Life on Planet Rock

by Lonn Friend

  That experience with Danny gave me a preview of what was to come. In a few short years, I’d be invited out on the road again, not to sell shirts, but to gather stories. And I would soar across Planet Rock on starships fueled by success and privilege, guided by some of rock ‘n’ roll’s craziest captains. Amazing what a sociology degree can get you.

  7

  Dr. Stanley and Mr. Simmons

  ”WHEN YOU PEEL OFF THE MASK THAT HIDES YOUR VULNERABILITY AND YOUR HUMANITY, YOU LL COME FACE TO FACE WITH YOUR TRUE SELF.”

  —Debbie Ford, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers

  I was walking through the lobby of the Shrine Auditorium during another boring VH1 Music Awards in the fall of 1999 when I noticed Gene Simmons sitting alone in a chair near the entrance. I sidled up to say hello. Before I could complete my introductory sentence, he directed my eyes to the wristwatch on his left arm. It was an officially sanctioned KISS timepiece— evidently, the brand-new model right off the assembly line. “Cool,” I said, half-expecting him to remove the ticking novelty and award it to me (like he didn’t have a hundred more at home in a drawer).

  “Go to kissonline.com and you can buy one,” he said, unflinching.

  “Are you kidding, Gene?” I laughed. “Buy one?” “Yes, Lonn,” he responded, his legendary serpent’s-length tongue not so firmly in cheek. “Buy one.”

  If you were to poll the artists who rose to success in popular music over the past two decades and ask them who their heroes were, a good percentage would put KISS at the top of their lists. From Anthrax to Pantera, Lenny Kravitz to Garth Brooks, and hundreds more from across the musical spectrum, if it hadn’t been for KISS, they probably would have chosen another path in life. Nirvana even covered “Do You Love Me?” on the very first KISS tribute album in 1990. The four masked marvels of metal inspired a generation. Sitting in a freestanding, fully reclining leather lounger soaring across America, however, Gene and Paul were far from mythical. In fact, the visionaries who started it seemed all too human.

  My first encounter with the bass player from the fabled glam rock band KISS took place in August 1987. I was transitioning from Hustler to RIP, having not yet completely abandoned my editorial duties at our more “sophisticated” publications.

  The invitation was to an “intimate” schmooze at a small Hollywood recording studio designed so Gene Simmons could have some up-close-and-personal time with the local rock scribes. He’d just inked a deal to launch his own label imprint, Simmons Records, and wanted to plant some early seeds in the heads of the oh-so-important metal media. The bass man was also a businessman, and I’d just become a new addition to the influential rock press pool.

  Simmons Records—their logo was a bag of money with an S on the side—would not drop their first release for several months, but Gene was beginning his promotional massage mission early. At the time, I wasn’t conscious of anything except meeting the cofounder of the almighty KISS. I wasn’t a big fan and had never seen them play live during their original makeup years, 1973 to 1983. But I was now the editor of a nationally distributed hard-rock magazine, and if there was one band of the genre that I needed to get to know, it was KISS.

  I brought along a girl (we’ll call her Cheryl) who worked in the Flynt “talent” department and was a huge KISS fan. She was a sexy brunette with brand-new breasts. Gene will love those, I thought. I had heard the rumors about how much he dug the ladies.

  Since the late ‘70s, he and Paul Stanley—his creative reflection and musical partner—had been writing and recording sala-ciously silly songs and cashing in big. When he wagged that enormous oral appendage while proclaiming, “They call me Dr. Love,” he was doing more than singing a song. He was telling the world exactly who he was under the mask. That night at the schmooze, Gene was about to permit me that first private peek beneath the paint.

  After we were properly introduced, he took me aside and offered some cogent advice on what he believed would set RIP apart from the competition. He’d done his homework on who I was and where I’d come from. “This is metal, Lonn,” he said. “You worked for Hustler. Don’t be afraid to unite those two attitudes. And remember, the biggest bands will sell the most magazines. So make sure you have a lot of KISS features.” His tone was half-serious, his stature somewhat intimidating. But the message was obvious: You get big, we get bigger. And as I would come to learn in the months and years ahead, with Gene Simmons it was all about size.

