All language subtitles for Biography.KISStory.2021.Part.2.720p.WEB.h264-BAE

[helicopter blades whirring]

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

All: We want kiss!

We want kiss! We want kiss!
We want kiss!

We want kiss!
We want kiss!

We want kiss!
We want kiss!

We want kiss!

- From the beginning our bond
was the belief in the band,

Our belief in kiss.

[cheers and applause]

- The heights we've reached--
wow.

But it was a lot of hard work.

[loud explosion]

- Nothing could get
in our way.

- We've always lived it big.

[boom]

[funky chords]

- All right, vancouver!

- We rise to the gauntlet.

We threw down on the floor
for ourselves.

You wanted the best...

- You wanted the best!

- You got the best.

- You got the best!

- Believing in yourself
against all odds.

- The hottest band
in the world...

- That's kiss!

- Kiss!

[kiss' "shout it out loud"]

♪ ♪

Whoo!

- ♪ well, the night's begun,
and you want some fun ♪

♪ do you think
you're gonna find it? ♪

[together]
♪ think you're gonna find it ♪

- ♪ you got to treat yourself
like number one ♪

♪ do you need to be reminded? ♪

[together]
♪ need to be reminded ♪

- ♪ it doesn't matter
what you do or say ♪

♪ just forget the things
that you've been told ♪

♪ can't do it any other way ♪

♪ everybody's got to rock
and roll, whoa-ohh ♪

All: ♪ shout it, shout it,
shout it out loud ♪

- Super group kiss
hit like a thunderbolt.

- Since 1974
kiss has produced a gold album

With every single album.

- Kiss is playing
to sold-out crowds everywhere.

- We gonna get this place
hotter than hell!

- It's being compared
to beatlemania.

- Come on!
- They're larger-than-life

Comic strip superheroes.

- A monster, a cat,
a spaceman,

And a harlequin lover.

- Who are these people?

- They are four of the most
recognizable faces

On the planet,
and one of the most iconic

And badass bands of all time.

- The kiss sound
was unapologetic,

Big, badass rock 'n' roll.

- Kiss blew it up

Into this nuclear combination.

It's the lights,
explosions everywhere, fire.

Nobody has ever done it
as big as kiss.

- Whoo!

We love you!

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

[siren wailing]

- Together legendary rockers
kiss say

They are about to embark
on their farewell tour.

- The end of the road tour,

The most ambitious undertaking
of their 45-plus-year career.

All: ♪ all night ♪

♪ and party every day ♪

♪ I wanna rock and roll
all night ♪

- I'll tell you what's a little
different about this tour.

We've never spent months
rehearsing,

Not because we don't know
the songs,

But this is--
this is just pride.

This is the last time people
are going to see us.

So with that in mind,
we want to be going out

With the greatest show
we've ever done.

- By the time we're done,
we'll be close to 50 years

Of playing tours on stage.

Paul and I are two different
sides but of the same coin.

I couldn't be who I am
and was without paul.

And I'd like to think
he thinks the same way.

- Gene and I,
we've both been through a lot.

I think at this point gene is
as much family to me as blood.

♪ ♪

Kiss has always been
the underdog.

We were the people who weren't
supposed to succeed.

Now we're the proof

You can thrive
following your own instincts.

But we didn't
get here overnight.

♪ ♪

[loud explosions]

[waves lapping]

[flag flapping]

- I was born in israel.

Both my mother and my father
came from hungary

After world war ii.

When I was about 6 1/2

My father picked up
and just walked out.

And my mother and I
came to america.

In new york, my mother
goes to a sweat factory.

She makes half a penny
for every button

She sews on to a winter coat,

Clears just enough money
to pay the rent and food.

And we survive.

- If gene was a stranger
in a strange land,

I was a stranger
in a strange neighborhood.

I grew up
in a one-bedroom apartment

In an irish catholic area.

We were the only jews.

My mom had been born in berlin

And had fled
to escape the nazis

And the extermination
of 6 million of our people.

I grew up with people
around me

With numbers on their arms.

On top of that,
I was born with a condition

Called a microtia,
so I had no right ear.

It was just
a crumpled mass of cartilage.

And I couldn't hear
on my right side.

When you don't look like
everybody else,

The scrutiny is unrelenting.

And for a little kid
to be stared at or pointed to

Or taunted is devastating.

Gene and I, what we share

Is a sense of being outsiders
for different reasons.

But we also found escape
in music.

- I came here as chaim witz.

I couldn't speak
a word of english.

I was aware I didn't fit in.
I still feel like an outsider.

But I soon devoured
everything american.

- Rambler american
by american motors.

- New generation of youth.

- Protect your complexion.

- And I started listening
to the radio all the time.

I heard chuck berry and jackie
wilson and fats domino.

I couldn't speak english.
I just loved the music.

I had a little pocket
transistor radio,

And I walked around with it
waiting to hear the beatles.

- Now, at 9:30 tonight
a special beatles segment

Like we have every Saturday,
the beatles...

- Ladies and gentlemen,
the beatles.

Here were these four guys...

- They may have been aliens...

- They looked like buddies.

- I'd never seen
anything like it.

The girls were going
out of their minds.

- And I had an epiphany.

- And I thought,
"that's a pretty cool job."

- It was a revelation to me.

I'm a little overweight kid

Named stanley bert eisen.

I'm deaf in one ear.

But I see the beatles,

And I go, "I can do that."

[cheers and applause]

"I can touch that nerve."

Why I thought that
god only knows.

- My mother bought me a copy
of a hofner bass

Called a kent.

And I've never looked back.

- I knew I wanted
to make rock 'n' roll.

♪ ♪

[siren wailing]

[engine revving]

[horn honks]

- Wow, how different is this?

♪ ♪

It wasn't this easy to get in.

From the beginning,

Gene felt more like
a relative.

- I guess
that's the electric lady.

- I felt real fortunate
to have met him

In spite of him driving me
crazy a lot of times.

- We were here.
I remember being in studio a

When stevie was recording
"superstition."

This way.
- Oh, there.

Paul and I,

The chemistry worked,
but it didn't start that way.

[guitar strums]

- No picks?
- There's two.

Well, I never met anybody else
who wrote songs.

And this guy stephen coronel,

Who was my school chum

Growing up, said,

"oh, this guy paul, you know,
he actually writes songs."

And I actually said
something like, "oh, really?

What do you got?"

[strumming kiss' "let me know"]

♪ ♪

[kiss' "let me know"]

♪ ♪

- I picked up a guitar,

And I played him
"Sunday driver."

- ♪ let me be
your Sunday driver ♪

♪ let me be your Monday man ♪

♪ I'll take you anywhere
you want ♪

♪ just as fast as I can ♪

♪ ♪

That was called
"Sunday driver."

And that was changed
to "let me know"

That we recorded,
and I went...

"wow, that's a--
that's a good song."

♪ just gotta decide, girl,
and then you let me ♪

Both: ♪ know oh oh oh ♪

- And then gene played a song.

- I played--did I play
"my uncle is a raft"?

- Yes.

[upbeat guitar music]

♪ ♪

- You played it like this.

♪ my uncle is a raft ♪

♪ and he doesn't even
know it ♪

- ♪ he is so good to me ♪

♪ he treats me tenderly ♪

♪ and it doesn't matter
who you are ♪

- It was like...
"ah-cha-cha-cha."

- He didn't think much of me.
He thought I was arrogant,

An asshole,
and he thought my song sucked.

- He was obnoxious, but look,
I'm the first to admit

That the chances of success--

Certainly on the level
that we've had--

The chances of that
were slim and none.

Meeting gene was--
was the key to it all.

[rock music]

Gene and I started writing,

And what we were doing
sounded good.

It was fun.
It was interesting.

It was what became
wicked lester.

♪ ♪

- We had a five-piece band,
stephen coronel,

Who can play
a little lead guitar,

A keyboard player
named brooke ostrander,

And a drummer
who wasn't the best drummer.

But he had cool long hair
and a handlebar mustache.

He's got to be in the band.

And we started rehearsing
in a loft

On mott street in chinatown

Doing all-original material,
about half of paul's songs,

Half of my songs.

