My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 243 - THE 2022 KISS HALLOWEEN SPECIAL WITH MIKE FOX

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Robbie and his older brother Mike discuss growing up KISS fans and list off the most underrated KISS songs out there for a BONUS EPISODE/Halloween Special! UNDERRATED KISS SONGS PLAYLIST: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3KhbBFpo9AbWyeaa5Vn2GF?si=8a8d3f8f4f04480c **************************************** Subscribe to My Mom's Basement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIeZ96PqdsJYQ7DFLRx6MHw My Mom's Basement Merchandise: https://store.barstoolsports.com/collections/my-moms-basementYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. You wanted the best, you got the best. The hottest podcast in the world, My Mom's Basement. Hello and welcome to the Halloween edition of My Mom's Basement with Robbie and Mike Fox. This is my older brother, if you haven't seen him or if you don't recognize him. Because if you're watching on YouTube and not just listening on the podcast feed, we're all done up for Halloween. I'm Gene Simmons, he's Peter Criss, and today we are going to be talking about KISS. It's pretty awesome.

Yeah, man, we had to. We talked about this so many years ago, about doing it. And something about Halloween gets me in that let's get painted up like freak spirit. And who better to get painted up as than the hottest fan in the world? Well, I was going to say, this is my first time ever wearing Kiss face paint my entire life, which is actually kind of surprising considering the Kiss fan, the member of the Kiss army that I am. But it's not your first time. This is what, your third, is it, or second? Okay, so it's my second.

It should have been my third and we'll get to that but um i dressed as gene for halloween in fifth grade i was 10 years old i had seen them close out the vmas and we should get to that too because that was sort of the genesis the birth of everything that wound up happening in my whole life but But let's fast forward all the way to 2011. I have a residency at a club in Hoboken, New Jersey, playing drums with the DJs every week on a Friday or Saturday. I think it alternated. I would set up the drums next to the turntables and just blast all night, a la Travis Barker, DJ AM. It was a really great time.

And the club owner told me, hey, we've got Halloween party coming up. And light bulb went off. Big flash pot went off in my head. I said, you know what? Now is the time to put on the whiskers and I'm going to be playing drums. I'm going to be Peter so. I'm going to be Peter. So I could play and have this great time at this Halloween party and play as Peter. I mean,

lifelong dream to be slamming on the tubs with the whiskers on took it one step further, called the uncle Dennis and aunt Deirdre and said, Hey, Halloween party in Hoboken I'm playing and I'm going to be Peter. But what if you guys are Jean and Paul, and I talk to my wife, sweetheart that she is, into being Ace? And I said, let's all go. When I play, I'll play. And when I'm not, we'll just walk around, and we'll be Kiss. It'll be awesome.

So we got to work on the costumes, and we started, and we're painting, and we're gluing, and we we're cutting and we're getting it all together. Fast forward to the night of this party. So Halloween 2011, there's like a blizzard rolls in. Yeah, I remember it. And it started to look sketchy like, whoa, this is pretty gnarly. I don't know if this gig is going to happen or not. But I said, I got to get painted up. I got to get going here.

And I had a Peter costume. And on the thighs of the Peter costume were these big cutouts on the outsides of the thighs. Now, I'm a hairy dude. My legs are covered in hair and i'm thinking this is going to be a bad look to show up with like all this jungle fur popping out of these cutouts where these leg holes are so you know what else can you do you grab the trimmers and i just i just shaved my thighs those thighs yeah both sides where the cutouts were so that they were you know nice and smooth and sexy ready to rock and uh just about as i was done shaving the hair off of two patches of my

thighs the phone rings and it was the club saying hey blizzard party's canceled sorry and then you know everything pretty much shut down. And I remember saying to my wife, come on, let's just walk up the block to the liquor store and get some drinks because we're snowed in on Halloween. I'm bummed because I don't get to play the gig. I loved playing gigs. I'm bummed because I don't get to play as Peter. I'm bummed that all this prep work went into becoming kids for this Halloween party. And I remember distinctively like marching with an angry purpose up the street through the snow.

And me sort of in silence and my wife sort of in silence, just kind of disappointed at the whole situation. And then I said out loud on Kingsland Ave in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, I shaved my thighs for this. It took me a while for it all to grow back to. It was, you know, one of those things. I could imagine. Actually, I sent our Uncle Dennis a photo of me as soon as I got the makeup done. I didn't want to spoil it for you. I wanted the reaction to be genuine.

But I sent him a picture. And the first thing he said was, ask Mike if he shaved his thighs again for this first thing he texted me. So funny. He would tease me sometimes just, you know, randomly, occasionally for years to come, he would just look at me and go shave my thighs for this. There's a shirt. There's like a famous shirt. I think they wear it in the league, that fantasy football show that says I shaved my balls for this. We need you to get just a custom shirt. I shaved my thighs for this we need you to get just a custom shirt i shaved my thighs for this with the gene simmons the initial gene simmons dress up that you had was that your favorite halloween costume before we get into kiss like favorite halloween costumes yeah yeah definitely because there was um there was just something

about like that time period they They were on the reunion tour. So they just put the makeup back on with all four original members. And I was the only fifth grader who was like, knew about this, was into this. And, you know, any Halloween where you show up and you're the only person as that costume. You know, it's exciting because you feel like i'm not like everybody else and that's you know i guess the greatest way to to describe kiss is they're not like anything else you've ever seen they wanted to be the band they never saw on stage and and you know they became that band absolutely so let's get into kiss yes a Absolutely. So let's get into Kiss. Yes, a long time ago.

