Guitar World Presents KISS
The Editors of Guitar World Magazine
Guitar World
In a nutshell, Guitar World has compiled their 1990s interviews with America’s most important and influential rock/metal band KISS. This amounts to over 100 pages of serious, quality interviews with Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, Bruce Kulick and Pete Criss. The subjects covered include extensive dialogue concerning the band’s history, er KISStory, album releases in the 1990s, the megabuck reunion of 1996 as well as who uses what kind of guitar.
I’m not a musician by any meaningful yardstick, but I can appreciate KISS discussing their tunings, how they write songs and that they really, really like to play rock and roll. It’s also pretty cool to read that Gene didn’t particularly care for the slow songs like “Beth,” which I never cared for either… There’s also a neat piece on how they do their make-up and costuming. They’re also really honest in addressing the controversies surrounding booting and subsequently rehiring certain band members, handling the death (by cancer) of drummer Eric Carr, as well as dealing with serious drug, alcohol and money problems. Apparently none of them had any problems with the sex literally thrown at them. Considering that my cousin Rick turned me on to KISS in 1974, I really liked reliving those carefree days of my 11-year old self through Gene and Paul’s’ account of how the band started and who their fans were. I highly recommend this fun-filled book of important facts and tidbits on the Kings of the Nighttime World, KISS.