- At the same time,
in my neighborhood in queens

There was a head shop,
and I was hanging out there,

Because I seemed
to fit in there better

Than going to little league
or anything of that sort.

And one day I came in,
and they said,

"hey, a guy was in this
morning from electric lady."

And that was like somebody
from valhalla,

You know, somebody from,
you know, some hallowed ground,

And they said, "yeah, we got
his phone number for you."

And it had
a scribbled name "ron."

[mid-tempo guitar music]

♪ ♪

- Electric lady studios
was jimi hendrix's home.

The '70s was the beginning
of the rise

Of electric lady studios,

And it had a vibe
like no other studio.

♪ ♪

It was built for jimi.

And it attracted musicians,

'cause they wanted
to be part of that.

You walk in that studio,
and you want to make music.

You want to play.

- So I call up electric lady,
and I say,

"hey, can I please
speak to ron?"

And I called back over
and over and over incessantly.

And finally, one day I said,

"you tell him that it's because
of people like him

That bands like mine break up."

- [laughs]

- And that--that did it.

[rock music]

- In the wicked lester days,

They were always hanging
outside picking up chicks.

The scene on 8th street
was really a fashion show,

Lace and satin
and platform boots,

Just really hot women
that at that point

I didn't have
a chance of getting.

- Like the doors
of fantasyland,

A world that we didn't have
access to.

Nobody had the access.

♪ ♪

- We were that much closer
to where we wanted to be.

Just getting through the door

At the top of these stairs
was monumental.

- We were just eager beavers.

We would literally hang out

And see everybody from
stevie wonder to jeff beck.

Actually, stephen stills
was in this recording booth.

And stills comes out and says,

"hey, I hear you've got
a bass guitar

"that sounds really good.
How much do you want?"

He pulled out
a wad of hundreds.

And he just rolled off
three $100 bills.

I went, "wow.
I want to be a rock star."

Like,
anybody you could imagine

Were coming
and going recording there.

- So we spent a year
working on an album.

And we did it on
what's called spec time.

You find out when a session
is going to end,

And you sit and wait.

You could be sitting there
for six or seven hours.

♪ ♪

- At that point, wicked lester
was following

Almost every trend,
whatever was hot.

One song had flutes
all over the place.

It sounded like
a jethro tull record.

They were kind of throwing
all their influences

Into a melting pot.

♪ ♪

- If one week a song
with a ukulele was a hit,

We'd put a ukulele on the song.

If next week there was a song
that had a trombone...

[imitates trombone tooting]

We'd put a trombone on.

- We knew nothing, nothing
about the recording process,

What these songs
should sound like.

♪ ♪

But somehow ron johnsen
at electric lady studios

Brought the tape
to epic records,

And we got signed right away.

♪ ♪

- And when the album wasn't
too far from coming out,

We listened and went,
"this is soul-less, ball-less,

Just a neutered hodgepodge
of music."

It wasn't working,
and it wasn't cohesive,

And it didn't look great.

- The sound was generic,

And we didn't want
to be generic.

And every song sounded
different than the other.

♪ ♪

- We literally walked out
of electric lady studios.

We had a contract;
we got some money.

I don't know, $44,000,

Some ridiculous figure
in those days,

Which sounded like
a lot of money.

And you know what?
It wasn't satisfying.

♪ ♪

- The other guys in the band
were just happy

To have an album;
we weren't.

Gene and I just realized

That this wasn't
the direction for us.

♪ ♪

We had to scrap it in order
to get back on the path

That we should have been on.

- So we told the rest
of the guys in the band,

"you're fired.
We're pulling the band apart."

- The guys in the band
were going,

"no, no, no, no.
We have a record deal."

- "you can't fire us."

- "we're staying."
- "okay, then we quit."

[birds chirping]

- We went back to the loft,

And all the equipment
was stolen.

You remember that?

And I remember,
"gotta start all over again."

So I went to university,
upstate new york.

And I think I remember saying,

"I'm gonna go up there,
you know, and start a band."

And you in essence said,
"I'm coming with you."

You remember that?
- Mm-hmm.

- Why the hell would you
want to do that?

- Because I knew I was
stronger with you.

And even if you didn't
quite see at that point

That you were stronger with me,

Quite honestly,
I was more concerned with me.

And it was better to have you
with me than me alone.

For gene and I,

It was almost unspoken
what needed to be done.

- We started all over again
with new songs

That were being written fast,
"deuce" and "strutter"

And all these songs
that felt finally right.

- We made it a point
to only have one sound

And that this
would be identifiable.

So we immediately started
to hone in

On what we wanted to do,
who we wanted to be.

[rock music]

- I remember being in a subway

Going with paul
back to queens.

And I remember him saying,

"stanley eisen,
that's not cool."

- I hated my name.

And I told my parents
when I was six years old

That I hated my name and that
I was gonna change it.

I really couldn't see,
"the hottest band in the land

Featuring stanley eisen
and chaim witz."

- I remember him saying,
"I'm gonna be paul stanley."

Paul stanley.
That's interesting.

And I remember turning around
and saying,

"and I'm gonna be gene
simmons," just like that.

[percussive music]

- So gene and I wrote
all these new songs.

And now we needed a band.

- And I remember paul and I
saw an ad in "rolling stone,"

And I made the phone call
on a pay phone.

"hi, how you doing?
I'm gene simmons,

And I'm looking
for peter criscuola."

[percussive music]

- Peter criss played
in a lot of local bands

In new york city

Playing in the village,
playing every club he could,

Really, really worked hard
to make it.

And I think he was ready
to throw in the towel

If he didn't make it
with paul and gene.

- I got this crazy call
from the bass player gene.

He goes, "are you skinny?"
I said, "yeah."

He goes, "you have long hair?"
I said, "yeah."

"would you like
to wear makeup?

"would you do anything?

Would you wear
a dress on stage?"

And I said, "yeah,
I'd do anything to make it."

And he goes,
"well, come on down."

♪ ♪

- We initially thought maybe
we'll do a power trio,

Big chords, big riffs.

It was good enough
for the who.

It was good enough
for hendrix.

And peter had
that whiskey voice,

So we can do
a three-part harmony as well.

So we rehearsed as a trio.

But it didn't feel yet
like the full sound.

We need a lead guitarist.

- I put an ad
in "the village voice,

"lead guitarist wanted
with flash and balls."

But "the village voice"
wouldn't let us say "balls."

So it became
"flash and ability."

- And we had
everybody come down.

- And towards the end
of auditions this kid

When he walked in
kind of sauntered in,

Not very steady on his feet,
one orange sneaker,

One red sneaker,
and he plugged in.

- The first song they played
for me was "deuce."

You know, they just said
we're gonna play this song.

It's in the key of a, tuned
down a half step, of course,

And I just jammed
and played every riff I knew.

[kiss' "deuce"]

- The kid started playing,
and I knew right then

And there that we had it...

♪ ♪

Not because we were great,

But there was something
sonically happening.

The four of us got together,

And there was something
going on that was undeniable.

The sum greater than its parts.
This is the band.

- ♪ get up and get
your grandma outta here ♪

- I guess it's like love.

When you feel it,
it's instantaneous,

And you know when it's real.

He started playing, and I
don't know what I can say.

We fell in love.
It was like...[gasps]

♪ baby,
do the things he says to do ♪

- When you think about
that guy,

That's rock 'n' roll

Guitar playing,

Almost like a rhythm and blues,
honky-tonk guitar player.

- There's that sound,

That thing we haven't
heard up until now.

♪ ♪

Slow, melodic, but fast
when it needs to be

With a crescendo that builds.

- Simple and emotive
and tasteful leads.

- His solos made sense.

♪ ♪

- And we immediately went,
"do you have a band?

"where do you live?
Do you have a job?

What's your name?"
"call me ace."

♪ ♪

- After they heard me wail,

They knew right away
that I was the guy.

♪ ♪

- Now, what are we
gonna look like?

[rock music]

♪ ♪

New york, early '73,
it was the glitter scene.

- This undertone, so to speak,
of art and music and fashion.

- It was incredible.

- And the new york dolls
were the darlings

Of the rock scene.

