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Feature images courtesy of Getty Images/KISSonline.com. Not to be used without explicit consent.

By Andrew Daly
andrew@vinylwriter.com

Having just shocked the world by allowing founding members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss to join the then-current lineup onstage during a performance on MTV’s Unplugged, KISS found itself a band at a crossroads.

In 1995, KISS was at both a creative and commercial fork in the road. Questions were looming, and ultimately, it came down to two choices: move forward without makeup, and continue the status quo, or invite Frehley and Criss back into the fold, put the makeup back on, and shock the world.

Enter Doc McGhee.

If KISS was going to pull off the improbable, they needed a formidable force at the helm, and while a few were considered for the job, after a fateful conversation with super-manager, Doc McGhee, for lynchpin members, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, the choice was clear, KISS was going to shock the world in ways fans could never imagine.

In the wake of hiring McGhee, and pushing forward with the reunion, no one could have envisioned the world-dominating success KISS would experience, as its four founding members rode a wave that rivaled their 70s heyday. Sadly, that wave of success came crashing ashore, seemingly dashing KISS’ hopes of kabuki-stained revival after only a few short years. With old demons afoot, and Frehley and Criss once again making a hasty exit, KISS seemed a band destined to meet its end.

Enter Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer.

As cliche as it sounds, KISS once again found itself a proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes as McGhee, Simmons, and Stanley made the shrewd, and downright ballsy decision to not only ingratiate Singer and Thayer into KISS, but to have them wear the iconic Spaceman and Catman makeup to boot. Thayer and Singer fearlessly clad themselves in clandestine warpaint, and headed into to battle, entering the unknown with no expectations, knowing that at the very least, the opportunity of a lifetime might lay ahead.

Twenty years, and two more exceptional records later, the four members of KISS as it stands today are still valiantly together. More so, the musical symbiosis shared between them has made for the band’s longest-running and most cohesive unit in KISS’ nearly fifty-year history.

To say that any of this couldn’t have happened without KISS’ intrepid manager Doc McGhee would be an understatement. McGhee’s in-depth understanding of what makes KISS great, and ability to push it to the max have allowed KISS undying success since 1996.

McGhee’s unflinching attitude, infinite persistence on quality, and showmanship make KISS second to none. His perpetual pursuit of king-of-the-mountain domination has unremittingly allowed KISS to remain The Hottest Band in the World. Nothing short. Nothing less.

From his hotel in Helsinki, McGhee recently chatted with me via phone regarding his quarter-century-long tenure as the unquestioned coach of KISS. Among other things, we touch on his early vision for the reunion era, the importance of Eric Singer, and Tommy Thayer, how he’ll most remember his time in KISS, and a whole lot more.

Andrew:
Doc, thank you for taking some time to go back through your KISStory. Walk me through the initial conversations with Paul and Gene in regards to managing KISS.

Doc:
It kicked off because I had seen the Unplugged show, but I wasn’t part of Unplugged in any way. They had done that, and I think that’s what kind of gave them the theory to go out and to try to put things back together again. So at that point, Paul and Gene started to look at people that they felt could do the job the right way. So, I was one of the few people that were talking to, and it came down to what I was saying, and what they were saying was just in line with each other. I felt it was stadiums, and I said, “Let’s blow this up.” There were some people at the time who were saying, “Let’s do theaters and all that stuff,” but they chose the stadium route, which is where we went, and where we’ve been.

Andrew:
At that point, KISS had been playing mostly theaters and arenas. So, coming in, what was your game plan to return KISS to stadiums?

