigans and food fights and fire-extinguisher fights in the hallways and all sorts of boyish, crazy things, but that was a time when we thought drugs were good for you and sex couldn't kill you. So that was going on, but when you listen to the record, and you understand how much work and attention to detail had to go into that thing, you realize that we weren't that screwed up.

   

Criss: I did have a coke problem and, at the time, it was the thing. I watch that show Vinyl and, Jesus Christ, I think they stole my book. Not everybody was into it, but I did fall into it. It was fuel. Bob also didn't help the situation. He would give me coke. But it made me work harder. ... All I know is that I finished it.

Ezrin: The sessions were meant to be fun and exciting. I wanted a very high level of energy and a high level of passion and desire in everything that we did. Because you can hear it. So we would do a lot of stuff that was silly, fun or crazy, from pie fights to strange sexual escapades. There were all kinds of wonderful or crazy stuff going on in the studio at the time. That was only there to raise the energy level and set the bar. And then we would say, "OK, we're rolling." And all of that would stop and some real serious, exciting playing would happen.

Simmons: What was Ace like during the sessions for Destroyer? Drunk. He didn't play guitar on "Beth" and "Sweet Pain," which I'd written, kind of an S&M pop song. He goes, quote, "I got a card game. I can't come down to the studio and do it." The big money started to come in big and fast, and Ace was surrounding himself with all the hangers-on and the druggies and that was the beginning of the real downward spiral. He wouldn't come up for air for 35 years after that. Ace is finally, hopefully now semi-healthy, but has nothing to show for it. You reap what you shall sow. That includes Peter Criss as well.

Ezrin: We were a little bit stuck because Ace didn't show up to the session. We didn't have a huge amount of time and our budgets weren't enormous. Dick [Wagner] lived right around the corner, so I called him and he played acoustic guitar on "Beth" and lead guitar on "Sweet Pain." I think there was a little bit of anger on the part of Gene and Paul towards Ace for not showing up, and I would just get impatient because it was very important to me that we kept moving and stayed on schedule.

Frehley: Bob and I both had our substance abuse problems at the time [laughs]. But somehow, some way it all came together, like a lot of things do, despite any obstacles.

Ezrin: When I listened back to the master tapes for Destroyer: Resurrected, the "Sweet Pain" solo we replaced with Dick was because it was, in quotes, "more professional-sounding," end of quote. When I went back and listened to what Ace played, the rawness of it, and kind of truth of it, was more effective than the polished solo we got from Dick. And I was really glad to have stumbled back over it, to have been allowed to restore it so other people could hear it. I think it deserved to be heard, and I think Ace did a great job with it in hindsight.

Stanley: The vibe in the band was of excitement. The band, certainly in the beginning, was a product of our combustibility. I always maintain that fame doesn't change you. It just allows you to be the asshole you are. And certainly we were seeing glimpses of who each one of us had the ability to become [laughs]. Whether it was people not showing up or attitude adjustments being needed.

Criss: It was like the honeymoon [laughs]. There was a lot of bravado, a lot of screaming, but you've got four majorly talented guys going down sometimes the worst streak. Ez would settle it. He'd go, "This is what it's gonna be."

   

"If you don't appreciate what you have, you're going to destroy it. I think that perhaps some, more than others, lost sight of how fortunate we were." —Paul Stanley

Stanley: Fame and success is a powerful enough drug and then when you add something else to it — sycophantic friends and girlfriends and people plotting their own advancement by causing divisions and divisiveness — you have a recipe for disaster. I think each one of us certainly was guilty in our own way of exerting ourselves. Although I can't remember my own flaws in it, nobody was guiltless. Unfortunately, some people were having a harder time than others. And if you don't appreciate what you have, you're going to destroy it. I think that perhaps some, more than others, lost sight of how fortunate we were. So yeah, there were certainly glimpses of problems in the future.


Ken Kelly (Destroyer cover illustrator): I first met Kiss at their offices. They were just normal guys, talking normal. I walked upstairs and the art director, Dennis Woloch, told me exactly what he wanted: "The four of them abreast, running at you, and very intense." He wanted all four to be equal. I used a Polaroid camera and took poses of myself and put them together. The reason why the guys are the same size is because it's me.

