Ace & Peter – In or Out?

’m not saying: Ace and Peter should not be in KISS. I’m just saying: Ace and Peter should not be in KISS NOW.

In 1973 KISS was belched forth – from Hell!!! – Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss crafting their image as four individual characters, to appeal to different sets of fans. At the peak of this founding lineup’s success, Peter was fired in 1980. Over the next two years, Ace would meander out of the band, like a drunk looking for the exit…well…

After a successful unmasked 80’s run with Eric Carr and Bruce Kulick, Gene and Paul reapplied the warpaint and reunited with Ace and Peter for the 1996 Reunion Tour. By 2000, Ace and Peter were let go again, with Gene and Paul solidifying another successful lineup into the present with Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer – but this time – Tommy was wearing Ace’s Spaceman makeup, and Eric was wearing Peter’s Cat. Which sent some hardcore fans into Sweet Pain. Those fans would find their voices in an internet developing into a trash-talking haven for broken souls; not exactly SJWs, not exactly cancel culture, a maniacal contingent arose, whining for the reinstatement of Ace and Peter into the jobs they couldn’t hold, and didn’t want. I call them: Ace-LOONIES and Peter-LOONIES.

psycho circus

Look, I’m not saying: Ace and Peter should not be in KISS; hell, they molded our childhoods with music, makeup and mayhem. I’m just saying: Ace and Peter should not be in KISS NOW. You LOONIES, you’re probably very nice people; we all love the same bands, you hold good jobs, take care of your families, call your mother, and help old ladies cross the street. But what is it, when you see a familiar painted face on a different musician, and he’s playing an Epiphone instead of a Gibson, that makes you want to Murder in High Heels?

I feel your pain. We’re all KISS fans here. You feel you’ve been wronged. Like it’s not AC/DC without Bon, not Purple without Ritchie, not Heep without Byron, not Milli without Vanilli. But sometimes, you’ve got to wrong a few people, to do right by a lot of other people. Gene and Paul didn’t sack Ace and Peter to spite YOU. They were ousted from KISS, so that KISS would not be ousted from existence. And it’s now been proven through the 90s Reunion years that any attempt at re-living the *70s* is doomed to failure.

Let me speak to the musicians amongst the LOONIES: you know how GRUELING rock and roll is! You know how rigorous touring is, how brain-frying practicing is, how unforgiving an itinerary is; do you seriously think that current Ace and current Peter would be able or willing to fulfill their roles in an international touring band? In high heels?

crazy nights

Hey, LOONIES, I understand your love. Here I am, Here we are. We are one. And as much as we all want to recapture that spark of youth, Life has brutally moved on, not just for you and me, but for Ace and Peter as well. And I AM talking to us old–ahem– “weathered” fans, because let’s face it, if you’re under 20, and trolling about “Ace and Peter should be in KISS” – you gotta leave that conversation to those of us who molested our bedroom walls and ceilings with KISS posters.

ace

Ace is fantastic. He’s a fun guy; a creative, melodic guitarist, a great rock and roll composer. However, his head is not in the right airspace to be contracted to a band that requires so much more commitment than a tour whenever he “feels like it.” I saw Ace on his 1993 Tour called Just For Fun; one of the best live guitar sounds I’d ever heard, and Ace was cooking with ozone. But the tour name says it all – no commitment, Ace just wants his onstage fix in between card games and coke binges. Just for fun.

But, you say, rock n roll should be fun – of course it’s more fun than a cubicle job – but as soon as you get paid for your first gig in a toilet pub – it’s a JOB. And after 8 stellar post-KISS albums, Ace is more at home in his mid-level job, fronting shit-hot touring bands, than he is as the comic relief for KISS. He is planets above playing in toilet pubs, but that’s all he wants to do. And uh, Ace being sober? In every interview, Ace slips it in, unbidden, “I’ve been sober for the last 12 years” – yeh right, curly! Ace has been sober for the last 12 years – for the last 12 years!

peter

Peter was a jungle cat, a slamming drummer and driveway-gravel rock vocalist, but after the Classic Six, his own demons – drugs, alcohol, domineering girlfriends, and injured hands in a 1978 car accident – contributed to his firing back in 1980, after which he released two solo albums, then disappeared. Coming out of arguably the biggest band in the world, this cat couldn’t continue even a basic music career? It’s because Peter is not a musician (drummers gasp!) and needed others (like Stan Penridge) to craft his tunes, so he couldn’t command any respect; being an unmotivated scatterbrain he couldn’t command any loyalty either, as he attempted forming/joining numerous bands, producing only 4 mediocre post-KISS albums in 40 years, with sparse gigs in toilet pubs. His retirement in 2017 was noticed only by the 12 Peter-LOONIES who attended his final show… then blogged about how he should still be in KISS.

the elder

Now, you can be as LOONY as you want for Ace and Peter, though don’t let your love for them, make you disparage the blood, sweat and careers of these guys: Mr. Simmons and Mr. Stanley. They’re originals too, y’know. And they never left. They are now the embattled Elder gods of this corporate machine.