Let's get into Kiss and our fandom of Kiss, our enlisting in the Kiss army, as they say. What was your first time seeing Kiss? Okay, so it's really weird for me. Growing up, on the way home from school, we would pass by a house around the corner from where we grew up. And in the basement window at the bottom of the house, in the basement window, there was a poster that faced out. And it was these faces, just these four faces and this red logo that I couldn't even quite make out.

And I remember asking mom one day, like, hey, what's with that poster over there? And she said, oh, that's Kiss. And I said, what's Kiss? She said, it's a rock and roll band. That's a guy I went to high school with. He's a big Kiss fan. And it was sort of very mysterious and intriguing to me that somebody cared enough about this band who you know looked very strange with their faces all painted up like ghouls or something that they cared enough to put the poster up in their basement to face out this guy wanted everyone to see who this was yeah so years later there was something on vh1 and i caught a glimpse of it again and i was at grandma's house actually and she said oh that's that band uncle kevin likes and i was just like you know i looked up to uncle kevin as the musician of the family i thought it

was so cool and so he liked them immediately I need to know what this was all about. Of course. So then not long after that, 96, reunion tour. Like I said, four original members putting the makeup back on after a long time not wearing the makeup and not doing the big circus show. And they get booked to close the MTV video music awards that year. So I love the VMAs every year. I'd love to watch the bands and specifically the drummers. And I just kind of always had a fascination with live music,

with live drummers. Our uncle played, our dad played, we had musicians in the family. There were drums in the basement at grandma's. I used to be able to go tinker around with so you know at the top of the vmas every year they show you you know tonight featuring performances by and they would show a little picture or video of each band and at the very end then they said in a very special performance from under the brooklyn bridge by kiss and they showed them and I felt my heart

like skip a beat and like this buzz of adrenaline hit me I'm gonna get to see Kiss play like all I knew were these faces and something I saw on TV briefly and one of our uncles is into that and fast forward to the end of the show and they cut to under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City and Paul Stanley the singer says there's only one rock and roll national anthem rock and roll all night and party every day and the band kicks in and it's fireworks and it's it's unlike anything I've ever seen in my life and at at 10 years old, from that very moment on, I knew what I wanted to do with my whole life. I watched this band sing, I want to rock and roll all night and party every day. And I said, Yeah, me too. That's it.

That's what I'm doing. No drums in a rock and roll band, and I'm going to try to be a part of something that makes people feel the way I feel right now. Because I feel like everything is possible. Everything is right at your fingertips. And I've never seen anything like it. And, you know, I was hooked. It was like I said, a month or two later, I was jeaned for Halloween. I'm talking to Uncle Cav. He's got old scrapbooks, old VHS tapes. And all of a sudden, you know, I just immersed myself. Like, first ballot, where do I sign up? KISS Army member, 10 years old. And they're the perfect band to hook a 10 year old. Like when you look at Kiss, they look like larger than life superheroes or super villains, whether, you know, you look at them that way or the other. And their stage show is unlike anything in the history of rock and roll to this day. Their stage show is crazy. You know, on the 10th farewell tour that they're currently on, they're putting on a crazy show where they're coming from the ceiling they've got panels explosions fire all of that jeans breathing fire and everything like they're the perfect band to grab you when you're little and then the fans that stick with kiss they truly stick with them they're truly an army they go to the

shows painted like kiss they buy so much merchandise that you would think it's like for star wars honestly like i would compare Kiss merchandise to Star Wars merch. And with that, you're like, they make that like for everything. There's a Kiss. It's like Spaceballs, you know, Kiss, the flamethrower. They've got that. I guarantee it. So what was your first time actually seeing Kiss live in the flesh?

Okay, so a few years later, it's the year 2000. And Kiss is going on their farewell tour so 22 years ago they're going on their is this technically the first farewell tour they did as well technically the first failed farewell tour yeah and it was like panic set in because it was just like this is it this is my one chance this is you know I gotta I gotta go so called our uncles asked mom and dad's permission got the green light had a hookup for tickets at the Meadowlands so we wound up with great seats and we go and um what's funny is we were sort of like first row down up against the barricade that separates the seats from the floor and i was right on the end

right on the aisle and then like i feel someone kind of like shove me in and i look and it's jesse camp do you know who jesse camp is no okay mtv had a contest and i want to be an mtv vj contest and this vj v a video jockey gotcha um and this dude won and so he was like sort of like recent quasi celebrity people knew him he won the first ever vj cost the big tall rock and roll looking dude i look there he is so also if jesse camp is here because he wants to see kiss it was just it felt like you know it felt like an army Kiss, it was just it felt like, you know, it felt like an army. It felt like a family. It felt like we all know about something that's very cool. And we're here to do it together.

So, you know, lights go down and you wanted the best. You got the best, the hottest band in the world, Kiss. And bam, the curtain drops and they are coming down from the ceiling and it's fireworks and they're playing Detroit Rock City. And, you know, once again, I just, it was reaffirming what I had already seen on TV, but it was like that feeling cranked up to a thousand where it was just like, this is the greatest thing you can do with your life. Oh yeah. Is be, is go be larger than life and, and play awesome music and have all these people just, I mean, like we are right now, people with different, like, you know,

pledging allegiance to this band. And luckily enough, as fate would have it, they filmed that show. My first concert I ever went to, they filmed that show for a pay-per-view special and later released it on a DVD. And so like how lucky for me to be able to, whenever I want to, you know, this is pre-YouTube also. So whenever I want to throw that disc in, actually had it on bootleg on vhs before oh wow these came out to have this pro shot pay-per-view quality footage of this concert and um yeah i mean i i i can almost get teary-eyed just i know i was thinking back to my first time seeing Kiss. You taking me to see Kiss, a live 35 tour.