Frehley: We had to scrap the original cover. But the cover we used was OK. It's kinda cool.

Kelly: Casablanca turned down first version I did, because they thought the band was too close to the fire and the buildings; it looked to them as though Kiss had actually set the fires. They thought that was a little too violent and they rejected it.

Stanley: Interestingly and funny, when I came up with the title Destroyer, Bob hated it because he thought it had negative overtones. Yet to me, the whole idea of a Navy destroyer is something that is forceful and keeps the peace except when necessary it will take you out. So it was a terrific experience.

Kelly: They asked me to do another one, except this time, we're going to take Kiss further away from the trouble. We're going to put them way up on a mountain, and the trouble is going to be so far behind you wouldn't know it. And if you look close, you can see burning buildings maybe a mile away behind them. It represented the complete fantasy of living gods.

Stanley: It was a terrific time and very exciting. But interestingly, when Destroyer came out, it was not embraced with the kind of fervor that we expected. We were also aware it didn't really sound like Alive! or any of our other albums. It was much more cinematic and atmospheric. On some of the songs, power chords were reinforced by grand pianos, and I think that it made people scratch their heads a bit. I would say, though, that those songs make up a large part of our live concert to this very day.

Criss: We sounded bigger. We had bigger guitars and bigger drums, finally — thank you, Jesus. It's the sound we'd always been searching for, the sound that Kiss always wanted but couldn't get.

Simmons: As I sit here talking to you today, I'm proud to say that per the RIAA, Kiss is the Number One American gold-record-award-winning group of all time in all categories. We tied the Beach Boys on the number of gold singles we have. Beach Boys and Kiss only have two gold singles apiece. Two. They had "Kokomo" and "Good Vibrations." Ours were "I Was Made for Lovin' You" and "Beth."

Frehley: Those were crazy times. Like, it's a miracle that we're still alive and kicking. I'm just thrilled that I'm healthy and happy and making great records and having fun doing it.

Stanley: Ironically, the album scared us, and ultimately we wanted to get away from it as quickly as possible. We felt that we had abandoned or diluted what we were, and our plan in reaction to it was to go back to what we had done earlier with Rock and Roll Over, which in hindsight was kind of a coward's way out. But Destroyer has aged very well, and it encapsulates so much of the mentality of Kiss, and the champion of the individual, and a sense of self-determination. Whether it's "Flaming Youth," or "Shout It Out Loud," it's an album of affirmation, and that's really what we were about and remain about to this day.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/an-oral-history-of-kiss-destroyer-its-a-miracle-were-alive-20160315#ixzz42zoiTuaH
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

By Jon Wiederhorn


One afternoon in 1975, Alice Cooper’s producer Bob Ezrin was heading up the stairs to do an interview with City TV in Toronto, Ontario at the same time as the members of KISS, who had just performed for a the program, were coming down the stairs. Ezrin introduced himself to the face-painted musicians and before walking the rest of the way up the stairs he said, “If you ever need any help, call me.” Less than three months later, KISS’ manager Bill Aucoin rang up Ezrin to ask him if he was interested in working with the band on its fourth studio album. That record, Destroyer, came out on March 14, 1976 and changed the face of KISS forever.

With the help of Ezrin, KISS were transformed from a simple, bruising rock group into a more eclectic stadium band capable of drawing a broader, but equally ravenous following. Ezrin first became interested in KISS around the time the band released Dressed to Kill on March 19, 1975.

“I saw them play at an arena in Ann Arbor, Mich. and the place was only half full, but everybody in the joint was on their feet from the time the band started until the show was over,” Ezrin told me in 2011. “The one thing I noticed from the show, aside from the fact that each and every one knew the words for every song and were all singing along, was that they were all teenage boys. There were hardly any girls in the audience. And I thought, ‘This is an opportunity. If they could just get to the girls this would be the biggest band in the world.’”

While KISS were pleased to be working with Ezrin, they were initially skeptical about altering their sound in any way, shape or form. However, after meeting with the producer during pre-production, they realized that his experience and intuition were just what they needed to go from rock stars to celebrities.

