Face the Music: A Life Exposed

by Stanley, Paul

  When the lights went down after the next song, Vinnie came over to me in the dark and said, “You bastard, you humiliated me!”

  I swear, if he raises his arm, I’m going to knock him out right here.

  It was a tense moment. I thought for sure the lights were going to come up and that prick would be lying on his back on the stage.

  He was done.

  When we were ready to record our next album, Animalize, we started searching for another guitar player. Although to say “we” is a bit of an exaggeration. Gene had basically disappeared by that point, too. While Creatures had been a band effort, and Gene had participated in Lick It Up, I felt abandoned when it came time to make Animalize.

  After informing me without any warning or discussion that he wouldn’t be around for the album, Gene went into a studio and crapped out some demos as fast as he could. Then he was off to do a movie. He left me with a pile of mostly unusable junk. Great.

  A guitar maker named Grover Jackson had put me in touch with a goofy oversized guy named Mark Norton. Mark wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the pack, but he played in the style that had then become popular. Eddie Van Halen had completely changed the game by this point, and everybody wanted to be fast and flashy, tapping, playing with two hands and their nose if you let them. Mark, who called himself Mark St. John—everybody was saint-something-or-other in the eighties—proved somewhat difficult to work with, too, though for different reasons than Vinnie.

  One afternoon I told him, “Come in tomorrow with a solo for this song.” He came in and played it the next day. It was pretty good. “Cool,” I said. “Now play it again.” He played a completely different thing.

  “What?” he said. “I can’t play the same thing twice.”

  “That’s how this is done,” I said.

  Another time I said to him, “You know, sometimes it’s not about what you play—it’s about what you don’t play. Listen to Jimmy Page, listen to Paul Kossoff, listen to Eric Clapton.”

  “I can play faster than those guys,” scoffed Mark.

  Houston, we have a problem.

  In the end, I managed to get Animalize done basically on my own. I fixed Gene’s songs, fixed the band situation, pulled solos out of Mark, and saw through the making of the album. I also named the album, designed the album art, and arranged the cover photo shoot. On top of it all, I spent big chunks of time in our office personally promoting the album, glad-handing radio people, cajoling MTV into playing the videos, and doing all the things a manager would normally do. But despite his minimal involvement, Gene still wanted his name on the album as a co-producer. And naturally, he still expected a share of the money equal to mine. I didn’t think it was fair. I wasn’t getting half of whatever he was getting paid for his extracurricular indulgences.

  Gene still felt an entitlement to nearly half the songs on the album—and subsequent albums—but there was no quality control. Most of those songs are forgotten today, and not by coincidence. He simply wasn’t putting enough time and effort into the band. I didn’t care who wrote the hits, but if he wasn’t even trying, there was no way we should pretend it was a partnership. I started to get pissed off about all the time he spent on other things, whether it was movies, working with other bands, or cutting ribbons at shopping centers.

  I felt very strongly that we needed to commit to the band for it to survive. It was a crucial time. Whether or not he liked it, he was still Gene Simmons from KISS, and I didn’t want him to destroy what he was standing on as he reached for other fruit. He was taking the band for granted—or worse, he was abusing what we had built together. And for what? A lot of the things he was doing would prove a waste of time. I didn’t understand his need to bask in whatever questionable spotlight he could find; I saw one of his movies and thought it was embarrassing.

  At the same time, Gene spent 24/7 putting himself in the spotlight and also chose to distort the public image of the band by increasing his perceived importance within KISS even as he was withdrawing from active involvement in it. Resentment started to simmer in me.

  After we’d shot the cover photos—showcasing Mark—he came down with a rare arthritic condition. It often affects people’s knees, but in Mark’s case, it struck his hand. If you’re going to have one part of your body swell, it shouldn’t be your hand. Mark couldn’t move his fingers. “My doctor says it will go away in two weeks,” he told us.

  I called him every day. “Any better?”

  “No.”

  Finally, we had to go out and tour. Animalize came out in September 1984 and kept the momentum going, selling even better than Lick It Up. I called Bruce Kulick, whom I had met through his brother, Bob, and who had played a solo on one of the tracks of Animalize. I asked him whether he could tour with us for a few weeks as a stand-in for Mark. He agreed.

  We traveled for quite a while with Bruce playing onstage each night and Mark hanging out backstage. We kept thinking he would wake up the next day and be able to play again. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Mark never played a single show on that tour, and finally we let him go and Bruce became the permanent guitar player.

  Bruce was a real mensch, and very funny. If you asked him how he was, he would give you a ten-minute dissertation about how his fuzz box wasn’t working quite right, or describe his upset stomach in details better left unspoken, or complain about how he had gas the day before. But he was a terrific guitar player and a great team player.

  Bruce became our fourth guitar player, and at some point I couldn’t help thinking, What the fuck? I didn’t want KISS to become a backup band for me and Gene—or just for me, for that matter. We weren’t Ozzy or Bowie, shuffling through musicians; or at least, I didn’t want to be. This was supposed to be a band. I tended to frown on groups that went through numerous lineups.