♪ ♪

- I remember going to see
the new york dolls,

And in the early stages,

They were ahead of us
by about six months.

And they looked great.
- Fabulous.

Big, teased hair, lipstick,

Platform boots.

Their waists
were like my wrist.

They looked like stars.

But when it came to them
musically...

Gene and I looked at each other
and said, "we'll kill 'em."

♪ ♪

- We tried to do
the androgynous thing,

But we weren't
convincing at it.

I'm 6'2", and at the time,
I weighed 200 pounds.

And it's not convincing

When a big guy
starts to prance around.

- The dolls looked the part.

We looked more like
linebackers in drag.

No matter who you aspire
to be,

You're never going
to be better at being them

Than they are,
so you got to be the best you.

It's so hard to verbalize
how the kiss makeup came about.

- One of us--
could have been me,

Could have been
anybody else--said,

"hey, let's go to woolworths
and buy some clown makeup."

- There was no talk of what
we were going to do.

- It's like when you're a kid
and one of your friends says,

"hey, let's jump into
the deep end of the pool."

- Everybody just tapped into
a part of who they were.

- Basically, they're kind of
extensions of our,

You know, alter egos
and our personalities.

- For paul,
it was the butterfly

Out of the caterpillar,
if you will.

- I can remember being
in third grade

And my teacher
had me come up

To the front of the room
so she could look at my ear.

I felt incredibly degraded.

But really your choice in life
is to use being a victim

As an excuse or you suit up.

The whole character
that I came up with,

Great-looking,
confident, brash,

The front man
might as well have been

A wish list of things
that I wasn't,

Things I became.

♪ ♪

- I wanted to delve
a little deeper

Into what I loved growing up,

"the phantom of the opera"
with mary philbin

As the girl who unmasks him.

I'll never forget as a kid

It frightened the hell
out of me.

The shadows hit
the phantom's face.

And I remember starting
to draw that face,

The imprint of the shadow
on the eyes.

And that was the beginning
of the demon.

- I may be the voice of kiss,

But gene has always been
the face of the kiss.

It's just, man,
he hit a home run.

[ball hits bat thwack,
crowd cheers]

Ace's makeup,
his jagged design,

For him symbolized
being a spaceman.

- Ace has always been
spacey and stuff,

And he would verbalize it.

"I can't even stand up
straight,

And I can't--
my equilibrium."

- Peter felt like a cat or felt
like he had nine lives.

- Peter just shrugged
his shoulders,

"I like cats."
[cat meows]

And he put on the cat
just like that.

- But it all worked
beautifully together.

That was the start.

We were stage-ready to go out
there and take on the world.

Then it was, "okay, what are
we gonna call ourselves?"

- And I knew...

Be it a kiss of death,
a passionate kiss...

[crowd yelling]

- It just made so much sense.

You know, I took a deep breath
and said, "what about kiss?"

- Ladies and gentlemen, kiss!

- You originally put
whiteface on

And had a round circle
like pete the dog.

- Petey, petey the dog.

- On "the little rascals,"
young--"little rascals."

And it may have been ace
who said,

"you're the rock star.
You want to be a rock star.

Why don't you put two stars
on your eyes?"

And how did you
wind up with one?

- I think it's because my face
is asymmetric or was

Because of my ears

That I think I fell into,
you know, something asymmetric.

I remember seeing gene's hair
on top of his head

And thinking, "that's so cool."

I almost was going
to take all my hair.

- Oh, really?
- Yeah.

And pull it up
to the top of my head.

But there was a physical aspect
that I didn't want to reveal.

[crowd chattering]

- One, two, three, four.

[kiss' "strutter"]

♪ ♪

We started doing gigs,

But we were never part
of the new york scene.

♪ I know a thing or two
about her ♪

We were outcasts
to the outcasts.

♪ I know she only
made you cry ♪

- Unlike other new york bands
that would play

Max's kansas city
and the mercer art center,

Kiss were playing
at a hole in the wall

In queens called coventry
or they were playing

In amityville,
new york, at the daisy.

These places
were 45 minutes away,

But they were almost
lifetimes away

In the sense
of the new york scene.

- ♪ everybody says
she's looking good ♪

- I never wanted to be
the best band in new york.

I wanted to be the best band
in the world.

- Everything we did
we did ourselves.

You know,
we had to create ourselves,

Design our own logos,

Literally make
our own clothes.

We took a black t-shirt,
put glue in the kiss logo,

And then poured glitter on it.

Do whatever it is you got
to do to set yourself apart,

Just figure out yourself
what makes you special.

We created kiss out of nowhere
out of our imagination.

- Those first shows,

I think there were
probably five people,

And they were at the bar.

But we got in full makeup,
went up there.

When we first walked out,
"all right, here they are.

Nobody cares."

And then within two or three
songs, everybody goes nuts.

[crowd whooping]

- We played like it was
madison square garden,

And the audiences grew.

- I remember being on
that little small stage

And looking across
and seeing rock stars.

♪ ♪

The look, the song,
all we needed was a demo.

[bluesy guitar music]

♪ ♪

- Gene and I had done
a lot of sessions

At electric lady studios.

We would sing backups
on anything

Where they needed extra
singers, and we would get paid.

So we said,
"instead of paying us,

"give us studio time.

And you have to get
eddie kramer."

♪ ♪

- For his credits at the time,
you couldn't get higher.

Hendrix, the beatles,
zeppelin.

- Eddie was lofty.

This would be monumental,
a game changer for us.

♪ ♪

I said, does everybody
want to boogie?

Whoo! All right.

[kiss' "watchin' you"]

- Eddie kramer came
to see us live,

And he got it right away.

- It was insane,

Kabuki theater stuff,
4-, 5-, 6-inch boots,

And just the energy.

It was just
such a magical transformation

Of the boys
into those persona.

So I said, "I'll do it.

But we got to do it the
old-fashioned way, four-track."

- ♪ livin' as you do,
and I'm watching you, oh-oh ♪

- In studio b right here
we recorded "black diamond,"

"watching you," "she,"

"strutter," "deuce."

♪ ♪

Those first demos,
I put them on today,

Still sounds good,
because it's honest.

- There's a purity
and a naivete about it.

♪ ♪

The passion was undeniable.

- ♪ what to do ♪

♪ ♪

Eddie kramer just let us
be authentically us.

- Those demos,
that was done in one day.

- ♪ watching us ♪

♪ ♪

♪ whoo ♪

When we listen back to it
in totality, five or six songs,

Gee, this sounds like a band.

- That's what we went shopping
for a deal with.

[uneasy music]

♪ ♪

Whenever we would play,
we would send invitations out

To all the managers,
booking agents, whoever.

And at one of those shows,
somebody had come from

Rock steady,
somebody named bill aucoin.

♪ ♪

He was a television producer.

And he had no background
as a manager,

But he just seemed to get us.

- I'll tell you what I'll do.
I'll get you a deal

Within two weeks,
or we'll just call it quits.

- So we signed.

And right away,
this guy neil bogart shows up

Debuting a new record label
called casablanca records.

- Casablanca record
and filmworks.

- And we would be the first act
on casablanca.

- Music is gonna be fabulous.

Entertainment's gonna
be spectacular.

♪ ♪

- Neil and bill, their vision
went so far beyond ours.

And also
bill's boyfriend sean.

- Sean delaney
was actually the guy...

- Testing, one, two.
One, two. It's working.

- Who first set up
video cameras for us.

- Put your two lips together,
ladies and gentlemen, kiss!

Kiss! Kiss!

- And so we're able to see
ourselves for the first time.

[kiss' "deuce"]

♪ ♪

- I was stunned at what I saw.

I wasn't doing anything,

Going like this from 20 feet
away looks like nothing.

- ♪ get up and get
your grandma outta here ♪

- That was a wake-up call.

I realized the stage
is prime real estate,

And you've got to use up
as much of it as possible,

Legs apart, arms open.

Everything has to be seen
from 300 feet away.

♪ ♪

We were in rehearsal one day.

And I think just by chance
we did this,

And when we finished the song,
sean said,

"wait a minute.

Do that move
where you rock back and forth."

♪ ♪

- And the reaction,
I have to say, was like,

"well, we're not
the temptations."