“They really wanted to be a tough, rugged band,” Ezrin said. “They liked the idea of being the bad guys and I told them, ‘Look, you can still be the bad guys, but let’s be like Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. When Brando played the leader of the motorcycle gang he was dangerous, scary, and every mother’s nightmare, yet underneath it all there was this certain sensitivity and beauty that made him attractive. Every girl in the world wanted to mother, nurture, and f— him.’ They related to that and from that point on they were pretty open to all of my ideas.”

Ezrin co-wrote seven of the nine songs on Destroyer and took control of the sessions from the start. KISS started recording basic tracks from Sept. 3 to 6, 1975, at Electric Lady Studios in New York City between the end of the Dressed to Kill tour and the beginning of the tour for Alive! They recorded the rest of the album in January 1976. Along the way, they let Ezrin man the ship. In addition to providing unconventional songwriting ideas, Ezrin graced the album with colorful embellishments. There were narrative sound effects (“Detroit Rock City”), production frills and children background vocalists (“God of Thunder”) and orchestral arrangements (“Great Expectations,” “Beth”). Also, Ezrin compelled KISS to be on their “A” game, razzing the band members when they weren’t making the grade and forcing them to repeat their parts until they nailed them. He even replaced guitarist Ace Frehley with Alice Cooper guitarist Dick Wagner for “Flaming Youth,” “Sweet Pain” and the acoustic guitars on “Beth.”

“Clearly Ace wasn’t cutting it, but really, we didn’t expect him to ride us like that,” bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons said. “But the results speak for themselves. You can’t argue with success and people know quality when they hear it.”

The opening track “Detroit Rock City” still stands out as an album highlight, not only because of its surging rhythm, abrupt guitar riffs, and chant-along vocals, but because of its 90-second-long concept rock-esque intro; the segments features a family at a kitchen table and a TV announcer in the background reporting about a youth who died in a car crash. The sequence ends with the sound of a car door closing and the song concludes with the sound of squealing tires and an automobile collision.

“That’s one of the songs I’m most proud of having written,” guitarist and vocalist Paul Stanley said. “’Detroit Rock City’ is a fleshed out song that’s dramatic and big. It’s the difference between a regular movie and IMAX. Between the music and the lyrics it broadens the scope of the presentation and it’s still pretty spectacular.”

“It showed more of a theatrical side to KISS,” added Ezrin. “It was a real story and Paul comes off very plaintively and shows a lot of heart and real emotion so the girls loved it.”

Another song with appeal for the ladies was drummer Peter Criss’ ballad “Beth,” which was originally the b-side of the “Detroit Rock City” single. “It showed that we weren’t just one thing,” Simmons said. “We could do anything we liked and our fans loved it all and appreciated us for stretching out boundaries like that.”

Perhaps Simmons explanation of the song is a small example of revisionist history. “When ‘Beth’ first came in it was called ‘Beck,’ and it was upbeat and much more of a ‘f— you’ song,” recalled Ezrin. ‘I’m not coming home. It’s me and the boys. The boys understand me and I’m gonna hang with the boys.’ I took it home and rewrote it a bit, turning it into more of a ballad and making it more heartfelt and vulnerable.”

Ezrin insists KISS weren’t happy with the original changes he made and wanted “Beth” to remain up-tempo. Then the producer explained that it was “politically necessary” for Criss to have a song on the record, and since he wrote the skeleton of the song it made sense to use it on the record.

“That was his song, so it was tolerated,” Ezrin said. “But Peter sang the hell out of it and we found Peter’s true heart. Even though he was this street kid from Canarsie, Brooklyn, he was a soft and gentle guy inside. So he was completely believable and the girls fell in love with him.”

The week Destroyer was released it reached No. 31 on the Billboard album chart. KISS’ label, Casablanca, released four singles from the record. The first was the anthem “Shout It Out Loud,” which hit radio two weeks before Destroyer came out and peaked at No. 31 on the Billboard singles chart, helping to propel the record to gold sales on April 22, 1976.

Figuring it would be the beginning of greater things to come, the label released “Flaming Youth,” which only reached No. 74 and “Detroit Rock City,” which surprisingly didn’t make the chart all. Then, in late August 1976 KISS dropped the album’s fourth single “Beth,” which climbed to No. 7 and gave the record new traction, boosting it to platinum on Nov. 11. Destroyer went double platinum on Sept. 9, 2011.