  But even so, the chemistry we looked for had nothing to do with what happened offstage or outside the studio. That ship had sailed. We looked for functionality. We hadn’t socialized as a band for a very long time, and while we didn’t dislike being around each other, each member of the band was there just to play a role. We weren’t riding around in a station wagon telling jokes anymore.

  We spent October and November of 1984 touring Europe again, this time with Bon Jovi as our support act throughout. We had an impressive track record of picking winners: Bob Seger, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Rush, and Iron Maiden were all among the acts we’d chosen to open tours. Bon Jovi had a minor radio hit at that point called “Runaway.” Jon Bon Jovi was a smart guy and always sat with us at the hotel bar and asked questions about how various production expenses broke down. He was intent on getting as much information as possible, and he asked business questions. Now that we were basically managing ourselves, we had the answers.

  Near the end of the tour, Bon Jovi’s manager, Doc McGhee, approached me. “Would you be willing to write with Jon for their next album?”

  “If you want to write with someone great,” I said, “call Desmond Child.” I gave Doc Desmond’s number. Maybe a year later, Desmond came over to my apartment and played Slippery When Wet for me, the album he ended up writing with Jon and Richie.

  I was impressed and called Jon afterwards. “I think this could be a big album for you,” I said.

  An understatement, to say the least.

  43.

  We now had back-to-back platinum albums. People were starting to trust us again. We filled—and even sold out—venues again, bringing in ten thousand people, which if not quite up to the old days, certainly put us in very credible company. The needle was moving in the right direction.

  Most importantly, I was making money doing what I loved: playing guitar, jumping around onstage, and screaming and preening a lot.

  And yet, despite selling 2 million copies each of Lick It Up and Animalize, we certainly weren’t top dogs anymore. Some bands—Van Halen, Def Leppard, and soon Bon Jovi—were selling 10 million copies of their albums.

  Despite the fact that we we
re making money, our record label could not have cared less about KISS. I think the label was dominated by kids barely out of college who were busy going after bands like Dan Reed Network. And no wonder—thirty years later they’re still a household name, right?

  Electric Lady Studios in 1985, recording Asylum with (left to right) Bruce, Eric, Me, and Gene.

  When we played concerts in New York, nobody from our own record company would bother to come. They would all be in some downtown club watching a band fresh out of a fraternity house basement. Nothing against Dan Reed or his Network, but it was annoying and even hurtful to be taken for granted like that.

  The non-makeup albums became successful because the fan base gave us a second chance. The record company did fuck-all for us.

  As we set to work on a follow-up album, Asylum, the problem for me was that my ostensible partner had the same attitude as the record company. Gene just didn’t care. He would show up in the studio after being up all night with some third-rate band he was producing, exhausted, with some half-assed song he wanted to put on our album that he may or may not have actually written. Again, he felt he should get a quota of songs on the record, and again, he wasn’t delivering the goods. He didn’t devote the time to it.

  If I suggested he was spreading himself too thin, he said, “No, no, I’m giving 100 percent.”

  My feeling that there was a traitor in the midst grew daily every time Gene denied his subpar and often nonexistent contributions to the band. Somebody wasn’t playing for the team; somebody was thinking only about himself. KISS was a distant second on his agenda.

  You are the one person I thought I could always count on.

  When I voiced my sense of betrayal, Gene said, “Well, you can go do things, too.”

  That was evasive bullshit. If I did, there wouldn’t have been a band or any albums. I wasn’t about to see the band disintegrate, and he knew it.

  Not only that, the license he offered to me to go “do things” was predicated on his own decision to do things. I wasn’t looking for an excuse to do other things; he was. It wasn’t like he conferred with me about what or when he was going to do things. He was just looking out for number one, with little regard for me.

  He also developed a new habit of using the KISS logo and his KISS makeup for personal projects—without my approval, knowing full well it was needed. When I raised objections, he would offer a weak, insincere “sorry,” only to be repeated again next time as though we’d never spoken about it. He was clearly going to do whatever he wanted to, regardless of any objections from me or even his legal obligations under our partnership. For Gene, “sorry” was a meaningless hall pass to placate me until he would of course do the same thing again when he thought it would benefit him. In actuality it never meant “sorry for what I did”; it was purely “sorry that it bothers you.” In addition to being offensive and insulting, his total disregard hurt my feelings.

  Apparently I just had to play by his rules. I had the choice of walking away or of doing the work of two people. The catch was that I had to share the credit, even if I did double the work.

  The animosity continued to build.

  I also started to see more and more interviews where Gene took credit for things he was only partially responsible for or in some cases had nothing to do with at all. And he never refuted or corrected misinformed or inaccurate assumptions from interviewers about his outsized role. When I would call Gene on it, and show him quotes from countless interviews, he would emphatically tell me, “I didn’t say that!”

  Now, I wasn’t new to doing Q&A features or taking part in a taped interview that was going to be transcribed and published later. The number of times I read something attributed to me that was untrue could have been counted on one hand with fingers to spare. If James Brown was the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, then Gene Simmons was—at least according to his account—the Most Misquoted Man in Show Business. I didn’t buy it.