And when they first hit the, you wanted the best, you got the best. And there's just that like droning sound going over the whole arena. You get the chills and you almost feel like, like I was getting choked up. Like I remember at sitting there at MSG, like, I can't believe I'm about to see Kiss, like getting choked up. And I also want to kind of go back to you introducing me to Kiss before we get to that point, because you introduced me to Kiss at a super young age. Some would say too young, I'm sure. And I was into Kiss from as long as I could remember, really. There's pictures of me as a three-year-old with my Kiss action figures, my Kiss stuffed animals, my Kiss Legos that you got me, the whole Lego set and everything.

And there was Kiss, Motley Crue, and Guns N' Roses. And one of the early things about Kiss that set them apart for me was that they had a Scooby-Doo special where it was Kiss meets Scooby-Doo, and I had the VHS and everything. And then they also had Kiss Expos, which were this mysterious event to me as a small kid. What is a Kiss Expo? You would go yearly.

You went a couple of years in a row, I think. And you would come back and you would tell me it's just a place where they set out all KISS toys, all KISS shirts, merchandise, all KISS fans go. And then at the end of the night, you see a KISS tribute band. You see someone, you know, four people that go all out with the paint,

all out with the costumes. And in some cases are pretty damn good there's some pretty damn good kiss tribute bands out there and my first kiss expo i remember that being one of my favorite like concerts i've ever been to it was a band called kisteria that was the name of the the tribute band and going there it was basically my first comic-con it's that's what i would compare it to like a smaller Comic-Con. Everyone's got booths set up. Every now and then they would have like a former member of KISS, sometimes a current member like Eric Singer would go or something like that.

But I remember you going to KISS Expo before I was old enough to go to one and getting the Address to Kill shirt. And me taking that and being like, one day I will be at the KISS Expo. Oh, I will be. Those were so much fun. And I can't think of any other band other than maybe like the Grateful Dead or something. The Beatles, literally, that would have something like that. A Kiss Expo, Comic-Con solely dedicated to Kiss and their merchandise because, oh, my God, there's merchandise.

There's toys up the wazoo. I used to have toys. You got me for Christmas one year and we still actually have the video of you giving it to me for christmas it's a full kiss stage and it wasn't lego but it was figures that looked very much like lego very cool figures yeah i remember this and how i would play with them and you would help me out with this is we would go we would get a bunch of pieces of construction paper all different colors we would get mom's little paper cutter that you know goes up and down that, cut them into a million fine pieces and then go on YouTube or go to the CD player or probably not YouTube at that point. iTunes or the

CD player hit play and then just rain confetti on the Legos as we played with them. And, you know, that's not the way a kid usually plays. I don't think, I think it's like superhero and, you know, wrestlers and stuff like that, which I also had. But it was also just Kiss. There was something about them that set them apart. And then we get to a Live 35, my first opportunity to see the band. They're touring the 35th anniversary of their live album, Alive, one of the greatest live albums of all time, if not the greatest. And you were kind of working at MSg at the time or had been working

at msg so we went in through like the employee entrance or the back entrance yeah who do we see five minutes into getting into msg but gene simmons the demon the full gene simmons do in the full face paint he's got the hair done he's in the costume he's walking with his wife shannon who you may know as well she you know from the reality show from playboy all that they're walking and it's like oh shit how old am i at this point i'm probably less than 10 i would have to assume i was eight or nine and we run up to them and it's like you were like get the camera ready get the camera ready get the digital camera ready right no phones cameras at this point and you're like gene gene can the little guy get a picture or something and i'll never ever forget this gene simmons gets a lot of flack so let me tell a good gene simmons story for

him his handler said he we do not have time i'm sorry guys absolutely not and gene stopped and gene took that picture and i'll flash it on the screen for everyone to see now a bit of a blurry picture didn't get the digital camera uh right in time it's because you guys were like sort of moving as it like he did on birth stride and i'm like you got to just jump in there and like snap it quick and yeah that's me that's me and gino and you know what that was a pretty fucking cool moment for a little kid to see okay this is one of my heroes that i grew up playing with his action figures and he's in the full fucking action figure garb he looks like the action figure right now and he didn't blow you off even though the handler already tried to blow you off exactly he gave him

the out he the handler gave him the hey guys sorry we don't have time gene has to go to whatever and he didn't blow me off and he took the picture and i've always thought when you know gene gets a lot of flack people say one of the biggest douchebags and rock and roll or whatever i always think back to that and i go well you know what it's pretty damn cool to me yeah awesome moment and that was an awesome show as well that's one of those shows that i always think back to i think i still somewhere have a little sandwich bag a little plastic baggie that has confetti that i caught in the air that night and took home because i wanted to always, you know, keep that. Pretty crazy that no other bands really that, that delivers for me. It was, it was Kiss, Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses growing up, but Kiss was without a shadow of a doubt,