Doc:
I don’t think that there was any preconceived notion or huge plan per se. I think it’s just more that it came down to if it’s worth doing, then with KISS, it’s worth overdoing. [Laughs]. You know, with KISS, we’re talking about a huge entity, and when they were huge back in the day, they were larger than life. So, anything that we could have done that was less than that, it just didn’t resonate with me. I didn’t feel like anybody else would buy into it either. So, the beginning of that approach was having the four of them come out at the Grammy’s, if you remember when they did that with Tupac. The idea was that this was going to be the first time you saw the four of them in makeup together again. We decided to do it, and I looked and them and said, “Okay, let’s go do this. But I don’t want you to say a word to anybody. I want you to walk in, go up, and give the award away. Then let’s go to the photo shoot, but don’t say a word to anybody. Just take the photos, and we’re out, so they don’t even know if it was really you.” We did that, and it worked out phenomenally. And then the next week, we announced that I had rented the Intrepid aircraft carrier in New York to do a press conference. We had Conan O’Brien host it, and the band did four songs on the deck for the fans. After that, we announced Tiger Stadium, and we sold that out in twenty minutes, and the rest is history.

Andrew:
As KISS’ manager, what concerns did you have about integrating Peter Criss and Ace Frehley back into the band at that time?

Doc:
Well, you know, at that point, we really couldn’t take the chance of not have them as a part of it. Regardless of hesitations, or not, this was either a reunion or it wasn’t. So when we started talking with Ace and Peter, getting them in shape, and getting ready to do, it all just fell into place. I mean, I don’t think we could have done it without those guys, not by any means. I don’t think anybody would have bought into it.

Andrew:
So there was never any other consideration for anyone aside from Ace and Peter then?

Doc:
Not that I remember in any respect. From the moment that I go there, it was always only going to be a reunion of the four original guys.

Andrew:
When you look back on the reunion era, with hindsight of course, is there anything you might have done differently given the chance?

Doc:
No, not really. Everybody was committed and got along well during the whole reunion tour. I mean, Peter, he was actually the MVP of the first legs of the reunion tour. Honestly, he was solid, he wanted to play, and he was happy. Ace was in the same frame of mind, and both Gene and Paul were ready to go. Now, as we got through the tour, I’d say about two years in, yes, things started to unravel. It became a case of history repeating itself.

Andrew:
In your estimation, going into the Psycho Circus era, what caused things to unravel to the point that the Farewell Tour was announced shortly thereafter?

Well, that actually surprised me. I would have thought that people would have recognized how fortunate everybody was to have this opportunity, this second chance at fame and fortune. I mean, forget about fortune, but the fame, and the notoriety that KISS can really bring to a man. I really thought that would have outweighed the personal stuff, and then reverting back to all the shit that happened to them twenty-five years before that. Unfortunately, it did revert back, and it opened up a lot of wounds, everybody expressed their feelings and things started to fall apart during Psycho Circus.

Andrew:
In regards to Psycho Circus, why weren’t you able to get Ace and Peter to participate in the way you might have liked?

Doc:
It’s funny, I don’t think that there was any reason. You know, they just didn’t want to. It was a very volatile time for them. It was a lot like 1979 all over again, where it only took a few years for them to implode from the beginning, and it was a case where history repeated itself once again.

Andrew:
When did Farewell Tour become less about the end of KISS, and more about the end of Ace and Peter’s time in KISS?

Doc:
Now see, I never felt that it had to be just the original four. I felt that the four original members had to be together for a Reunion Tour and to get them going for sure. That said, I never felt that you couldn’t do this without the four original members, but that was not really what Paul and Gene felt. It was more Gene who felt that this was going to be so difficult, and so hard, that we should just end KISS. I said, “No. If you’re going to end it, what you want to do – which we didn’t do – is say that ‘this is the end of KISS as you know it.’” What that would have meant is this is the end of KISS with Ace and Peter, as they were definitely logging out, especially, Peter, for sure.

Andrew:
So, in the wake of that, what were the considerations as you decided to move forward? Was it always to remain in makeup with Eric and Tommy? Or was there thought put into bringing back the non-make-up lineup with Bruce Kulick?

Doc:
Not my mind, or in their mind, I don’t think. Really, there was no going back. What were you going back to? You’d have to go back to doing conventions in Hilton’s. No, there was no going back to that, and we weren’t about to add new characters like a squirrel, a fox, or whatever. [Laughs]. The solution was to add new people to the mix and keep the characters. The fans wanted and liked the format of the four guys, and the four characters, more so than the guys who played them. I know you have diehard fans that knew who everybody was, but then you had the rest of the people who really didn’t know anybody’s name, but knew what KISS was about. So, when you change that, you run a huge risk, because people don’t know what they like, they just like what they know. It needed to be familiar, otherwise, it wasn’t going to work.