To honor the 35th anniversary of the album Ezrin, Simmons and Stanley remixed, revised and re-released Destroyer. The producer obtained the original 16-track analog master tapes and had them converted into digital files. The three artists tweaked the sound of the mix, added extra vocals to “Detroit Rock City” and “Beth” and replaced Wagner’s solo on “Sweet Pain” with the one guitarist Ace Frehley originally had tracked. The version with Wagner was included as a bonus track. KISS released Destroyer: Resurrected on Aug. 21, 2012 and the album debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard album chart, proving there was still fresh life in the old beast.

To date, numerous musicians including White Zombie, Death, Entombed, The Melvins, Iced Earth, No Use For A Name, Nirvana, Girlschool and others have released covers of songs from Destroyer. In addition, Peter Criss, seeking an opportunity to beat a living horse, recorded a new version of “Beth” for his 1994 solo album Cat #1.

Loudwire contributor Jon Wiederhorn is the primary author of Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal, as well as the co-author of Scott Ian’s autobiography, I’m the Man: The Story of That Guy From Anthrax, and Al Jourgensen’s autobiography, Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen.


Read More: 40 Years Ago: KISS Unleash 'Destroyer' Album | http://loudwire.com/kiss-destroyer-album-anniversary/?trackback=tsmclip

By Ultimate Classic Rock Staff March 15, 2016 1:52 PM


Kiss‘ 1976 studio masterpiece Destroyer turns 40 this week. Pretty much everyone and their mother agree that it’s the group’s best studio album, so let’s go one level deeper: What’s the best song on the record?

You’ve got nine really strong choices laid out for you below (and, if brief sound collages are your thing, yes, we included the “Rock and Roll Party” run-out groove as well). About half of these tracks – such as obvious classics “Detroit Rock City,” “God of Thunder” and “Shout It Out Loud” – have remained staples of the band’s live sets all these years later, and the Peter Criss-sung ballad “Beth” is one of their biggest hit singles ever.

You can use the widget below to rank all 10 songs in whatever order you please. (For now, mobile users are only able to choose their favorite track.) Feel free to vote early and often over the next week – we’ll certainly be doing our part to make sure “Flaming Youth” and “Do You Love Me?” get the adoration and attention they deserve.

The voting will end on March 21 at 11:59PM ET. Be sure to bookmark this page, because the results will be posted right here on March 22. Thanks for playing along!


Read More: How Would You Rank Every Kiss 'Destroyer' Song? | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/kiss-destroyer-ranked/?trackback=tsmclip

By Andy Burns
March 15, 2016

   

KISS, as most people know, have a hard time getting respect. Maybe its the make-up. Maybe its their crass commercialism. Maybe its the fact that musically they’ve always been fairly simplistic. But for every critic who has dismissed the band, there’s a thousand members of the KISS Army swearing to stand by the legacy created by Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss.

March 15th marks the 40th Anniversary of Destroyer, KISS’ fourth studio album and the follow-up to their breakthrough record, KISS Alive! It marked the first time the band would work with producer Bob Ezrin, who had made his name working with artists including Alice Cooper and Lou Reed. Not only would Ezrin help KISS create their best sounding, layered album to date, but he would have a hand in co-writing 8 of the album’s 10 songs, among them certifiable KISS classics like Detroit Rock City and Shout It Out Loud. Ezrin would also co-write the album’s top ten single Beth, which would be sung by drummer Peter Criss.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of what remains the definitive KISS studio album, here are a few highlights from this classic blast of anthemic rock and roll from the hottest band in the world.





You can hear KISS on SiriusXM’s Ozzy’s Boneyard, Hair Nation, Classic Rewind and 70s on 7.

Posted Tuesday, March 15th 2016 @ 11am  by Dave Basner

On March 15th, 1976, Kiss released their fourth album, Destroyer, which means that today, the iconic record turns 40. We all know the effort is one of the band’s classics, but here are 20 things you might not know about it:



1. Destroyer was certified platinum on November 11th, 1976, the band’s first album to ever achieve platinum status. It’s since gone on to be certified platinum a second time for sales over two-million units.