the number one. Um, let me ask you this, Mike, off the top of your head, could you tell me how many Kiss members there have been over the years? Oh man, off the top of my head. Um, I looked it up and i i was surprised there's more than i thought okay hold on quick math um or 14 there's been 10 official members and then two touring members that played keyboards on like three tours in the 80s um the the official 10 the original four paul stanley gene simmons ace freely and peter chris and then you've got eric carr vinnie vincent mark saint john bruce kulik tommy thayer and eric singer now let me ask you as a drummer kiss is one of these bands that have gone through

members and people have criticized them for it we see it now happening in motley crew john five stepping in for Mick Mars in a different capacity. You know, he's not putting on Mick Mars face paint and whatnot and going on stage as Mick Mars. As a drummer yourself, how would you describe the differences in the Three Kiss drummers? Well, it took me a long time to realize how important Peter Criss, specifically his style of drumming, was to this band and what sets them apart. You know, a lot of people like to make comments, jokes, cracks about KISS not really being good musicians. Nothing could be further from the truth. You know, this is a bass player. Absolutely. Peter grew up influenced by jazz and big band and swing,

Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, you know, things like that. And it really influenced the way he played. And, you know, here's this guy who is into jazz and swing and big band and stuff like that. Gets into this rock and roll band and continues to play the way he plays now he's playing rock and roll grooves and rock and beats but there's something about the way it it actually does swing it swings it does and i mean perfect example listen to detroit rock city listen to the drums in the verses of Detroit Rock City. He's really swinging and bouncing, and it gives it a certain type of feel that's not just this crushing, stompy, marshy, gah, gah, gah, gah,

a lot of the rock beats that you would typically hear on rock music. It tends to be straight ahead and just kind of you know plodding along um you know peter puts the role in rock and roll and um you know eric car takes over for him and you know eric is a great great great drummer. But stylistically, nothing like Peter, you know, very much more of your traditional rock guy, just, you know, crushing the beats, marching forward and driving. Eric Singer, I would say, is probably somewhere between Peter Criss and Eric Carr in terms of style. Probably leans a little bit more towards Eric Carr in terms of, you know, driving rock beats rather than swinging rock beats the way Peter was.

Also talented, too. Like, Kiss has had so many members over the years. They've had a lot of different guitar players, obviously. I feel the guitar players are not nearly as memorable as the three drummers and you know what a big part of Peter and eventually Eric Carr and Eric Singer is that they all sang well too you know this is one of those bands they're like the Beatles. Every member sings and every member's got a distinct style to the way they sing and members of personality. And, you know, Peter's got one of the greatest voices in the history of rock and roll. Peter arguably has my favorite voice in the band. Like that raspiness, that Rod Stewart almost in his voice is so good. And it's so

different for different songs. Like you can't picture Gene Simmons singing Beth. That's just like, I laugh out loud thinking about that, but his voice is so perfect for Black Diamond. His voice is so perfect for just a straight up hard rock song. And I'm glad you brought up the chirps about Kiss because especially I feel like as a 24 year old Kiss fan, you know, sometimes I'll tweet something about Kiss, like if you didn't like Kiss, fuck you, something like that. And someone will be like, oh, you know, they didn't have any skill, any musician skill. Gene Simmons is such an unbelievable bass player that I just roll my eyes at it. It doesn't even annoy me at this point

because I'm like, you know what? That's a shame that you're not familiar with enough Kiss to make those comments. I think our Uncle Kevin calls him like the hard rock McCartney. In some of his bass lines, in a lot of his bass lines, you hear that McCartney influence. You hear that Beatles influence and you hear the big band influence. Gene talks about a lot of his parts as if they're trumpet parts. He's like, I think what would the horns play? And I throw that in there. As a bass player too, I can't play a lot of Kiss songs. Guess what? I don't really have those issues with Guns N' Roses and Motley Crue and some of the other

bands I grew up with. And that's not to throw shade on Duff or Nicki, because they're both incredible. Duff especially has songs that I can't play. But Gene has this distinct style where you hear it in Detroit Rock City. You hear it in Deuce, you hear it in so many different songs where he does that McCartney thing and he plays with the melody and he's hitting the perfect notes and he's keeping his fingers moving the entire song.

And you know what? Maybe Kiss has also given into that narrative, I guess, because I remember talking to one of Gene's handlers when i met them on the final tour and he was like yeah they make those self-deprecating jokes all the time they're like yeah we'll have someone else in these these face paint uh outfits and everything in a couple years when we're long gone kiss will still be here and i think that might be true i think they might be the first i know there's been like cover bands that franchise they might be the first band band that just franchises i I hope they do.

I hope they do too. I would go see him. Like I, people give him a lot of shit, especially in the last tour. They said maybe Paul was lip syncing some of the backing tracks. I saw him twice on the final tour. And in my mind, I was like, you know what, if this truly is it for kiss, they're really getting up there in age. I think Jean is in his seventies, right? Paul's up there. I said, if this is truly it, I bet, I bet I'll have a good time at their show. I went to two and I had a great time. Like Kiss just brings the energy, you know, even if they are 70 years old up there, I had a really good time at my last two Kiss shows. Yeah. I mean, I've, I've seen them four times, you know, the first time with the original members and each time since with Tommy and Eric. And, you know, every time it's just, it's, what it really comes down to is of course you're getting this great show.