- I don't want to be
paul revere and the raiders,

You know, all of us
jumping around together.

- He goes,
"don't worry about that.

"you're in kiss.

You can do anything."

- And sure enough,
we're still doing it today.

♪ ♪

- Neil bogart with our manager
bill aucoin, they said,

"if you're going to be a live
band, let's put together

The biggest,
loudest statement

Of any band ever."

The only way you're gonna
get attention from the masses

Is by doing things much,
much bigger.

It was neil bogart
who had the idea,

"I want the drum riser
to levitate."

They went up maybe 6 feet.

♪ ♪

- But nobody
had ever done that.

- We went up to bill's office
one day,

And there was somebody else
in the room.

Could have been
amazo the magician.

We said, "who's this guy?"

- Bill aucoin said,
"you guys are doing

"a song called 'firehouse.'

One of you guys
has to spit fire."

- "who wants to try?"

♪ ♪

Literally the very
first show we did,

My hair went up
like a [bleep] matchstick.

And the fans loved it.

- Bill was also the guy
who came up with the idea,

"you guys are never gonna
be seen without makeup."

- He said to us,
"marilyn monroe,

"she never took a photo

"where she looked frumpy
without her makeup.

"whenever you saw her,

"she was marilyn monroe
24 hours a day.

That's what you guys
should be doing."

So we did.

Our first album
came out early February 1974.

- The first album
was all those great songs

That we had been playing
at coventry.

- It's crazy when you think
about it.

There was nothing
out there like us.

- It had to work.
We were unstoppable.

- They went out on the road

And just kicked ass
for pretty much two years.

- Bondage gear,
blood spurting,

Overkill kabuki makeup.

Gene's tongue getting closer
to ace and ace

Sort of recoiling back
but not too far back.

Billowing smoke, shooting
rockets across the stage.

Kiss was about to be...

- Rock 'n' roll!

- The most dangerous
and feared band in america.

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

- Please welcome one of the
most unusual bands, kiss!

- Hey, world. We're kiss.

We want everybody here
to come along with us,

'cause you've got nothing
to lose.

Two, three, four.

- Those first two
or three tours,

It was us against the world.

200 shows the first year
in a station wagon,

Doubling up on rooms,

Making a glorious $75 a week.

But it was a magical time.

♪ before I had a baby ♪

♪ I didn't care anyway ♪

♪ I thought about
the back door ♪

♪ I didn't know what to say
yeah yeah ♪

- When we went out
on our first tour,

Our parents drove us
to the airport

Like we were
going to summer camp,

And we were going to a--
a whorehouse.

- ♪ you got nothin'
nothin' to lose ♪

- Chicks.
And wake up with girls

Whose name
you'd never bothered to learn.

Wow, this is a good job.

- ♪ ahh yeah ♪

- What we had been singing
about and fantasizing about,

It actually existed just
the way we thought it did.

We were experiencing this
together for the first time.

Both: ♪ you got, you got,
you got nothin' to lose ♪

- It was like all for one,
one for all, like brothers.

- It was a constant party.

And it was great.

- Sure,
there was some drinking

And sure,
there was some drugs.

But the shows were killer.

Every single show
we would get encores,

And our road manager noticed
that the headlining act--

I think it was argent--

Kept pulling our power
so we couldn't do encores.

At the end of one of our sets,
all of a sudden,

"wow, we have power.
Let's go back out again."

- Then we heard
that our road manager

Had pulled one of these bowie
knives on the tour manager

And locked him
in one of their road cases.

[cheers and applause]

We went across america,
wound up on the west coast,

And literally ran out of bands
to play with,

'cause they kicked us off
tours,

'cause we kept blowing them
off the stage.

- We were literally
stuck there.

We didn't have enough money
to go home.

And we had shows coming up
in two weeks.

- We're staying at a motel
someplace in san francisco.

- "and we're eating beans
and hot dogs out of a pot.

How cool are we?"

[cheers and applause]

The first album, I think
it sold about 60,000 copies.

And it wasn't a big success.

So we put out another album.

- A big san francisco welcome

For our special guest tonight,
kiss.

[kiss' "hotter than hell"]

♪ ♪

- ♪ she looked good,
she looked hotter than hell ♪

♪ all dressed in satins
and lace ♪

- And right around that time
we had a, you know,

A moment of sobriety with
our record company president.

- ♪ she showed me
her wedding band ♪

"you guys are
costing me a fortune.

You don't have hit singles.

And that's okay.
I'll stick with you.

But you keep getting
thrown off tours."

♪ ♪

"I don't know how
to tell you this,

But you need to stay
on a tour.

Could you be less good?"

And we literally said
something like, "no way."

You can't put a tiger
out there

In front of lambs
and everything,

"do you mind just walking
by that lamb

And don't tear its throat out?"

No, I'm a--I'm a [bleep] tiger.

[tiger roars]

It's what I do.

♪ ♪

- When I discovered them,
I was 15, just turned 16.

And I was one
of the very first kiss fans

That I was ever aware of,
because I saw them

In a magazine
called "rock scene."

And that was their first time
in a magazine.

- This had to have
been back in 1974.

And I got to the very back
of "circus--circus" magazine,

And I saw this crazy hair
and makeup, and I go,

"what the hell is this?"

- Then after I saw them
in concert,

Seeing them seals the deal.

♪ ♪

- Kiss was my first concert.

And my ticket said
"a partial view of kiss."

Now, I thought they were
gonna be revealing

Some deep corner
of their poetic souls.

It really meant that my seat
was behind a pole

At the side of the stage.

Despite that, it was still
the most invigorating,

Energizing, exciting two hours
of rock 'n' roll music

That I've seen to this day.

[percussive music]

- I've got a question for you.

- Early on, the audience
was there to see the headliner.

But soon enough,
people were showing up

At the concerts
wearing our makeup.

- Believe in rock 'n' roll?

[cheers and applause]

- Kiss first broke
in the midwest.

And as an illinois lad myself,
that is not surprising to me.

The coasts may have been more
drawn to t. Rex and bowie,

But kiss really spoke
to suburban kids like myself.

Like, you know, you're trapped
in some conservative suburb

Where the best
you can hope for ever

Is to maybe get a job
at the dairy queen

And along comes kiss.

And I could really see
why it was cleveland...

♪ ♪

Why it was detroit.
- How you feel, houston?

- The working-class bombast
felt like it was built

For the industrial midwest.

♪ ♪

- Do you feel all right?

- Kiss represented something

More than just music.

Kiss seemed like theater.

♪ ♪

Kiss seemed like fantasy.

- We had the most expensive
show out there.

- Come on and clap your hands.

- And the scale
kept getting bigger.

♪ ♪

We were selling out concerts.

But the problem was,
in those days,

Record labels didn't get
any money from live concerts.

All they got were the records.

And so the label's
losing money hand over fist.

♪ ♪

- I seem to remember
bill aucoin saying to me,

"you know, these guys are in
a little bit of trouble."

♪ ♪

- Neil bogart mortgaged
his house.

And he had kids
and a marriage and all that.

- The record company's
really in dire straits.

So the key factor here
was bill aucoin.

Bill aucoin used
his american express card

To continue
to finance touring.

- He was going into
great mountains of debt,

And he was being chased
by the creditors

And was running away
as quick as he could.

- We didn't have hit singles,
no album sales, nothing.

- And so financially
we were in a lot of trouble.

We were all in
a lot of trouble.

- We thought the problem

Was that we were
not played on radio at all.

♪ ♪

- Rock stations receive
an average of 100

Singles a week.

Well-known groups
can get their stuff on.

For the unknowns to get on,

Somebody must be willing
to take a chance.

- Stereo 101,
chippin' away at the rock.

- ♪ wvts ♪

- Make your ears bleed
and your...

- It actually
started organically

In terre haute, indiana.

The radio station
there wasn't playing kiss.

- This was early 1975.

The local radio station,

Which was just a brick
enclosure outside of town

With an antenna on top in the
middle of a cow pasture...

- Wvts is now broadcasting...

- A few people got together.

There was a guy named starkey.

[telephone rings]

- He got in touch
with the radio station.