2. Destroyer was the band’s first album to spotlight outside musicians, including the Brooklyn Boys Chorus and members of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra.

3. The band started recording sessions for Destroyer at New York’s Electric Lady Studios on September 3rd, 1975. Their first demo was the Peter Criss-sung “Ain’t None of Your Business.” The song didn’t make the album, but was later sung by the group Detective, appearing on their 1977 debut.

4. Even though he is not credited, Dick Wagner, a guitarist from Alice Cooper’s band, replaced Ace Frehley on “Flaming Youth” and “Sweet Pain,” plus he played acoustic guitar on “Beth.” Ace reportedly wasn’t showing up consistently to recording sessions.

5. Paul Stanley once compared working on Destroyer with producer Bob Ezrin as “musical boot camp” since Ezrin taught them music theory and even wore a whistle.

6. The Japanese release of Destroyer is subtitled “Army From/Of Hell.”


7. Because the album featured songs like “God of Thunder,” “King of the Night Time World” and “Flaming Youth,” rumors spread that “Kiss” actually stood for either “Knights in Satan’s Service” of “Kids in Satan’s Service.”

8. The song “Detroit Rock City” was released as the third single from the effort, but it never charted, sold poorly, and aside from in Detroit, didn’t get much radio play. However, it has gone on to become a fan favorite often used on TV shows and in movies, including, of course, the film of the same name.

9. The newscast at the beginning of “Detroit Rock City” is actually read by Gene Simmons.

10. Peter Criss co-wrote the song “Beth” before joining Kiss, when he was still a member of a band called Chelsea. The lyrics were originally about “Beck,” a nickname for Becky, the wife of Chelsea member Mike Brand who often called her husband during practices to ask when he’d be coming home. However, Paul Stanley has questioned Criss’ role in penning the tune.

11. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley didn’t want “Beth” on the album because it wasn’t a typical Kiss song but their manager, Bill Aucoin, insisted on including it. During recording, Peter Criss was the only band member in the studio so it’s the only Kiss song without instrumental performances by any of the group’s members. Instead, it features a piano and a string orchestra. The song went on to win the band a People’s Choice Award in 1977, one of very few industry awards they’ve ever scored.

12. The title for “Shout It Out Loud” was taken from the British group The Hollies’ song “We Want to Shout It Out Loud.” Gene and Paul sang a cover of “We Want to Shout It Out Loud” with their pre-Kiss band, Wicked Lester.

13. “Shout It Out Loud” is one of very few Kiss songs to be sung by both Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.

14. Among the sound effects used to make “God of Thunder” were explosions, clapping, zippers, audience chatter and screaming children. Those kids are actually producer Bob Ezrin’s sons.

15. “God of Thunder” was originally more of an up-tempo rocker sung by Paul Stanley, but producer Bob Ezrin felt it would work better for Gene Simmons’ “Demon” persona if it was slowed down and the bassist took on vocals.

16. “Flaming Youth” was originally three different songs that producer Bob Ezrin put together into one track. Among the pieces he used to create the tune was a riff that Gene Simmons wrote for a song called “Mad Dog,” which appears on 2001’s The Box Set.

17. The band recorded the song “Great Expectations” in full make-up and costumes, alongside the Brooklyn Boys Chorus, and invited the press to watch.

18. “Great Expectations” uses some musical phrases from the second movement of Beethoven’s “Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, opus 13 ‘Pathetique.’”

19. Fantasy artist Ken Kelly did the cover art for Destroyer. He agreed to create the album art but only after he could see the band play live so he could get inspired. He later said the performance he watched “blew [him] away.” Kelly would go on to do the cover for 1977’s Love Gun as well.

20. The record label rejected Ken Kelly’s first version of the album cover because they felt the scene was too violent because of the rubble and flames. It also had the band wearing their Alive! costumes.

Read more: http://www.webn.com/articles/rock-news-104648/20-things-you-might-not-know-14494565/#ixzz434JevLxF

Daniel Eriksson
03.14.2016


On March 15 it’s been forty years since Kiss released their fourth studio album, Destroyer. The album came on the heels of Kiss' breakthrough live album Alive, and it solidified the band's status as one of the biggest rock acts in the world. But that was not the case initially. Many fans were disappointed with the band's new polished sound, feeling they’d lost the raw spontaneity of their first three releases.

Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley enlisted the help of Canadian producer Bob Ezrin to help out in the writing and recording of Destroyer. Ezrin played an integral part in shaping their song ideas in to rock classics, as well as instilling a work ethic that Paul and Gene in particular has held on to for their entire career.

“The thing I always loved about Destroyer is it pushed the envelope and pushed the parameters of what we could do. It pushed us to the limit and yet everything stayed true to us because it was all comfortable, there was nothing forced or contrived,” Stanley said in Kiss' authorized biography Kiss: Behind The Mask (p. 114).

Ezrin share writing credits on eight of the album’s ten songs. Bringing Ezrin on board helped push the band members to new levels both as musicians and songwriters. “Every one of them were punching above their weight class on Destroyer. This was really a huge leap forward for all of them. Gene's bass playing was so impressive on Destroyer; it was really reaching beyond what he had ever played before. And he practiced and practiced. And Ace's guitar playing was so much more controlled and lyrical. And Paul's [guitar playing] too -- you know, I think Paul always had a lyrical style, he just didn't have as much of an outlet in some of the older stuff. Paul's vocals - I think he grew up as a singer at the moment we were doing Destroyer, said Ezrin during an interview with KissFAQ.

Destroyer contain some of Kiss’ biggest songs and live favorites. The Stanley-penned but Simmons-sung “God of Thunder” is certainly the one song I wait for every time I go to a Kiss show! An anecdote about that song is that the kids you hear in the intro are actually Ezrin’s sons.

Ezrin was able to experiment quite a bit in the studio, helping the band create some of their most ambitious songs ever, like for example “Great Expectations.” The song, which Gene Simmons says was written on bass, uses orchestrations borrowed from Beethoven, and a children’s choir (the Brooklyn Boys Choir).

Looking back at Destroyer’s track list you automatically assume that songs like “Detroit Rock City,” and “Shout it Out Loud” were monster hits, but that was actually not the case. Destroyer did reach gold status just a month after its release, buoyed by the success of Alive, but it quickly lost ground after that. But as most of you already know, that would quickly change once radio stations picked up on the b-side to “Detroit Rock City” – “Beth.” The song, which was recorded with drummer Peter Criss on vocals, became the band’s first Top 10 hit in the US.

Bob Ezrin would use guitarist Dick Wagner as a backup during the recording sessions if Ace Frehley wasn’t around at the moment, and Wagner ultimately ended up playing the guitar solo on the song “Sweet Pain.” It was decisions like this that didn’t sit too well with the band’s hardcore fans. But when Ezrin remixed the album for the 35 year anniversary edition he actually came across Ace's solo and put it on the new release. Frehley talked about what he learned from the Destroyer sessions in Kiss: Behind The Mask (p. 69): “The production of the music called for me to play in a more restrained way, but I learned a lot from Ezrin. I didn’t feel restrained at all doing that record, and I think it was some of the best playing I’ve ever done.”

Destroyer ultimately helped Kiss break in to the main stream and broaden their fan base, allowing them to tour Europe for the first time. It’s a very ambitious recording that, even though it might not be solid all the way through, showed that Paul, Gene, Ace, and Peter weren’t afraid to try new things instead of just sticking to the basic formula of their first three studio albums. Besides, who can argue with classics like “Detroit Rock City,” “God of Thunder,” and “Shout it Out Loud?”

P..... 40 ans déjà...

Vote pour DETROIT ROCK CITY......Ah cette intro, je m'en lasse jamais je ne suis pas fan de Kiss, je l'ai été du moins jusqu'a Dynasty..j'avais tout les albums a l'époque, mais un dégat des eaux a fait du mal dans mes collections..enfin bref cet album est superbe

une des pièce maitresse du rock tout simplement .... mais j'arrive toujours pas a encaisser beth ....

DOMM a écrit:

une des pièce maitresse du rock tout simplement .... mais j'arrive toujours pas a encaisser beth ....

pareil..