Going back to the Revenge years when they were doing all the different stuff, changing sounds, looks, and music, that didn’t work all the way. They were trying to reinvent themselves when they didn’t have to because all they had to do was be true to themselves, and go back to being KISS no matter the lineup. They can do that with any lineup because KISS is not about an individual, KISS is not defined by any one person. KISS is defined by KISS. Now, people may like one player better than another for whatever reason, but really, the Starchild, the Demon, the Spaceman, and the Cat is what everybody’s coming to see, right? KISS isn’t about any one player, it’s always been greater than the sum of its parts.

Andrew:
Around 2003, the band was at an interesting juncture as it had Tommy entering the fold, with Peter eventually giving way to Eric as well. I agree that KISS is greater than the sum of its parts, but was there any trepidation or concern about moving forward with two new members wearing the makeup?

Doc:
You know, in the back of everybody’s mind there may have been. I mean, sure, we had to think if people were gonna buy into it. That said, my theory has always been that if you go out, and you’re the best fucking band in the world, and blow them away, people are going to come to see it. And if it’s not you, if you aren’t that band, then people are gonna go fine, and see the best band. To me, that’s pretty much it. So, we just had to put it together, and it took a little while to get our legs under us from not having the original members there again. Eric was great because he had been there before, he was actually in the band longer than Peter was, and he’s a really solid drummer. And then Tommy, he had been in Black N’ Blue, and he was actually the music director for KISS during the reunion era because he knew KISS extremely well. He knew them so well that played them all the parts, and he worked with Ace on his parts too. At that point, the band had been together for nearly thirty years and had all these different versions of songs from over the years, and I’m not sure they really knew what the original songs sounded like. So they were playing all these different kinds of parts, and Tommy was the one that put them back together in their original form. I said to Tommy, “We have to play what people heard and what people want to hear. This isn’t an art project. This is what people want to hear. It’s got to be the same solos, the same drum parts, and we can embellish it a little bit, but we have to stay very true to what it is.” I think if you’ve listened to all of our later records, whether it’s Monster, Sonic Boom, or Psycho Circus, they stay true to KISS.

Andrew:
There’s an interesting quote floating around out there that basically says, “The reunion era killed KISS as a creative entity.” I personally don’t agree with that, but I wanted to get your two cents as well.

Doc:
When you’re at the top, everybody wants to take shots. So they go, “Well, they’re not being creative,” or they say, “They aren’t doing what they did when they recorded Revenge.” Now, I personally thought Revenge was really good – if was really good if it wasn’t KISS doing it. This wasn’t The Beatles going from “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” to Sgt. Peppers. [Laughs]. Look at other really successful bands who have had great longevity, and I’ll use ACϟDC as an example. You don’t see ACϟDC changing their sound, do you? Although I really like ACϟDC, you can’t deny that they stay true to what they do. For every record, they just make it solid, fun, and heavy. They don’t sit there and say, “Wow, I should probably make my Nebraska.” [Laughs]. No, they stay true to what they do, and that’s what I thought KISS had to do. Whenever bands and artists make really big changes, it’s pretty much because they’ve had such an amazing record that they can’t duplicate it.

Take Born in the USA for example, that was so fucking big, Springsteen knew he couldn’t beat it. I thought it was brilliant that Springsteen did Nebraska because you couldn’t compare the two, and that’s because Born in the USA was so big, I don’t think you could have beat that record. So, he did Nebraska, and that gave him space and time to come back with his other records that were huge. But with KISS, you never had that one massive record, or that one single massive song that we couldn’t beat. Instead, we have a lot of great, classic songs that mean so much to a lot of people. I know it sounds corny, but it comes back to the idea that you can be what you want to be. That’s how KISS got there. They couldn’t compete. They didn’t feel like they could compete in blue jeans against the rest. So they went the route of alter egos, and they did that so they could go and be that person that they wanted to be, and it was awesome. To this day, Gene, Paul, Tommy, and Eric own those characters when they’re on stage. They fucking work them, and people believe them. That’s what has kept KISS alive.