And he said,
"listen, you got to play kiss.

It's my favorite band."

- "if you don't play kiss,

The kiss army
will surround the station."

- Vts with evans.
Still nobody's out there.

- The radio station thought
that was very funny.

But lo and behold,
when they didn't play kiss...

- Bill starkey is here.

You don't believe me.
I've got my army out there.

- The radio station
was surrounded.

- And that's where
the kiss army was born.

- I've never seen
something like this.

I've been doing
rock 'n' roll for 2 1/2 years,

And I've never seen
such mass participation.

- It's a volunteer army.

What could be better
than having people volunteer

To wave the flag?

- The fans and the band
fell in love with each other.

They tattoo their bodies
with our faces.

They name their children
after our songs.

There's some kind of
authentic soul connection.

- Anything else
before we move on?

Let's play some kiss music.

- But we still needed
to write a hit.

[rock music]

♪ ♪

- By our third record,

Casablanca
was in deep trouble.

We made two albums right away
the first year, neither sold.

The third album, neil bogart

Decided to jump on
and produce it for us.

- We were back
in new york city

And trying
to cut costs where we could.

If you look at
"dressed to kill,"

The album cover,
most of us didn't own suits.

But bill aucoin, our manager,
had closets full of suits.

So we got suits from bill,
and I'm wearing my dad's shoes

'cause all my shoes
at that point had 8-inch heels.

And that's all I had.

- And then we met
at neil bogart's office

At casablanca records.

He said, "you guys know who
you are and all that stuff.

"but you haven't told us.

"politicians
have a political platform.

"hamburgers can have
'have it your way.'

"we don't know
what you stand for.

You guys should write
an anthem."

And I had never heard
that word before.

And I didn't know
what it meant.

- And said, "what do you mean
by an anthem?"

And he said, "well,
sly and the family stone have

"'I want to take you higher'
or 'dance to the music,'

Songs their audience
identify with."

- Where the words tell people

What you believe in
and who you are.

- And it was really perceptive,
the idea of having

A rallying cry,
a rallying song.

- And we went,
"oh, that's kind of cool."

♪ ♪

So paul and I,
we started strumming guitar.

"how about this?
How about that?"

I had a song called
"drive me wild"

About a girl as a car,
but it didn't have a chorus.

And then paul said,
"why not like a party song?"

♪ the party's just begun,
we'll let you in ♪

- I wanted to be a preacher
of rock 'n' roll

And sing about the glory
of this incredible music

That celebrated life.

But how do you put this
into a nutshell?

How do you--
how concise can this be?

And I picked up the guitar
and went...

♪ I wanna rock and roll
all night ♪

♪ and party every day ♪

♪ I wanna rock and roll ♪

So that it was emphatic,
and went right back to it.

- And when you stuck
those two bits together...

- It was magic.

All: ♪ I wanna rock and roll
all night ♪

♪ and party every day ♪

- It's just one of those songs.

It's like "happy birthday."

- Basically says it all
in the title.

And it's one way of looking
at the world, which is,

"I want to rock 'n' roll all
night and party every day."

There are some other problems
in the world

That maybe we need
to deal with,

But that's for other bands.

- I just wanna rock and roll
all night and party every...

I've been there. It's fun.

All: ♪ I wanna
rock and roll all night ♪

♪ and party every day ♪

- We thought it was gonna be
a big hit single,

But it became
what's called a turntable hit.

It got played a lot.

[loud explosion]

But it didn't sell through.

"dressed to kill" bombed.

Neil had to resort to going
to certain people with vowels

At the end
of their last names--

Let's not go farther
than that--

To borrow money.

- He was calling in favors,
you know,

"we'll make good
on this payment.

But if you could give me
a few more months."

At that point I think it was
a pretty precarious situation.

- Casablanca, they were really
down to the last dollar.

♪ ♪

We hadn't broken through
with records.

We had three studio albums
that just didn't sell.

They didn't go gold.

And so the record company
just went,

"well, you know, we don't want
to do another studio record.

"it's gonna be too expensive.

Let's just put out
a live record."

♪ ♪

- The first three studio
albums really never captured

The essence
of what the band was live.

So we went back
to eddie kramer.

He was the right person
to do it.

- So I'm sitting in my office,
and I get a phone call.

"hey, eddie, it's neil bogart.

Do you want to do
a kiss album live?"

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

The enormity of the sound,
you know, the fans

The pa, the smoke, the bombs,
the blood coming from gene.

I mean,
it's a total immersion in kiss.

Trying to capture
that madness on tape,

This is a big challenge.

- "alive!" was the big gamble.

If it didn't hit
with the seismic force

That kiss needed and bill
aucoin and casablanca needed,

I think the whole thing
would have went belly up.

[loud pop]

All: We want kiss!
We want kiss! We want kiss!

We want kiss! We want kiss!

- You wanted the best,
and you got it.

The hottest band
in the land, kiss!

[kiss' "deuce"]

♪ ♪

- "kiss alive!" when
you listen to those songs,

They weren't reinventing
rock 'n' roll.

They were just doing
their ballistic version of it,

Huge and live and kiss.

- ♪ get up and get
your grandma outta here ♪

- Nobody would listen to that
and go,

"gee, I went to a kiss concert.
That's not what it was like."

- ♪ old jim is workin' hard
this year ♪

- It is exactly
what it was like.

- ♪ baby ♪

- But initially,
when we bring the tapes

Back to electric lady,
gene and paul said,

"nah, we got
to make it sound bigger."

- We wanted to put you
in the center of the audience.

- We took every tape machine
that we could find

In the building
and ran 100-foot loops of tape.

And we had high screams,
low screams,

Clapping, all these
different things to just...

[mimics crowd cheering]

♪ ♪

[rapid riffing]

- ♪ ahh ♪

- We wanted you to hear
the chaos going around.

But when you set off bombs,
microphones collapse.

So we replaced them
with prerecorded cannon.

[loud explosion]

- Let me just say this,

There is some contention
in the ranks

As to how much overdubbing
was done.

♪ ♪

- Were there mistakes?
Sure.

Do you want to hear
a mistake

Every time
you listen to a song?

No. So wherever play needed
to be redone,

We replayed.

- I can assure you,
in my memory banks,

It was a shitload of stuff
we had to do.

But it sounds great.

- That album is considered one
of the greatest live albums

Not because
it's exactly what happened

But because it captures
what a kiss concert was and is.

[cheers and applause]

[film projector whirring]

- So we finished the album;
we liked it.

And neil bogart calls me
and says, "hey, gene.

"I've been talking
to your manager.

"he's not sending me
the master tapes.

I need that
to put the record up."

And I said,
"you owe us radio royalties.

Send the check,
and we'll send the tapes."

And I'll never forget this,

Neil bogart,
who I thought was my friend

And was always a big supporter
and everything,

But I think was scared
to death, because he allegedly

And purportedly borrowed money

From the wrong kinds
of people.

Well, neil bogart says,
"listen, asshole,

"you don't know
who you're dealing with.

"you're gonna send me
those tapes

Or I'm gonna break your legs."

- The rock album of the year,

"kiss alive!" on casablanca
records and tape.

All: ♪ I ♪

- We still didn't send
the album

Till he sent us the money.

- "kiss alive!" came out and
took off like a bloody rocket.

All: ♪ wanna rock and roll
all night ♪

- "rock and roll all nite"
live version went top ten.

It was a hit.

- The studio version,
you know, it sounded okay.

But when you hear
the live version

And the audience just chanting
with them, come on...

All: ♪ I wanna rock
and roll all night ♪

♪ and party every day ♪

- You can't replace that.

That thing saved
the company's ass.

- Less than two years ago,
kiss came to detroit.

And now they've sold
a million records.

- "kiss alive!" sells a
million records right away.

- We couldn't have done this
without detroit!

- We were the second
platinum album in history.

The first one was the eagles,

And within an hour,
"kiss alive!"

- We really love you!

- That was the beginning.

- What is most important
to you,

The spectacle or the music?

- The audience.
- The audience?

How do you want
your ideal audience to feel

When you're finished with them?

- Exhausted.

♪ ♪

The connection between
the fans and the band comes

From a sense of reciprocity.