Un album marquant pour Kiss

Samedi, 26 mars 2016 06:30 MISE à JOUR Samedi, 26 mars 2016 06:30


Avec trois albums studio et un disque en spectacle, Kiss connaissait un début de carrière intéressant depuis sa création en 1974. L’album Destroyer, qui fête ses 40 ans, a permis aux musiciens maquillés d’évoluer et d’atteindre de nouveaux sommets de popularité.

L’album Destroyer, lancé le 15 mars 1976, qui contient les Shout it Out Loud, Detroit Rock City, Beth et God of Thunder, a été la première collection de chansons du quatuor américain à atteindre le million de copies vendues au pays de l’Oncle Sam.


Les groupes rock étaient particulièrement prolifiques à cette époque et Destroyer est arrivé en magasins six mois après l’album en spectacle Alive! et un an après le disque Dressed to Kill.

La formation constituée, à l’époque, de Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons et Paul Stanley, peut remercier le réalisateur canadien Bob Ezrin de leur avoir permis de passer à un autre niveau et d’atteindre les ligues majeures.

Ezrin, qui avait produit coup sur coup les albums Love it to Death, Killer, School’s Out, Billion Dollar Babies et Welcome to My Nightmare d’Alice Cooper, a même été très autoritaire envers les quatre membres du groupe new-yorkais.

Kiss connaissait un certain succès, mais l’étiquette Casablanca n’était pas du tout certaine que le ­groupe puisse durer. Ce qui explique, d’une certaine façon, le contrat de deux ans que l’étiquette venait d’accorder à la ­formation.

«Destroyer fut, pour Kiss, un bond prodigieux. Nous étions, avant cet album, un groupe de garage et des crétins qui mettaient nos amplificateurs à 11. On ne connaissait rien et on avait de la difficulté à accorder nos guitares», a raconté Gene ­Simmons, dans une entrevue accordée au magazine Rolling Stone.

Un camp militaire

Les membres de Kiss ont comparé les séances de travail et d’enregistrement avec Bob Ezrin à un camp militaire. En plus de faire de l’enseignement musical, le ­réalisateur canadien utilisait un sifflet pour diriger ce qui se déroulait au Electric Lady Studios de Greenwich Village.

L’attitude très autoritaire d’Ezrin a permis d’amener Kiss à un tout autre niveau avec l’utilisation ­d’effets sonores, la présence d’une section de cordes et d’un chœur d’enfants sur cette première ­collaboration avec le quatuor. Il a même utilisé une mélodie provenant d’une sonate de Beethoven pour écriture la pièce Great ­Expectation.

«Il nous a aussi appris, poursuit Paul Stanley, comment écrire de meilleurs textes. Ceux de nos ­premiers disques étaient unidimensionnels, très simplistes et très axés sur la sexualité.»

Détail intéressant, le guitariste Dick ­Wagner, qui travaillait avec Alice Cooper, joue sur les titres Flaming Youth, Sweet Pain et Beth, que l’on retrouve sur l’album Destroyer.

Ace Frehley, qui avait des problèmes de consommation d’alcool et de drogues, était souvent absent lors des sessions ­d’enregistrement.

Beth, qui a été le simple de Kiss qui a connu le plus de succès, avec une septième position sur les palmarès, a failli ne pas se retrouver sur Destroyer, n’eût été ­l’insistance du gérant Bill Aucoin.

Gene Simmons et Paul Stanley trouvaient que cette pièce, chantée par le batteur Peter Criss, ne cadrait pas du tout avec le style de Kiss.

Succès inattendu

Beth se retrouvait même sur la face B du 45 tours Detroit Rock City, avant de devenir officiellement un simple quelques semaines plus tard.

Destroyer a atteint la quatrième position du palmarès suédois, il a été sixième au Canada et en Australie et 11e au palmarès américain. Kiss a vendu, en tout, neuf millions de copies de ce disque en territoire américain.

«Destroyer est un disque cinématographique. C’était, pour nous, comme passer d’un format traditionnel de cinéma à la technologie IMAX. C’est un album qui a très bien vieilli et où l’on retrouve l’ensemble de la mentalité derrière Kiss», a indiqué Paul Stanley au magazine Rolling Stone.