  Being lied to and having my role and the role of others diminished and even negated was not only selfish, it was unkind. It hurt. One thing Gene and I had always agreed on was that we were each other’s brother. What we obviously did not agree on was how you treat your brother.

  One of the results of Gene’s diminished involvement was that, at least in the context of the band, I shared the spotlight less. It became my spotlight. It wasn’t by chance that my songs became the popular songs. Nobody else was putting in the time to write decent songs. If Gene wanted to be more than the bass player, he had to do something more. Anybody can write a song in five minutes. The difference is that since we had a record deal, Gene got to put his songs on an album, whether or not they were any good.

  When I wrote songs like “Heaven’s On Fire” or “Tears Are Falling,” it was because I had to. I was the one doing the work, and I enjoyed getting the credit I deserved. During the height of MTV’s popularity, I became a sort of eighties pretty boy—though it was certainly a different time, and with feathered earrings, rouge, and pink gloves (courtesy of Van Halen’s stylist, whom we hired), I looked as much like a drag queen as anything else. Let’s just say the criteria for what was considered attractive was a little different during the hair band era.

  I had a few girlfriends during those years, but for the most part, relationships were still just about companionship and sex. I didn’t want exclusivity and didn’t expect it from women. I just wanted to have a good time.

  I had things sorted out so that even when we were off the road, I was never alone. I split my time between New York and L.A., renting apartments out there or living at hotels like the Sunset Marquis. L.A. was the place I went to indulge in what always started as carefree excess with women; when those relationships inevitably got too complicated, I would go back to New York.

  Despite the newfound attention through KISS music videos, I wasn’t comfortable being a public figure all the time. With his movie career in mind, Gene sought to surround himself with the most famous people possible; I came in a distant second in that department. It was fun to read about who I was involved with in the gossip magazines—but it wasn’t so much fun to read about a break-up. Once, I peered over the shoulder of a woman who was reading an article in the Star in which the actress Lisa Hartman explained why she would never marry singer Paul Stanley. I could have done without that stuff.

  The kind of people who lived in the tabloids considered themselves only as important as the amount of press they got. That was how they defined themselves. When I was around people like that, in addition to dealing with my own shit, I had to deal with somebody else’s shit—like how hurt they were that their segment on Access Hollywood wasn’t longer.

  One woman I dated in L.A. worried that her house was too far east—on the eastern edge of Beverly Hills rather than smack-dab in the middle. Another one apologized that she lived in the Valley rather than on the Hollywood side of the hills. I spent time in those superficial circles, but I knew that I didn’t want to live in them.

  None of the relationships was leading anywhere, but they did stave off the loneliness. One night late in the year we played a show in New Jersey before heading home to New York. A Penthouse Pet I knew came backstage after the show and said, “I have a Christmas present for you.”

  I said, “I’ll give you a ride back to the city in my limo.”

  Once on the highway she undid my jeans and gave me my present. Then she lifted her head and said, “Merry Christmas.”

  Hey, what about Hanukkah?

  As far as my sexual exploits, during the seventies I had paddled around the pool, so to speak; during the eighties I was doing backflips in it. I went to a party one night at the Playboy Mansion, and as soon as I walked in the door I found myself standing in front of a Playmate of the Year whom I had seen in the magazine and thought was incredibly hot. We spoke for a few minutes, and then she said, “Do you want to leave?”

  “Sure,” I said, half-wondering what would happen if she were to reply, “Then why don’t
you get the fuck out of here?”

  Instead, she said, “Let’s go.”

  We continued the festivities at her place.

  My class at the High School of Music & Art set up a fifteenth reunion that year, too—the class of 1970. I had missed my tenth reunion because of the tour in Australia just after Eric Carr joined the band, so I wasn’t going to miss the fifteenth. More than seeing how everyone’s lives had turned out, I knew I wanted to rub my success in their faces.

  The woman I was seeing in New York at the time was—surprise!—a Playboy centerfold. I thought about taking her to the reunion, but then I thought about that date I’d had back then—with the coolest girl in school, Victoria. The date where I ended up talking to Victoria’s dad as she went off to bed. The date that resulted in the hottest chick in class snickering at me for the rest of high school. I decided I would go to the reunion by myself. I told my bunny I’d give her a call once I got the lay of the land at the reunion. What I didn’t tell her was that I sort of hoped I could finally bang my failed conquest.

  I had a suntan earned at the Sunset Marquis, and I wore a sharp, tailored blue silk suit. I couldn’t wait to see all these people who had considered me the least likely to accomplish anything.

  The event was held at the school, and when I walked in, all I could think was that everybody was too big for the furniture. The atmosphere was surprisingly somber, and most of the people had not aged well. I still pictured them all as young people, full of vitality and dreams and aspirations, and here they were looking like they were at a Halloween party dressed as old people. They looked old and broken.

  Fifteen years later, Victoria had short mousy hair and was wearing clunky orthopedic-style shoes and a frumpy skirt—she wasn’t so hot anymore. At first I felt a brief jolt of vindication at seeing her like that, thinking of the way she had never let me live down the folly of our one date. But then I wished she could have looked as good as she had fifteen years before. This was just depressing.