You're getting every, you know, every dollar's well spent. And it's the songs. I mean, when you really break it down, it's great rock songs. And for everybody who thinks Kiss is just this circus and they can't play their instruments you know i've got a dozen songs i could play you that i'm sure as a music lover as a rock and roll lover you would say holy shit this is a great song you know occasionally i'd run this experiment and and i would put hard luck woman on in a room full of people. And not once did I ever do this where somebody didn't go, Hey, who's this? I say, this is kiss. And they're like,

this is kiss. And it's just like, yeah, they wrote great music. You know, people discarded them as, as these, you know, as these weirdos who just spit blood and blow things up and can't play their instruments but you know so much so much good music and played by four guys who really um i mean ace freely how many guitar players play guitar because of ace they can tell you totally there's a kiss it's because ofley. I wanted to be a guitar player. Fireworks on the headstock. Oh my God. That's one of the most like iconic pyrotechnic routines

in all of rock and roll. The blood spitting obviously is too. The firehouse, you know, Paul putting the fire helmet on. Like there's so many things too. Peter's drum riser going up. So many things that you associate with a Kiss show where you're like, how could you not fucking love that? like i do feel bad for people that didn't grow up kiss fans because this is like rock and roll on steroids this is the wrestlemania of rock and roll going to a kiss show

this is like you will be mind blown i took glennie balls to a kiss show that was my last kiss show i said glennie let's see kiss and he out of all the songs he goes oh my god i love i was made for loving you that was the first thing he said to me and i was like oh yeah let's go see kiss. And he, out of all the songs, he goes, Oh my God, I love, I was made for loving you. That was the first thing he said to me. And I was like, Oh yeah, let's go see kiss. He came, he had a blast. He was like, this is incredible. Paul's still doing the love gun repel across the arena to the small stage and everything. We actually, this is, you know what? I wasn't even going to bring this up, but it just crossed my brain. We went to a Paul Stanley art gallery in the mall just to get a glimpse of the guy. We were like, we got, and that's what basically what it was. We showed up. We waited in line for hours. They let us in. We saw some of Paul Stanley's paintings, some of which were okay, some of which were not. And then I think from a distance, we were like, oh my God, I waved to Paul and maybe he saw a kid and waved back.

And that was like, oh my God, what a cool day yeah that's how much we were obsessed some things that are uh my mom's basement and kiss related that i want to bring up kiss had some marvel comic books in the late 70s and there was a very interesting thing about these comic books they it was one marvel super special and then i think they had some afterwards in the super special special, they battled Mephisto, Doctor Doom, like actual Marvel villains. They teamed up with Spider-Man. The Fantastic Four was there. But what the true talking point of this comic book is, is that Kiss mixed their blood into the red ink used in the comics. And they threw this out there as an idea.

And Kiss always had these outlandish, extravagant ideas. And they were like, should we do it? That seems even a little out there for us. And they said, nah, fuck it. Let's do it. And to make sure everyone knew that they were serious about this, they actually did it on Long Island. I almost said in Long Island. On Long Island at the Nassau Coliseum, they had a notary and a cameraman show up.

And they all got their blood drawn. And then they poured it into what would eventually become the red ink there. And they did it all in costume, all in face paint, because at this point they were still on kayfabe. That's another thing about Kiss where I feel like people probably couldn't even imagine it nowadays with social media and everything. But they were truly in character like they were the undertaker 24-7. They weren't spotted without makeup for years. When they eventually took it off, it was such a big deal that they did a TV special. And you could look it up.

You could watch it on YouTube. There's a great opening where they're like, Gene Simmons, the demon, the scariest, the bloodsucker, whatever. And then it just fades into Gene's normal face. And then you're like, oh, yeah, he's just kind of an old guy. Gene Simmons family jewels style. And they do it for each member. That's a great special as well. That's like worth looking up if you've never seen it. So the Marvel comic books, I wanted to bring up. And then another thing that I would say is basement related. Kiss actually made a movie in the late seventies. I think it was late seventies, right? Not the eighties yet.

Late seventies. Yeah. Right off the heels of Star Wars. They make a movie called Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. And this movie was, I think, intended to be Star Wars. They were like, you know what? Let's put out our own fucking Star Wars. It was not Star Wars. This is an all-time so-bad-it's-good movie, at least for us. And I remember the VHS tape like it was yesterday, how tattered and worn the box of this VHS was.

We watched it all the time. It's so bad that there are scenes in it where I think Ace Frehley and maybe Peter, but definitely Ace, were on drugs for the filming of it, and they were a little messed up for it. And they couldn't get him to remember lines. They couldn't get him to show up to set every day. So sometimes you see a stunt double for Ace Frehley and folks, it's a black guy. It doesn't even look anything like him.

Like you could tell immediately, like you're like, that's a black guy in Ace Frehley. But it is so worth at least looking up on YouTube and watching some highlights of, I don't know if you could find the full thing on YouTube. I'm sure you could find it online. It is so funny to look back at and look at the special effects and see what they were going for with the special effects, see what they achieved. It's worth checking out. It's Hanna-Barbera who did the Scooby-Doo cartoon. So this was, you know, it feels like they tried to make an episode of Scooby-Doo come to life. Yes. I mean, they sort of did.

