Special Saturday Post!
Check out my Pal Mikey and his Good Friend Uncle Meat’s spin on the KISS’s Unmasked album for a Triple Header Post Today! More value bang for the Buck around these parts!
Click the Link Below Friends…
If you have been reading my Yammering for months now! Thanks I appreciate it. You would probably know or if you don’t recall my earliest favourite bands were AC/DC/Aerosmith/Cheap Trick/New England/Queen/Van Halen & KISS.
Kiss were the first band that I had started listening to back in 1977 and my first ever live show two years later in October 1979 on their Dynasty Tour which touched down in Duluth. You can read my first ever blog posted here at Arena Rock back in August 2014 here….https://superdekes.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/1979-the-return-of-kiss-2/
Seven months later (May 1980) Peter Criss gets the boot out of Kiss! Wowzers! Whut? This doesn’t happen to bands or does it? My 12-year-old noggin(1980) at the time couldn’t fathom it!
Sure Aerosmith had changed members but around 1980 they were caput kinda until 1982 when they released the criminally underrated Rock In A Hard Place.
By The time AC/DC came to me it was Back In Black! Sure there was a member change as Bon Scott died and Brian Johnson replaced him so that doesn’t count.
Cheap Trick,VH and Queen all had the four original guys that started the band so how does Paul Stanley,Ace Frehley and Gene Simmons do this?
Did Peter use all the Maybelline and the other guys in Kiss got pissy pants? Who knows! Dudes in bands don’t get divorced well not until now(1980) Silly young DeKEs!
I posted that clip at the top it’s interesting to hear $immon$ comments in regards to Criss quitting. Simmons says Peter doesn’t want to tour anymore whereas Criss says the exact opposite that he will tour and he will be the Quarterback of the band calling the shots! Did Peter even tour in the early 80’s? Don’t be thinking so.
Who knows the truth? Like Nuno & Gary from Extreme said 11 years later in 1992. There’s Three Sides To Every Story.
1-Yours- which in this case is Gene & Paul
2-Mine- which would be Peter Criss
and #3 which is the …..
Truth– is there such a thing when a longtime member splits?Ha…none, all the way from Blackmore splitting from Deep Purple a couple of times to Sam Hagar being fired or quitting depending on whose spin your believing. Tons of Drama with a lot of my favourite bands. You know the culprits! One of the funniest ones was the whole Motley Crue debacle of 92. I won’t elaborate as this is a KISS post but man I think I gotta post something about it in length….
Having said that….
When it comes to leaving a band it basically fizzles out the ex members career who splits while the band he quit from continues and moves forward.
In Criss’ deal he splits Kiss when their career is in nosedive mode in North America but Pete soldiers on releases a solo album titled Out Of Control and it was like if Peter was playing his tune’s on the deck of the Titanic when it went down in the Atlantic Ocean! No one cared even super Kiss Fanboys like myself and buddy Muc! We all passed on it.

Kiss hired Eric Carr(RIP) and after the dismal showing of 1981’s The Elder Kiss had a smidge bit of a bounce back with(the fantastic) Creatures Of The Night (1982)even Kiss knew they had to do something so off comes the war paint and viola a resurgence in sales and MTV video spins….
Peter Criss’ solo career went straight into the bars and it wasn’t until Gene and Paul wanted to make quick cash decided to give Pete and Ace(Ace is another story for another time) another go round in 1996….