So it’s fully within their right to treat Ace and Peter like contractors during the 1996 Reunion, another bone of contention for the LOONIES. After being disconnected from the KISS organization for 15, 16 years, did Ace and Peter really think they would earn as much money as Paul and Gene, who kept the war machine on its tank treads through Flaming Youth and Odyssey? To be clear – KISS never broke up; if they did – then it would be fair for everyone to return and share equally. Peter especially loves playing the victim, complaining he’s not getting paid his fair share after being absent for 16 years. So lemme get this straight: you can be fired from a company in its fledgling stages, then when you’re invited back after the company is gigantic, you demand to earn as much as the CEOs who made it gigantic?  [“Are you crazy, Montana? Are you crazy?”]

unmasked

Rock historian Eddie Trunk speaks for many LOONIES when he cites his major beef with KISS – that Tommy and Eric are wearing OTHER people’s makeup. No, they’re not. They’re wearing authorized KISS makeup. Remember: it’s a brand. Gene and Paul are not insulting their legacy. They care about their legacy so much, they slapped it on two new guys that had nothing to do with it! That’s not disrespecting the legacy; that’s loving it long time! And by the way, why would you stop liking a band you grew up with – because of some face paint?

Paul makes a great observation to all those purists who maintain Tommy and Eric are “impostors” wearing the makeup. Now, Ace and Peter came to HATE wearing the makeup during the Reunion, basically “doing it for the money,” disrespecting the makeup by having their same drug and drink and mental problems from the 70s resurface during the 90s, with Ace regularly late, unpracticed, drunk or high, and Peter sabotaging shows… whilst Tommy and Eric wear the makeup proudly. In the final telling, the impostors – are the UN-masked.

And just to be clear: both Ace and Peter SOLD their makeup trademarks to KISS Catalog Limited a long time ago. Peter’s too loopy to admit it and Ace is too high to remember it.

childhood’s end

All insults aside, I understand that you LOONIES are really SUPERFANS, and advising the band that you love on how it can be improved by plugging 2 members back into it.

But really, think about it:
Paul is already struggling with vocals, so you wanna add Ace struggling with songs he didn’t bother re-learning?; you want Peter struggling to keep a straight beat for two hours without fainting? And you’re NOT going to complain? You complain when 68-year-old Paul misses a coupla high notes that he used to hit 40 years ago, and you’re NOT gonna complain when Ace turns up late to a show that cost you $600? Are you gonna give 75-year-old Peter a pass when a song has to be stopped halfway through because he’s drumming too slowly?

Think even more about it:
Ace won’t be allowed to play his solo dambusters Rip It Out or Trouble Walkin’ – he’ll have to stick to the songs he is bored of playing.
Peter keeps complaining KISS won’t re-hire him. in the next breath saying he hasn’t got the stamina for a full show, let alone a tour.

This is not speculation! This is what happened on the Reunion Tour after the two jackasses felt their jobs were stable enough to start giving less than 100%. You want to force two guys YOU love into a band they are incapable of being in – one of them can hardly hold drumsticks, and the other looks like a baked potato with French fries for legs.

In the final telling, if you’re a KISS fan – a “true” KISS fan – you’ll stop the infighting over the hottest band in the world, and appreciate all members for what they bring to the legacy – The Originals for their dirty rock and roll, Eric Carr’s double-kick thunder, Vinnie Vincent’s blues-metal bleeding, Mark St. John’s angry bees, Bruce Kulick’s technical electric, Eric Singer’s precision pounding and Tommy Thayer’s spectrum canonic.

Paul with CBS reporter Anthony Mason, who asks him whether Ace and Peter might be re-hired, for old times’ sake: “How many times you been married? How about for old times’ sake you go back and spend the night with your ex-wife? [Mason laughs] You wouldn’t make good music!…”

I’m not saying: Ace and Peter should not be in KISS. I’m just saying: Ace and Peter should not be in KISS NOW.

END