We give back what we are
given, and that snowballs.

You know,
we've said it before.

And we're gonna say it again.

You people are number one!

[kiss' "c'mon and love me"]

- We were having a great time.

We were really digging
being famous.

And it did happen quick
for kiss.

We got together, I believe,
'71, '72,

And in '76
we were styling.

♪ ♪

- I think each one of us
was really digging

The limos
and the dressing up

With the best in clothes
we could buy now.

We thought we were
the shit, really.

"hide your daughters,
kiss is in town."

- A lot of people have come up
that want to taste the tongue.

- Hobnobbing with all
the other rock stars.

It was very cool.
It was a very cool time.

But I wanted that high
all the time.

When we'd leave the stage,

I had to bring it back
to my room.

So I partied, and I just kept
taking it with me,

And that's dangerous.

You can't--you got to know
when to leave it

And when to have it.

- The things
that I sang about,

Everything I envisioned
became real.

The kid who had to chase girls
wound up being chased.

And the kid who was not
popular became very popular.

[cheers and applause]

[end chords]

♪ ♪

- But when "kiss alive!"
came out

And became a big hit,
bill, in his wisdom, said,

"you might have
this huge success now.

"but you need
a great studio album,

Not like the last few."

- And in short order
he said,

"and there's a guy
named bob ezrin.

He should be producing you."

He'd worked with alice cooper.
It was a big deal.

- I was pretty successful.

I'd had a couple
of really big records.

And I was pretty
full of myself.

I thought I had the answers
to everything.

And that made me perfectly
suited to working with kiss.

- Bob really took us
to another level.

[percussive music]

I learned a lot from bob.

He opened my eyes to sonically
what was possible

With other instruments,

Like with piano replicating
what a guitar was playing

To give it more depth.

[percussive notes, chords]

- We were venturing
into new areas for kiss.

- To me, their characters,

They were like
big-screen characters,

And I wanted to treat them
like that

In the music that we made.

So the stories we told
were more dramatic,

And they were about people
other than just themselves.

"detroit rock city,"
that was like a mini symphony.

It's like a piece
of rock theater.

- ♪ I feel uptight
on a Saturday night ♪

He had so many
creative ideas.

He was a big influence
musically, lyrically.

He'd say, "I don't like that
part, but I like that part."

- "okay, that's the verse;
who's got the chorus?"

Both: ♪ you gotta lose your
mind in detroit rock city ♪

♪ get up ♪

- "and here's what the solo's
going to be."

♪ ba-da-da-da ♪

♪ ♪

Every note of that solo
was bob ezrin.

He told ace what to play.

"here's the harmony part."

And it was great.

- That was not a very
rock 'n' roll approach.

And to ace's credit--
I mean,

He was the most rock 'n' roll
guy of the group--

It just didn't
sit right with him.

[loud explosion]

[ominous music]

- The "destroyer" sessions
were tough.

- There was a lot
of structure,

More structure
than they were used to.

And yes, I wore a whistle.

And yes, I used to blow it
to get their attention,

Because we didn't have time
to mess around.

We had to move.

- Paul and I liked
the "go back to rock school."

The other guys hated it.

And so we started
to see some difficulties.

- People ask if I was aware of
the tensions within the band.

♪ ♪

That's like saying, "well,
when you were walking through

"the train wreckage,

Did you notice
that there was an accident?"

- Bob kind of ran the show
like a dictator.

And we weren't used to that,
none of us were.

You know,
we all have big egos.

- That's when you started
to see

The first big problems
go down with ace.

- Ace was struggling
a little bit.

You know, he partied a lot.
He was late coming in.

Sometimes he just didn't
show up on a session

Where we were supposed
to be doing lead guitar.

- I'm on the phone with ace,

"you got to come down
and play a solo.

"you weren't here
for the tracks and everything.

You got to come down."
"hey, I--I can't come down."

"why not?"
"I got a card game."

♪ ♪

So we got another
guitar player to come in

And play the parts,
which were great.

- I think he started feeling
alienated and ganged up on.

And the truth is, he was.

- I've never been high or drunk
in my life, just haven't.

Just never appealed to me.

So I never emotionally
understood it.

- Really he was just being
what he was supposed to be.

He was supposed
to be a rock star.

And he was being a rock star.

♪ ♪

And look, in new york in 1976
cocaine was everywhere.

Your dentist had it.
Your lawyer it.

Every rock star for sure
had access to it

Whether they took it or not.

So yes, I had cocaine.

And yes, I recall
doing it together

With some of the members
of the band.

- I was doing coke
trying to keep up with ezrin,

Which was an impossibility.

But I think, personally,
that album,

Ezrin did everything
perfect for it.

- I have to say that any
drug use to me is excessive.

But bob was
a functioning addict.

He managed to do what needed to
get done and do it brilliantly.

He was--he was at the top
of his game.

"destroyer" was far
beyond anything

We could have come up
with on our own.

Perfect proof
of that is "beth."

- I think it was bill aucoin
who told me it was important

That there be one peter criss
song on every album.

It was just the political
reality of the band.

- And one day peter was riding
in the car with me,

And he starts humming,
"beck," b-e-c-k.

Like, "oh,
it's a song called 'beck.'"

- I sung it to gene one day,
and he liked it.

And then when ezrin got it,
he said,

"well, we can't sing about
jeff beck.

We got to do something
about it. How about beth?"

- And I asked
if it would be okay

If I took it home and worked
on it for a little bit.

And I know--
and it was very different

From anything
they had done before.

But I was convinced that that
song would touch everybody.

- Ksn in san francisco.

Right now,
I want to play you a cut.

- Disc jockeys started
playing "beth."

- It became massive.

"destroyer" propelled us
to new heights of popularity.

I mean, "beth won"
a people's choice.

- And the winner is...
Congratulations, "beth."

[indistinct under cheers
and applause]

- ...That we won the award
for "beth"

For the best single in 1976.

[cheers and applause]

- Anything goes.
We love you.

Rock and roll!
Thank you.

[cheers and applause]

- By '76, when "destroyer"
and "beth" became big hits,

Our lifestyle
drastically changed.

- Kiss, a world-renowned
rock group

That exploded out of nowhere.

- All of a sudden,

We were one of the biggest
bands in the world.

- Kiss is said to be sharing
the popularity

The beatles enjoyed.

- When I first realized how
big we were going to be...

- A new breed of rock 'n' roll.

- And that it was now out
of all of our hands...

- Kiss.
- Kiss.

- Kiss.
- Kiss.

- It was frightening.

I liken it to being pulled up
on the roller coaster.

The chain is underneath,
and it's pulling you up,

And you know that when you get
to the top...

- The view from up there,
breathtaking.

- That's when the ride begins.

That's what it felt like...

- Death-defying.

- Like all hell
was gonna break loose.

[kiss' "shout it out loud"]

♪ ♪

- ♪ well the night's begun,
and you want some fun ♪

♪ do you think
we're gonna find it? ♪

- ♪ think you're gonna
find it ♪

- From the time our first
record came out February 1974,

Within a year and a half,

We were headlining
anaheim stadium,

43,000-seater sold out.

- ...Seems to be
the rock group kiss.

- Kiss inspires
incredible passion.

- But why kiss?

- 'cause that's what's in now.

All: ♪ shout it, shout it,
shout it out loud ♪

- It's the beatles
in the '60s.

It's kiss in the '70s.

[booming]

- There is a reason for the
extraordinary success of kiss.

It has something to do
with their music.

But it has more to do

With the way
they are hyped and packaged.

- That's the genius thing

About the band, the characters.

The makeup seemed to sort of
invent these personalities

For each of them.

And offstage,

They were as mysterious
as they were on stage.

- Any kiss fan can tell you
you don't ever really

See these faces.
It's all part of the mystique.

- Are you gene?

- Getting a picture of kiss
without the makeup

Was like getting
a [bleep] picture of bigfoot.

- You're not gene simmons,
are you?

- No, I'm the bodyguard.
- Oh, my god.

- We guarded our secret.

And there was a $25,000 reward
on our heads.

- "people" magazine got this
shot of paul

And actually got the film
away from paul's bodyguard.