And it turns out, I don't know if we need Scooby-Doo to come to life. No, especially without the dog. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's like you said, it's one of those so bad, it's good. I watch it still to this day because... I was going to say, you showed it to your kids this year, which I think is so funny. Just like, if you're thinking of showing it to your kids it's not inappropriate

it's not like it's gonna scare them or anything like that you're just gonna be bored as hell i'll tell you what this is not the most entertaining action sequence movie but in a pre-youtube world any footage i have of kiss playing music on a stage or doing anything yeah i'll watch it it's like there is like a different version of beth in the in the movie right there's a different version of beth there's like some cool scenes at the end it's interesting too where kiss went into pop culture especially in my lifetime because i'm being born in 98 i'm born at the tail end of kiss if you even want to call it that where it's like they're still in pop culture here and there. They were in Tony Hawk's Underground is what I'm referring to.

Like that was the final level of Tony Hawk's Underground. You collect the K-I-S-S letters and Kiss starts playing. And Gene, you could play as and everything. It's interesting how long they were around in that area. I mean, at one of the Kiss expos, I bought a Kiss, and it played rock and roll all night and party every day. And when it was over, you knew, okay, that's when you're done brushing your teeth. Like, it's crazy how long they were able to stay almost Beatles-like up in the pop culture zeitgeist. Yeah. It's just they tapped in at a time when they were able to set themselves apart from everything else that was going on.

And I said it once, I'll say it a hundred times. They wrote great songs. That's what it comes down to more than anything. We listen to Kiss all the time. I mean, I have kids right now who are eight and four and they say, can we listen to Kiss when we get in the car? The answer to that is always going to be yes. Always. Another movie, before we get into, we're going to draft our top five most underrated songs.

But another movie I wanted to bring up, an actual good movie, I would say, is Detroit Rock City. A movie was made about four guys wanting to go see a KISS show and them, their journey getting there. Late 90s, early 2000s, I would say. Yeah, it sounds right. Probably early 2000s. And this is another one of my favorite movies growing up, even though I probably shouldn't have been watching it when I knew it. You definitely shouldn't have been watching this, no. Especially based on the DVD cover is like, you know, the drawing of everyone in the movie.

There's the drawing of, you know, all four members of Kiss, all the various characters. There's some cameos and whatnot. It feels like a Kevin Smith movie to me. It feels in the same vein, kind of like if you were like, all right, a view a skew in a first movie of four guys wanting to go see Kiss. There's even the guy who looks a little bit like Jay with the long hair and the beanie. I would recommend this to people. I would say, especially if you're a KISS fan and haven't seen this, it's like almost a must watch because it goes through the tropes of like

calling into a radio station while you're in school, trying to win tickets, people dealing with the KISS versus rock and roll rivalry of the time, which always one of the grossest things of all times when he throws the pizza, the way it like winds up on the, the windshield always just grossed me out, but check out Detroit rock city if you haven't before, because I think that's like really worth a watch.

That's that's a sleeper. Good movie. Yeah, totally. And, you know, really captured the vibe of like seventies kiss. Cause it's,

it's taking place in the 70s. And it really... The main character's mother is like part of the church and she doesn't want him listening to it. The opening scene is so classic where it's like an old woman getting down with a glass of wine or something. And she goes to put a record on the record player. And if you're in tune to Kiss and you know what their records look like with the Casablanca logo, you know she's putting on the record player and if you're in tune to kiss and you know what their records look like with the casablanca logo you know she's putting on the wrong record that was put in you know a

normal sleeve and then detroit rock city hits i think it was like destroyer and of course we now have to talk about our most underrated kiss songs now this was interesting to put together a list of underrated kiss songs especially because of how diehard the fans are. I was going back and forth. What's underrated? What's not underrated? I think I'm pretty happy with my list. I would be shocked if we had any crossover on our lists.

Okay. I would be shocked. Would you like to kick it off with your five, or would you like me to kick it off? I'll kick it off. No particular order. I just, I grabbed these five because- I pretty much have no particular order as well.

Find myself just constantly going back to them and listening to them over and over again. From my favorite Kiss record, the second record, Hotter Than Hell. It's the last song on the record. It's called Strange Ways. It's a song that Peter sings. It's just that whole

record hotter than hell is so dirty and grungy sounding it's almost like pre-grunge yeah it's just got this new york city street vibe to it i mean and it makes sense these guys four guys from the streets of new york city and it's just you know it it sounds dirty. It feels dirty. The whole record is so raw. I was listening to a little bit of it earlier, just looking for my top five and everything. And there's a noticeable like quality drop in the recording quality of this record and other records.

And it's not in a bad way. Like weirdly, this is, it feels like it's recorded cheaper, but in a like rock and roll way. Yeah. It's got a, it's got a punk rock rawness and feel to it. So, um, and then, you know, like we said before, the, the rasp and Peter's voice, um, that Rod Stewart sound and it's, and it's a dark tune and, uh, it's just sludgy and heavy and punk and raw. And, uh, that's,

that's one of my most underrated strange ways. That's a great one. And at the end of this podcast,'m going to make a spotify playlist for the people out there with all 10 of our most underrated songs so if you want to dive deep into them i'll make that easy for everyone my first one this is going to be possibly a little controversial because i'm picking a single as my first most underrated song which you might might say like, that's weird to pick a single underrated. I'm going with Modern Day Delilah off Sonic Boom. This was the second to last Kiss album. They released one called, I think, Monster after this,

which was horrendous. But there's actually some decent songs on Sonic Boom and I'm considering it especially underrated because it's kind of the lost album. This was released, I think, in 2012 with a Walmart partnership, where the only place you could go to buy the CD was Walmart. Now, that was pre-streaming, taking over and everything, and they didn't anticipate the fact that you would not be able

to put this album on streaming because Walmart has the exclusive rights or whatever. So they finally put it on streaming last year, or this year, actually, the beginning of this year, 2022. And I figured, oh, the 10-year gap must be over. Now I could listen to it, listen to the record over again, Modern Day Delilah being the lead single from it. It's a great song. It's got Paul, it's got Gene. It's hard. It's great. The album is now, yet again, not on Spotify, iTunes, anywhere to be found. So they must have not read the fine print there. Walmart still owns it in some way.