Andrew:
I would agree, but still, a lot of people give Eric and Tommy a lot of flack. What would you say to their detractors?

Doc:
Listen, I think Paul said it best, “There’s no way that KISS could have got to where they were going without Ace and Peter, but there’s no way KISS would be here today without Eric and Tommy.” I have all the respect in the world for Ace and Peter, especially Ace. I think he really changed the way of listening to and playing the guitar. You know, how many players have said this? You’ve got Tom Morello, Kurt Cobain, Garth Brooks, and all these people that were twelve or thirteen, and just getting their feet wet with the guitar. Ace really influenced those people with that sloppy guitar sound, which was awesome, and affected so many young guitar players. I can name fifty off the top of my head, so many accomplished musicians who were influenced by Ace. So yeah, when people say, “Oh, that’s fake Ace,” Okay, in some respects, it is. But guess what? He’s so good at it. Tommy is so good at it, and with Eric playing the way he does, they both drive Gene and Paul to do what they do so well. I don’t think you’re gonna find – and I don’t want to sound like WWE here – but I’ve managed the biggest bands in the world for my whole life, and when it comes to KISS, you’re gonna have a very difficult time beating that show. I don’t care who you are, that show is something that speaks to generations of fans, and that speaks for itself.

You know, when I first started with KISS, I had a hard time understanding thewhole phenomenon, but once I understood it, I realized how insane it really is. As I look at these people around the world watching the band, it’s incredible. I’m sitting in Helsinki right now, and we’ve just had twenty or thirty-some-odd shows between here and South America, and it’s been nothing but massive audiences through all these different countries. We’re talking about a band that fifty years on is packing places on an international scale. It doesn’t matter if it’s a couple of nights at the Meadowlands, or Croatia, Italy, France, Germany, or South America, these guys are in front of tens of thousands of people night after night. So, I don’t care what anybody says, the proof is in the pudding here. You can say, “Well, I would rather have this person up there,” well that’s your opinion. The fact of the matter is that Tommy and Eric have stepped up, and brought KISS to a new level musically, and that makes Gene and Paul’s lives so much easier. It makes it so that they can just walk out there and do their thing. They wouldn’t be able to do that with the backbone of the band, which is Tommy and Eric.

Andrew:
Throughout The End of the Road Tour there has been near-constant speculation if Ace, Peter, or Bruce will be joining the band on stage. Are any of these guys going to come and play, or will it just be Paul, Gene, Eric, and Tommy standing together on that final night?

Doc:
Honestly, I don’t know. You can invite them, but they may not come. They may come, they may not come, and we might not invite them. We’ve talked to them, and we’ve talked about it. Well, we don’t talk to Peter, but we do talk to Ace. We haven’t talked to Peter in a long time. But you know something? They were part of it, they aided in starting this band, and they should be part of the end of this. They started this, so in some way, they should be able to share that spotlight on the way out. Now, regardless of if it happens or not, you’re not going to get six guys up there in makeup. That’s not going to happen.

Andrew:
There’s a wonderful quote out there by Paul, where he said from the very beginning of the reunion era, the ethos was, “We didn’t need to be what we were, we needed to be what people thought we were,” and during your time helming KISS, I think you’ve done an incredible job of giving the fans what they wanted most. Looking back, how do you view your time in KISS, and what memory will stick out most?

Doc:
Well, I’ll always remember and be proud of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction just because they dislike KISS so much. [Laughs]. Other than that, it’ll probably be the last show that I’ll remember most. As far as the accomplishments, you know, I can only be the ringleader. It’s my job to have all the participants fired up, and ready to make it happen. I’m a coach. I’m like a coach on a football team, you know? I have to devise plays, I have to motivate, and they have to respond to that. You know what? They always have, and that makes me very proud.

– Andrew Daly (@vwmusicrocks) is the Editor-in-Chief for www.vwmusicrocks.com and may be reached at andrew@vinylwriter.com