Kiss
Kiss History
This is a short walktrough in the KISS history. (with
credits to Alex Carranza,
from whose KISS FAQ I got most of the material)
Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley
met for the first time in 1970, when Gene
played one show with Pauls band Uncle
Joe. In 1971 Gene formed the band
Rainbow along with Stephen Coronel. Paul
stanley wants to join Rainbow, but
is beeing turned down on the phone. This does
not stop Paul from turning up
at the auditions, and this time he gets hired.
1972 Rainbow develops into
Wicked Lester and gets a record deal with Epic
Records. They record their
debut album, but Epic drops the band and the record
is never released. Gene
and Paul discovers Peter Criss through an ad in Rolling
Stone Magazine
and the band changes name to KISS. In 1973 KISS advertises in
Village
Voice for a guitarist, and after auditions they hire Ace Frehley. Now
the
band starts wearing makeup, and Ace comes up with the KISS logo. They
enter
the Electric Lady Studios in June and record their first album KISS,
and in
August they sign a record contract with the new label Casablanca
Records. The
album is released in February 1974, and KISS starts of their
first tour. In
August they start recording their second album Hotter Than
Hell at Village
Recorder Studios in LA, and in October the album is
released. The touring goes
on until February 1975, when they start to record
their third album Dressed To
Kill, released in March that year. More
touring was to come and the recorded
live material resulted in KISS Alive!,
released in September 1975 and sold gold
in December. In March 1976
Destroyer, their second goldselling album was
released. The same year in May
they made their first performance in Europe on
the "KISS Around The World"
tour. This year they also released a tour
album to promote the summer U.S.
tour, and Casablanca released the compilation
The Originals, which
consisted KISS first three studio albums. In November they
released Rock and
Roll Over, and Destroyer recived their first platinum
certification. Love
Gun, released in June 1977 became their first record to ship
Platinum,
and later that year their second live album Alive II does just the
same. The
Alive II tour went on until February 1978, and in April that year
the
greatest hits compilation Double Platinum was released. In May and June
1978 the
film KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park was filmed at Magic Mountain
in
Valencia. The film had premiere in October. In September no less than
four KISS
albums were released, one soloalbum for each member of the band. In
May 1979
Dynasty was released, and a year later in May 1980 Unmasked was
released. Now
Peter leaves the band, and Eric Carr replaces him as
drummer. In August that
year the first pictures of the band without makeup
becomes official. In January
1981 Best Of Solo Albums was released all
over the world with exception of North
America. This year KISS recorded
and released their first and only concept album
The Elder. In May 1982
the greatest hits album Killers was beeing released all
around the world,
once again with the exception of North America. In October
that year the
album Creatures Of The Night was out on the market. In November
1982 the
KISS lineup changes again when Ace leaves the band, and was replaced
by
Vinnie Vincent. In June 25 1983 the band does their last preformance
in
makeup... atleast in this era. Later in 1983 Vinnie does his recording
debut on
Lick It Up, which was the only KISS album he was involved in.
Vinnie was fired
from the band during the European tour, but came back to
play the American part
of the tour. When the tour closed in March 1984 Vinnie
leaved the band for good,
and Mark St. John took his place. 1984 they
released the album Animalize with
Mark on guitar, but later that year he
was forced to leave KISS due to a disease
called Reiter's Syndrome. His place
was taken by Bruce Kulick, and in 1985 they
release Asylum. In 1986 the
members did all kinds of different stuff besides
KISS, like Gene starring
in various movies and so on. Therefore no album was
released this year. In
March 1987 the band went into the studio to record a new
album, which was
released in September under the name Crazy Nights. To celebrate
that KISS now
has been around for 15 years, they released the compilation
Smashes,
Thrashes And Hits in November 1988. 1989 the album Hot In The Shade
was
released, and the the year after they went on tour with their largest
stageshow
ever. In 1991 it was announced that Eric Carr suffered from cancer
in the heart,
and in November 24, a very sad day for all KISS fans, he dies
due to this. Eric
Singer now takes on the part as drummer in KISS, and in
May 1992 the album
Revenge, dedicated to Eric carr, was released. During
the Revenge tour the
material to Alive III was recorded, and the album was
released in May 1993. In
1994 and 1995 they tour and appeared in various
TV-shows. In August the thing
that all fans had wished for happened. The
original lineup was reunited for a
stageshow filmed and recorded by MTV, for
their unplugged series. The original
lineup preformed two songs, and two more
songs was preformed with both the
current and the original lineup. The rest
of the show was done with the current
KISS setup at the time. Then the
band entered the studio again to record a new
album, which did not not get
released at the time, but become known as Head or
Carnival Of Souls. In
March 1996 the KISS Unplugged album was released, and
rumors were that there
would be a reunion of the original members. The band
wouldn't comment on this
but in February that year they showed up at the Grammy
Award in full
makeup. In April they finally announced that they would do a
reuniontour in
1996 and 1997. In June 1996 the album You Wanted The Best, You
Got The
Best!, with oldmaterial (some previously unreleased), was released
to
celebrate the reuniontour. In europe they also released a
compilationalbum
called Greatest KISS in late 1996. Bruce and Eric left the
band, and KISS
started out on a big worldtour with the original members. In
the summer of 1997
rumers started spreading that the unreleased album was
going to be released, and
under the name Carnival Of Souls - The Final
Sessions, the album hit the stores
in late october. After the tour the band
went into the studio to record a brand
new album with all new material. This
album is planned to be on the market in
early 1998, with a major tour
following. There will also be a collectors box to
buy in 1998. And the saga
continues...