It's a bit of a lost album, but this is a badass song. I think it's maybe like the last truly great Kiss song released. Great riff. Great riff. Gets you tapping your foot. Great drum beat. And it reminds me of that first show too because they played Modern Day Delilah the first time i ever saw kiss they were promoting that album kind of so it it does have a nostalgic feel for me very good choice you're number four um or not you know not

four but the count the countdown back to you yeah from from destroyer And I figured this is going to be probably amongst real Piss fans, probably a fan favorite, but not something that ever gets played live, not something that ever gets talked about very much, but I just love it so much. Flaming Youth. I love Flaming Youth. youth. Yeah. See what I mean? It's just that, you know, that, that riff in the beginning singing about, you know, being young and being crazy. You know, my parents think I'm crazy and they hate the things I do. I mean, who can't relate to that when they're, when they're young and want to be what, what kiss fan can't relate to that. Yeah. That's a great one. My next one is off carnival of souls, Colin, The Final Sessions. This is, for those that don't know, an unpainted Kiss album. They're with the bare faces.

And this is their shot at a grunge album in the 90s. You see a couple bands like Motley Crue, who we've discussed in the past on this podcast, go towards that grunge route. And it worked for some, and it didn't work for others. I would say for Motley and it worked for some and it didn't work for others i would say for motley it worked so well that mc94 record we talked about extensively on our motley crew podcast as one of our favorites it is so badass it holds up so well it goes so hard kiss not so much i'll be completely honest not as good as that MC 94 record, but there are some good songs on it. This one,

particularly being Rain, I love this song. It's real grungy. It's real deep, hard, and it's Paul singing it as well. It's a song that you would maybe expect Gene to be on, but this is a Paul song. It's the only Paul song on my list other than modern-day delight. He doesn't sing the verses and everything This is worth a listen out of pure curiosity. If you're like what is kiss as a grunge band sound like? Okay speaking of Paul songs my next my next pick is a Paul song and It comes from rock and roll over one of my favorite riffs in history. It's Mr. Speed.

I know this one. I like this one. Rock and Roll All Over also being one of the best album covers of all time, I think. Yeah, that opening riff, I mean, it's just got that. It's got a real 70s, almost T-Rex, almost of you know kind of feel to it but you know just just a great fun 70s hard rock song with a great riff you know one of the first things i wanted to know about kiss when i met someone that worked for the band a couple years ago was he traveled with the band and everything as well and i said what do they listen to like when they're just throwing music on what does kiss listen to nowadays he said it was a lot of 50s stuff a lot of elvis a lot of stones

and a lot of zeppelin he's like elvis stones and zeppelin are the three pretty pretty solid playlist don't go wrong there it's all you need really my next one is off addressed to kill kiss's third record one of the best album i'm gonna say's third record. One of the best albums. I'm going to say it about every album. One of the best album covers. Because they do have the best album covers in general. But it's them in the suits. Come on. This is great.

Two-timer. I think it's the second song off the album. It's a Gene song. And I looked on Spotify. It might be the, out of all the songs on that record, the one with the least amount of streams. Which shocked me. Because I love this song and always have. Yep.

Two-timer's great. which shocked me because i love this song and always have yep two timers great gene's got that young um that you know the youth in his voice still yeah and um you can still hear how hungry they are i know it's saying about new york streets and everything yeah those first three records you know before kiss alive comes out rock and roll all night becomes mainstream and they blow into the stratosphere the first three kiss albums you really hear how young and hungry they are and i love that about any band you know i love being able to hear how young and hungry they are and for people that don't know kiss wasn't just an immediate success when they broke through and everything like their

first album wasn't like this breakthrough oh my god everyone's talking about kiss it took a while and really what blew it up was Alive, their live album. They didn't really have the money to record another studio album, and I think it was almost like shit or get off the pot. Yeah, Stitch Effort, Hail Mary, Alive album, yeah. And they record this live album where still to this day people say, is it really live? Is it not live live they went in and fix some things just put that on and enjoy your night because oh my god it kicks ass and it's still people say it's too much of a crowd noise the crowd doesn't you know the crowd isn't at

100 the entire concert that's how i want to hear the crowd in a live album like that's what i always think back to when they open with deuce on that and you hear the crowd people just screaming throughout the entire song that's what i want a punk album live album to sound like if we ever record a live album guess what we're pumping in that crowd noise my four-year-old daughter we get in the car she says can we listen to rock and roll all night and i always say studio version or live version she goes goes live version. Like it's no brainer. So stupid to ask that question. And kiss are one of those bands.

Like I go to, they have four alive albums and a couple other just regular live albums. And I go back to those so often alive. Three is so well recorded. There's such awesome recordings in a live three. I was made for love at you being one of those alive to opening with Detroit rock city. Like these are,

if you were to like, just give someone a couple of kiss albums and you want them to be a fan of the band, give them a live one, two, and three. Like, how could they not come away from that?