  When my brief lesson was over, he turned his attention to Cheryl, morphing into the goddess enchanter without missing a beat. Gene flirted with exacting precision and confidence. He loved this game. The dinner bell had rung and Cheryl was the main course.

  I drifted about the room and rapped with some local writers. After twenty minutes had passed I was ready to bail but couldn’t find Gene or Cheryl—until I peered through the glass and onto the soundstage of the recording booth. Nestled in a corner was Gene with his reptilian tongue halfway down my coworker’s throat, his famous four-string fingers floating across her silicone frets.

  RIP’s first big coup with KISS under my watch was to support 1989’s Hot in the Shade LP. The video for “Rise to It” opened with Gene and Paul putting on the old makeup, something they hadn’t done since 1983 when they exposed themselves in the clip “Lick It Up.” The lineup during these “revelation days” was Gene, Paul, Vinnie Vincent on guitar, and Eric Carr on drums.

  I was contemplating who would appear on our June 1990 cover when an exciting pitch came from the KISS camp. “We’ll give you the only shot of Gene and Paul taken in makeup in seven years if you’ll run it on the cover,” offered the band’s publicist. “You got it!” I responded. What happened during the production of that issue proved to be the most embarrassing moment in my tenure as editor of the bible of bang.

  We had one image, taken at the “Rise” video shoot, of Gene and Paul in the classic original makeup. When my art director, Craig Jones, designed the cover, he decided to flop the photo to accommodate the RIP logo on the upper left hand side of the page. It was standard practice to flop shots, which reversed the image to better fit the layout of a given spread. The trick didn’t work with guitarists because a right-handed player would become a lefty. What Craig didn’t notice—and neither did I—was that flopping the image of Gene and Paul now put the familiar star over Paul’s left eye instead of his right.

  Amazingly, no one on my staff caught the mistake until it was too late. Even when the proof came back from the separator for color correction and final editorial scrutiny—before it ultimately went to the printer—not one person realized that the great RIP magazine had reapplied Paul Stanley’s star to the left eye! And what’s even funnier, neither the band’s manager, Larry Mazer, its label, Mercury Records, or even Gene or Paul mentioned it when they received the published issue.

  A few hardcore fans sent us letters—nothing earthshaking— but I was ashamed of the error. I needed to beef up on my KISS studies. I was long overdue for a good old seat-of-the-pants road trip, and that window of opportunity opened on October 26, 1990, for a legending gig of the Hot in the Shade tour at the Centrum in Worcester, Massachusetts. Winger and Slaughter were the opening bands, two hairy happening outfits with platinum debuts and tons of female fans.

  Just before KISS hit the stage, I walked into Slaughter’s dressing room and asked lead singer Mark Slaughter if he wanted to watch the show from the pit with me. A fan since before he was potty trained, the affable front man smiled and fired back, “Lead the way, Lonn! I haven’t missed their set once on this entire tour! But I haven’t done the pit, yet! Let’s fucking rock, man!”

  As soon as the lights went down and the band launched into their smash-and-trash set list, Gene caught sight of Mark and me pummeling our way to the front and starting flicking picks at our heads while the fans, mostly female, throttled Slaughter’s sexy singer with hugs, tugs, and high fives. It wasn’t nearly as gnarly as a Slayer or Anthrax pit, but we were slammed, bumped, and rocked
the entire set. I never had so much fun getting bruised in all my life. And remember, these were the nonmakeup days. When the war paint returned in 1996, the stakes, the crowds, the bank accounts—everything went through the roof. But in this moment, there was an odd intimacy to the KISS thing.

  After the show, Gene and I were talking in the dressing room. “So, are you leaving tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Just a quick transcontinental overnighter.”

  He glared at me for a second and said, “How would you like to fly back to L.A. tomorrow night with me and Paul on MGM Grand?” The exclusive air carrier catered to high-end celebrities and business moguls and had only one route: LAX-JFK.