What, if somebody
gets a picture,

You take the camera away?

- Yeah.
- It's really that important.

Is that part of the mystique?

- Yeah, mystique.

- Their fantasies
and the characters

That we're portraying,
they always must be character.

- This idea,
"you'll only exist in makeup."

As disappointing as it was

That we weren't gonna be
recognized on the street...

- So what is it like for you
walking

Down the street
with no makeup?

- It worked.

I really don't look
that different.

You know,
I'm not quite this pale.

[kiss' "love gun"]

- We became so famous, so big,

So fast, you know,
it was just complete insanity.

- All right, new york!

- I remember we sold out
madison square garden

For three nights.

- ♪ I really love ya baby ♪

Then we sold out five nights
at the budokan in tokyo.

- ♪ let's get together baby ♪

- The beatles had
one day less.

We broke the beatles' record.

- Not past the beatles,
'cause I love the beatles.

They're my favorite band.

But we are a band.
We do cause insanity.

[crowd screaming]

I haven't seen that
since the beatles.

- ♪ love gun ♪

- Ironically, no matter
how successful we became,

Part of the appeal of the band

Was in being a member
of a black sheep society,

No matter how big it was,
because there was still

A lot of people
and critics who didn't like us.

- The beatles, the animals,
rock group of the 1960s

Whose boyish looks
and innovative music

Made young hearts pound
and older generations cringe.

It's the late 1970s now,
though,

When teenage musical taste

Have gone from boyish
to the bizarre.

♪ ♪

- Kiss isn't music;
they're theatrics.

They're a whole bunch
of things.

- Kiss always had

An adversarial relationship
with rock critics.

- Some critics say,
"they don't make music.

They just make noise."

- But kiss was never
a critics' band.

It always was a people's bad.

They self-identified as a band

That would go over
and above for the fans.

- Critics have blasted
the group for engaging

In nuclear-level
prepubescent hype.

- Kiss is going to have
its own comic book soon

Printed in real kiss blood.

Isn't that wonderful?

- Real classy act, guys.

- T-shirts and books. T-shirts.

- I've heard, I've read,
"oh, those marketing geniuses."

When we first started,
we were four idiots

Off the streets of new york

Who didn't have
a [bleep] clue.

- Bill aucoin
was far ahead of us.

It was his vision
to merchandise the band.

- All the sheer excitement
of kiss

Is yours to capture
with the kiss radio.

- I remember the kiss radio.

Yep, that's it.

That's a kiss radio
right up there.

So when I was a kid,
I was like, "oh, my god.

"I want a kiss radio
so [bleep] bad.

Like, I need the kiss radio!"

- Get your kiss radio.

- So like a dumbass, I order
it cod without telling my mom.

They charge you on delivery.
The guy comes to the door.

And I'm like,
"it's my kiss radio."

And he's like, "this is a cod."

My mom's like, "I didn't order
a [bleep] kiss radio."

So I never got it. That one,
someone gave that to me.

♪ ♪

But come on,
when it comes to, like,

Branding and merchandising...

- Kiss!

- Nobody can out-merch kiss.

- This is kiss.

Put them in any
crazy pose you want.

- Kiss your face.

Introducing
kiss your face makeup.

- Kiss your face makeup
is from remco.

- Yeah.

- Kiss t-shirts, kiss buttons,

Kiss hats, kiss lookalikes,
the young fans.

- Our mantra and our way
of thinking

Was that you're not forcing
anybody to have something.

You're denying them
if you don't give it to them.

- Kiss is number one.

- It only got bigger and bigger
and bigger.

- This was I would
guess about 60 or 70--

You want to try it on?
It has kiss on the back.

- We made a fortune.

- What are we talking about?
What does--

What does
kiss generate a year?

- About $117 million.

- 117 million.

♪ ♪

- Gene simmons has that one
crazy room in his house

That has, like,
every kiss product in history.

It's crazy.
It's like a museum times ten.

♪ ♪

- We make everything from
kiss condoms to kiss caskets.

Altogether now,
we'll get you coming,

And we'll get you going.

♪ ♪

We've literally had thousands
of licensed products.

♪ ♪

But again,
with anything to do with kiss,

You're talking about different
personalities within the band.

♪ ♪

- First, when it
was happening, I thought

"well, that's kind of
a cool thing, like a lunchbox.

I'll carry one of those
around myself."

I thought it was cute.

And then more
and more cute things,

I called them,
starting to happen,

And I realized that the band,

This kick-ass band that came
from the streets of new york,

We lost our edge;
we were becoming dolls.

We always had a message, kiss,
and it was totally

To rock and roll all night
and party every day.

And that was going out
the window,

And I saw it and I hated it.

We weren't a rock band
anymore.

I called bill aucoin
and told him

That this is terrible.

- Once money and fame
and licensed products came in,

We started to move away
from the magic

That was all four of us.

- We love you!

- That certainly was
the crack widening.

- Now mix in drugs.

- Rock 'n' roll!

[rock guitar riffs]

♪ ♪

- 1977, we're at the peak
of our popularity,

But there was trouble
in paradise.

[cheers and applause]

[somber music]

♪ ♪

- No matter what anybody says,
fame is a very powerful drug.

It can kill your creativity.

It can kill your desire
to progress.

I don't think anybody
goes through it unscathed.

- All of a sudden,
I wake up one day,

There's these people
blowing smoke up wherever

And telling me
I'm the greatest.

- Peter criss,
drummer

And also singer on one
just beautiful song.

[cheers and applause]

- There's girl's fainting
when I'm singing "beth"

And crying, and...

I didn't know how
to handle it.

- When we became
really successful,

Everybody was going
their own way.

We lost some of that
collective thought

That we had in the beginning
and that magic.

It started to fade.

- Sometimes people talk about,
"oh, fame changed so and so."

Fame doesn't change you.

It allows you to be
the asshole you are.

[dramatic musical sting]

[film projector whirring]

- We both grew up
with the attitude

That rock 'n' roll
was an attitude.

- The alcohol and the drug use
and the dysfunctional stuff

Started to hit the band heavy.

- Let's just say
I'm the keith richards

Of rock 'n' roll in america.

- As far as ace...

Ace frehley on lead guitar!

We couldn't rely on him
anymore...

♪ ♪

For anything.

[machine whirring]

When you're in the studio and
you have to get a part done

Before the person
who's playing it passes out,

That's really a shame.

[cheers and applause]

Yes, it was sad.

It was also a drag.

- What do you represent?
- Destruction.

- Destruction?
- Yeah.

- Yeah?
- I'm a drummer.

- If we stood in front
of the drums during a concert,

He threw sticks at us.

In his mind, the entire area
in front of the drums

Was a no-fly zone.

Insane.

- Peter was undependable,
was erratic, dark cloud,

Didn't show up at meetings,
all that stuff.

- Ace and I, we looked at it
as it was a party.

Rock 'n' roll
was to let it all go,

Hang out, have a great time.

It had nothing to do
with sitting in the office

With a shirt and tie

And figuring out
what beat goes where.

- What's great about
rock 'n' roll is performing,

What sucks is the traveling

And all the other bullshit
besides performing.

[cheers and applause]

- There were two sides
to ace and peter.

I'll always love ace and peter
in the early days.

♪ ♪

They had the drive.

"nothing's gonna stop me.
I'm gonna make it."

And onstage, rock stars.

They gave it their all.

But as success and money
and fame started to come in,

They succumbed to it.

[cheers and applause]

I have to say, in all honesty,
I did too.

I succumbed to fame

But not with chemicals
and alcohol but with ego.

What a way to make a living.

Grand delusions of myself.

[camera shutter clicks]

Power, money, and girls.

My ambitions grew bigger.

My appetite grew more.

If a day went by and I didn't
have companionship,

It was a disaster.

- Hey, if you thought you saw
another celebrity

In the audience tonight,
you probably did.

Cher bono was here.

- I started seeing cher
at the time

And then her best friend
diana,

Which that didn't last long.

[cheers and applause]

It's easier to look
at somebody who's suffering

From alcohol and drugs
and kind of say,

"you got a problem, buddy."

Mine was more hidden,
being full of myself.