  I’d gotten a taste of the good life they offered at thirty-five thousand feet with Guns N’ Roses. It was like a flying hotel lobby, replete with all manner of decadent amenities. “Fly home with you and Paul?” I responded. “I’d be honored.”

  “We’ll take a town car from Boston to Manhattan and fly from there,” he explained. “You’ll be very impressed,” he added. “It’s how the rich and famous get from coast to coast.”

  Gene did most of the talking on the flight—not a stretch since he was far and away the more sociable. Paul and I exchanged a few pleasantries, and then he took a nap. It was almost scripted. Let Gene loose on Lonn: the spider on the fly. We all know how that fairy tale ends. I dug breathing this kind of rarefied air, and Gene figured if we bonded like real bros, I’d be inspired to carry the KISS torch high and proud—in other words, I’d support him and his band on all media fronts. More press meant more exposure; more exposure meant more bucks in the KISS coffers. I was being played like a Stradivarius, but it didn’t matter because my ass was flying ultra first class on the dime of superstars.

  Funny thing was, I liked him. A lot. The first thing we talked about was the Beatles. He told me that when he saw them on Ed Sullivan in 1964, it changed his life. He called it “an awakening.” “KISS was modeled after them,” he confessed boldly. “All four members of the band sang, and there were two separate but distinct ‘leaders.’ A comic-book Beatles was the idea. Throw masks and platform heels on John, Paul, George, and Ringo and what do you get? KISS!” Then we shared our favorite Fab Four songs. Like me, he knew the entire catalog.

  We were somewhere over the Great Lakes when the dialogue left Liverpool for other waters. He reiterated what he’d said many times before that the New York Dolls and Alice Cooper had a powerful effect on him, Paul, Ace, and Peter. Seeing Alice live blew Gene’s mind. He related instantly to the power of the makeup. They created their own unique characters based on things that turned them on. Gene loved horror movies, hence the scary God of Thunder visage.

  As I enjoyed a shrimp cocktail, Gene explained how KISS became the first band to up the ante of fan adulation to sycophantic levels through aggressive merchandising—KISS dolls, lunch pails. While I was hanging out in North Campus listening to the Clash, KISS was selling out stadiums and building their brand. Collectors were born en masse. They had a name, too.

  “I take it that you’re a member of the KISS Army?” he asked sarcastically.

  “No, Gene,” I responded. “I heard the songs on the radio but never bought any of the albums and had never seen you perform live until last night.”

  “Well, you’re a member now,” he smiled.

  “I just missed the draft in college,” I laughed. “Will you take a Jewish kid with bad eyes and allergies?” I knew he and Paul shared the same faith as me. There was friendship developing here, or at least that’s how I perceived it, even beyond the Grand Air schmooze. Maybe I was being set up. It didn’t matter because I would get as much out of KISS as they would out of me. Gene not only knew that, he respected it.

  “We’ll probably put the makeup back on again,” Gene confessed nonchalantly as we started our descent into L.A. “When the time is right… or more importantly, when the money is right.” It was a perfectly placed bread crumb that I was sure to nibble … when the time was right.

  A few weeks later, I was at a White Zombie show at the Palace nightclub in Hollywood, the legendary venue that played host to a network variety program in the ‘60s called The Hollywood Palace. Lead singer Rob Zombie was an Alice Cooper/KISS offspring who married hard-edged beats with midnight-movie-inspired lyrics.

  In the Hustler ‘80s, I was at the Palace practically every weekend, catching cutting-edge Euro imports like the Eurythmics, Magazine, and Shriekback and flirting with the venue’s spectacular waitresses. Something else Gene and I had in common. We liked to flirt. On this particular evening, the hard-rockin’ industrial-metal hybrid from New York was lighting up Vine Street and summoning creatures of the rock-’n’-roll night.

  The venue was a multilevel building boasting a downstairs and upstairs lobby. Upon entering the building, I made my way up, where the industry folks usually gathered. The first person I recognized was Gene, holding court with several women. I said a quick hello and drifted back downstairs as Zombie was about to hit the stage. The minute my feet landed in the lower lobby, I saw another familiar face creeping slowly through the front door.

  “Hi, Trent,” I said. “I’m Lonn from RIP.” Trent Reznor, the principal force behind the groundbreaking industrial group Nine Inch Nails, was out to get some air and space from the claustrophobic confines of his recording studio, which just happened to be the Benedict Canyon mansion where the Manson murders had taken place.

  “I’m having a writer’s block,” he said.

  “Listen,” I replied, “come upstairs. Gene Simmons is hanging out. Have you ever met him?”

  Trent’s face went white. “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that,” he mumbled.

  “Why not?” I fired back. “He’s really quite cool and easy to talk to.”

  I could see that Trent was uncomfortable. “Lonn, on my recording console at the house, I have two dolls,” he explained. “They stand on either side of the board. One is Jesus Christ and the other is Gene Simmons. You get my point?” Of course I did.

  “Trust me, Trent, it’ll be cool. C’mon.” He followed me up the stairs, and the moment Trent saw Gene, he was a deer caught in the headlights. Gene recognized his brilliant prodigy immediately and disarmed the introverted Reznor with breakneck speed. “Hello, Trent,” he said. “Have you come out to see the band, or are you here to get laid like I am?” I walked away and left them to bond.

  In April of 1992, I received an advance cassette of the new KISS record, Revenge. Magazine editors got new releases two to three months before the official records hit the stores. We needed the material early because of the long lead times required to produce a monthly publication. I had just landed a local radio show on 100.3 FM dubbed The Pirate Radio Friendship—fallout of the growing popularity of RIP and my “Friend at Large” MTV spot on Saturday nights.

  Ignoring industry protocol when it came to airing new releases, I took the cassette down to the studio one night and spun the playful track “I Just Wanna,” an act that garnered the immediate wrath of KISS’s label, Mercury Records. They sent me a cease-and-desist letter that threatened legal action if I aired the song again. Record companies don’t like it when new music gets on the airwaves unless it’s through their own promotion departments. This is how they balance relationships with the various stations in competitive markets. I made a cause célèbre out of the event by inviting the guys—Bruce Kulick, Eric Singer, Gene, and Paul—onto my show to have some fun.

  Paul Stanley read the actual cease-and-desist letter on the air live just before I had him intro the song for another unauthorized spin. We even got Mercury metal promotions director Cheryl Valentine on the phone from New York to take part in the folly. “You’re not supposed to be playing that!” she laughed. The evening turned into one big promotional carnival for the band’s brave new LP, Revenge, the record I proclaimed on air as “the best KISS album in ten years.” The record birthed two of Gene’s surliest vocal performances ever on “Unholy” and “Domin
o,” as well as the anthem “God Gave Rock & Roll to You II.”

  On July 11, a week after my program went into national syndication, changing its moniker to Pirate Radio Saturday Night with Lonn Friend, KISS returned to the airwaves with another coup when Paul broke the news to American audiences that he was engaged. We turned that evening into a live on-air bachelor party and Gene and Paul spent two hours with me in the studio taking calls from assorted fans and teasing each other about matrimony. Paul chided his same-gender significant other several times, saying, “You’re next,” although privately he knew that was never going to happen. Gene also got me in trouble by blurting the word fuck, one of the greatest no-nos in live radio.

  Gene and B-movie actress Shannon Tweed had lived together for years, bringing two children into the world. But Gene did not believe in the marriage contract because he felt it was financially and sexually constraining. Without his John Hancock on a formal legal document, he was free to run roughshod through the garden of groupies lying in wait from coast to coast while still maintaining the integrity of his family unit. He had the best and worst of both worlds and never seemed to have any issues of conscience. In a way, I admired him for his candor. He had it all out on the table. No secrets. I struggled with temptation. He welcomed it.

  A couple of days after the airwave soiree for Paul, Gene hosted a confidential get-together to commemorate the soon-to-be-hitched Dr. Stanley at the rooftop pool of L.A.’s most notorious rock hotel, the Hyatt on Sunset. A small but elite collection of freaks and friends looked on as a pair of hired professional female porn stars did the nasty on the concrete. The girls were robotic and cold; the guys looked either excited or uncomfortable, depending on their individual sensibilities for such activity.