That's what it was.

- We were a bunch of guys
hiding behind masks.

[cheers and applause]

In my case,
it was you're superman,

And you're on stage,

And you're the envy
of the people who are there.

But nobody knew.

[cheers and applause]

I had this deformity,

Born basically
without a right ear.

Even the band had no idea.

Gene didn't know about my ear,
because I covered it so well.

And I grew my hair
past my shoulders,

How I listened to people,
tilting my head.

It was this big secret that
was at the core of my being.

But I tell you,

It's this crowd that's gonna
burn this place down.

I was still very much
the same guy that I had been

Before the band succeeded.

The only difference was,
now I was famous,

And I had this persona.

Is everybody ready?

So the stage
was not only my escape,

But it's where
I wanted to live.

Rock 'n' roll!

Anytime I was home,
I hated it.

I would be just counting
the days

Until we would hit
the road again.

Rock 'n' roll!

And that didn't make it

Any easier
for the guys in the band.

The band was
pushing the limit.

- When you're in love,
you overlook

All the potential problems

And the foibles,
although the signs were there.

- You work around it.

But we were about
to go over the cliff.

[upbeat rock music]

♪ ♪

- "kiss meets the phantom,"

That incredible
piece of celluloid.

♪ ♪

- We had been told,
"this is gonna be 'star wars'

Meets 'a hard day's night.'"

Um, hardly.

♪ ♪

By that time,
the band literally

Wasn't talking to each other.

None of us had read
the script.

It was a disaster
waiting to happen.

- We've got to get out of here.

- Leave it to me, starchild.

I'll bend these beams
with my mind.

- Sometimes we would be
on the set shooting.

And ace or peter
would disappear.

They'd literally leave the set,
and we'd have stand-ins.

♪ ♪

And in some of
the scenes,

You can see
that it's not them.

♪ ♪

- At the end of filming, there
was a meeting held backstage,

And ace made
the announcement

That he has to leave the band.

- "I want a solo career.
I want to write my own songs.

I'm leaving the band."

On the way out,
he turned to me

And he said, "I'm gonna sell
10 million albums."

I said, "ace, you can have
your solo career

"and you can be in the band.

Have your cake
and eat it too."

- The idea was maybe we could
let this blow over and heal.

- Let's all take time
from each other.

And let's all do solo records.

And we'll bring 'em all out
on the same day.

♪ ♪

- The kiss albums, one by
each of the four kiss stars

On casablanca
records and tapes.

[ace frehley's
"new york groove"]

- We're gonna turn the
microphone over to ace frehley.

- ♪ many years
since I was here ♪

I was really resistant
to record "new york groove"

On my solo album.

It wasn't indicative of any of
the other songs on my record.

♪ here I am ♪

But eddie kramer
talked me into it.

He goes,
"ace, this is a great song."

And it gave me
a lot more confidence.

♪ you'd better believe
I'm back ♪

♪ back in the new york groove ♪

- The beatles "white album,"

It's when the harrison
finally broke out

And ringo finally did
his thing.

We're doing it now.

- One of the things
that I realized

With the success
of my solo record,

That I was probably more
creative away from those guys.

They were always
making me feel

Like maybe
I wasn't good enough.

♪ I feel so good tonight ♪

- Ace's solo record,

Those songs would have been
great tracks on a kiss record.

- ♪ you better believe
I'm back ♪

- A band, I believe,
nine out of ten times

Is always stronger
than a solo performer.

But we had no choice.

The solo albums, they were
like a little band-aid

To put on this gushing wound.

- ♪ I'm back ♪

- Now, four, five months ago,
"newsweek" magazine called

Disco the entertainment
phenomena of the '70s.

- It's here to stay, isn't it?
- Absolutely.

Discos are replacing
the nightclubs.

They are becoming
the nightclubs.

[disco music]

- Casablanca records became
the preeminent

Disco label anywhere,

Donna summer,
the village people, and so on.

- Towards the end of the '70s,
we had very little to do

With casablanca.

From my recollection,
they seemed more concerned

With when the blow
was arriving.

- Let's dance.
- Let's dance.

- Music.

[kiss' "I was made
for loving you"]

- Kiss, it's the album
you've waited two years

To hear, kiss "dynasty."

All: ♪ I was made
for lovin' you, baby ♪

♪ you were made ♪

- Dynasty is a real reflection
of where music was

At that time.

Disco was the rage, and kiss
was kind of at a crossroads.

All: ♪ can you get enough
of me tonight? ♪

- ♪ tonight ♪

- Could you explain why you
changed from rock to disco?

- I don't really think that we
made any drastic change.

The song you're referring to
as disco is really rock-disco.

- ♪ tonight ♪

- "I was made for loving you."

It didn't really
sound like kiss.

It had more of a dance feel.

- But it was something
we couldn't say no to.

It was a no-brainer.
This was a monster hit.

All: ♪ I was made
for loving you ♪

- The problem was that
it pushed us into territory

That we hadn't been.

- And this is gonna be
your favorite song?

- Yep, the first one.
"I was made for loving you."

- "I was made for loving you."

♪ ♪

- All of a sudden,
they went from being this

Kind of underground

New york punk band
to being in "sixteen" magazine

And "tiger beat,"
and all of a sudden

The little kids
started liking them.

- They're just fantastic.
We all love them.

There's no other group
like them.

They're just the best.

- I like kiss, because they got
a hard-driving rock beat.

- We found ourselves
trying more and more

To appeal to a larger group.

- It became evident and clear

Just by looking out
into the audience.

You started to see
five-year-old kids show up.

- There were people certainly
who saw it as selling out.

The only upside was that

There were a lot
of single moms showing up.

- It's not cool when you're 18
to go to a concert

And have old people
and little kids there.

- I enjoyed it.
It was exciting.

- It was not "cool."

- We were no longer the band
we had been.

[dramatic musical sting]

[somber chords]

- The look of the band
reflected who we had become.

And that was neutered,
glamorous, kind of a cross

Between vegas showgirls
and a disney picture.

That's who we were
at that time.

We were in the midst
of a tumultuous period.

- We were lost.

We were keeping the band
together by very thin threads.

Ace and peter were going
through bad behavior,

Drugs, alcohol, and stuff.

- It's like getting ready
for surgery.

- [inaudible].
- [laughs]

- "getting ready for surgery."

- Historically, ace and peter

Would keep their problems
off to the side.

- Okay. Time to rock 'n' roll.

- By the time we did
tom snyder's show,

Well, it turned out horrible.

- Now here are the remarkable
members of kiss.

And first of all,
mr. Gene simmons,

Who is the bass player,
mr. Peter criss,

Who is the drummer,
mr. Paul stanley,

Who is the guitarist,

And ace frehley,
who is the lead guitarist.

- I'm not the lead guitarist.
I'm the trap player.

[laughter]

- Although it's fun
to look at today and people

Get a kick out of it,

Really what was going on was,
we had a member

Who literally didn't show up

Till the last minute
and showed up drunk.

- I think this outfit
is self-explanatory.

[laughter]

- When you see peter laughing,
it's really reveling in seeing

How it's affecting gene and I.

It wasn't about it
being funny.

It was about the joy
in seeing us squirming.

- When you see the audience
going crazy,

What goes through your minds?

- When you see
all these people screaming

And crying and all that--

- Screaming and crying.

"why did I spend
all that money?"

[laughter]

- As tv, the fans loved it,
because they love the drama

Of ace being completely drunk
saying crazy stuff.

- Ace is back in his house.

- I mean, the thing that makes
people on a highway stop

Is a wreckage.

The bloodier it is
and the worse it is,

The more people
want to stop and watch.

- Space bear. The only
space bear in captivity.

I got him. He's captured.

- Needless to say,
I was really angry.

[laughter]

- It had reached a point
in the band

Where you just kind of
shrugged your shoulders

And hoped for the best
and realized the worst.

[cheers and applause]

Our philosophy was always,

Whatever is going on
in the band,

You leave it at the bottom
of the stairs.

When you go up on stage,
you're kiss.

We have to put an end to this.

- Marriages don't last;
friendships don't last.

But somehow bands
are supposed to last forever.

♪ ♪