A fan. Yeah. All right. Up to you now. Okay. I got to look at this list again. I can't unlock my phone because my phone doesn't recognize my face. I was having that issue.

Yeah. So I got to actually type in my password to look at my list. I know I wasn't used to that either. Okay. So from the first album, the self-titled album, Kiss, the song Let Me Know, which to me is such a throwback to what they grew up loving and were inspired by it's beatles man this could have been a beatles song and it could have been a hit beatles song yep um it's a gene vocal and like you said with two term it, it's that youthful sound. It's that young and hungry. And, you know, they're just singing about girls.

Which is maybe 50, 60% of Kiss songs. Mostly just about singing about chicks, yeah. But at the end of this song, it completely makes like this hard left turn into Ace Freelyville with this crunchy groovy riff i mean the ace freely guitar tone is probably my favorite guitar tone ever of anyone it's just as good as it gets thick and sludgy and at the same time smooth and you know ace falls down the stairs and does something clever on the way down yeah it's just it's it feels like the streets it feels like the streets in new york city come to life when this dude plays and i love that tone so at the end of let me know they they just break into a jam where ace is just firing away it's it's what it's one of my favorite things

kiss has ever done it's just a jam at the end of a great song already when you look down the list and if you asked all of the if you asked 50 super famous rock and roll guitar players like who inspired you to play guitar they probably all say ace and it's it's a shame that he's so underrated because he doesn't appear on lists of like greatest rock and roll guitarists, if you always look. And maybe he doesn't have the Jimmy Page skill and whatnot. But like he belongs on those lists because his groups are so creative. He sung so well while playing them. His solos were so good.

Like you said, his tone is flawless, as good as you could ask for. I don't believe he played on my next song. So unfortunately, I'm going with a song he wasn't even on. Off Revenge, one of their 80s albums. This is another one without the face paint. Thou Shall Not, a Gene song. This one goes fucking hard. And I was reading a little bit on Revenge earlier

and it seemed the band kind of came to an agreement where they were like, all right, Paul's going to get the radio songs, the hit singles, and Gene's going to make the heavy metal songs that keep the respect there. And this is one of those heavy metal songs. This is as heavy as Kiss gets, I think. That whole record, Revenge, I think it was early 90s, maybe 91 or 92. And yeah, they get heavy on the whole Revenge.

There's some good ones on Revenge. I like that album. Hearts of Chrome, Heart of Chrome. Is that another one on Revenge? I think that's on the whole. There's some good ones on revenge. I like that album is heart hearts of Chrome heart of Chrome. Is that another one on revenge? So yeah, I think that's on revenge. That's good. It's on revenge.

Yep. Yeah. It's the, it's the first studio recording with Eric singer on drums. Wow. I was not aware of that. I've met Eric singer. He was one that I met at a kiss expo when I was small.

I still have a, an autograph from Eric Singer. Shout out, Eric. All right, throwing it over to you. All right, this is the last one on the list. And if I was ranking them, I might put this at number one. I think it might be the most underrated. Just like I started the list off with, it's from my favorite Kiss album.

It's from Hotter Than Hell. It's a Peter. It's another peter vocal the song is mainline um you know i don't know what what to say about mainline though that i haven't said about it is out there for kiss i feel like but it's a jam it's a jam it's got the peter vocal it's got that you know punk rock rawness of the recording sound. It's just, but it's a pop tune nonetheless. And maybe that's maybe Kiss's legacy is they just wrote great pop tunes and disguised them

as hard rock and heavy metal with, you know, volume and attitude. You know, most of my favorite rock music is it's just really it's just that it's pop tunes disguised with attitude and volume and you know digging in a little bit so yeah and it's the same four chords that all the pop stars use and you just hit the distortion pedal that's basically what you do in rock and roll and that's my favorite as well if you take anything away from this uh go listen to mainline mine would all this would also be my number one most underrated if i if i were ranking them it's off creatures of the night one of my favorite kiss records saint and sinner wow i thought maybe you were gonna say war machine Machine. I love War Machine, but I felt like that couldn't even be most underrated because I feel like that's not underrated.

I feel like people know War Machine is the shit. That was the first video. That was the first song ever put in a YouTube video that I uploaded. It was a video of me playing with Jeff Hardy and Randy Orton action figures to War Machine. I'm going with Saint and Sinner, though. This, to me, when I listen to saint center though this to me when i listen to creatures of the night now i want to hear the foo fighters cover saint and sinner this feels like it could be a foo fighter song it sounds modern feels like they were pushing forward and creatures

of the night just a great record a badass record and saint and sinners one of my favorite songs in the whole thing another one where on spotify i had some of the leaf streams of the whole album which i was like what the are people doing listening to this album but not listening to saint and sinner that was our our most underrated and i if i were doing one honorable mention i would do into the void off psycho circus which into the void is actually the only song on psycho circus where all four of them are all playing together which is crazy to me because that is kind of their reunion record right yeah yeah and that's the only one crazy but that is a good record to me the psycho circus record i know kiss fans don't always love it but that opening psycho circus as a as a title track is like a badass one of my favorite kiss songs actually

yeah um also before we uh before we wrap this up i did want to also mention you know talking about the music and the great songs everyone should really check out kisses mtv unplugged it's one of the best plugs that's they've great call um because you really i mean just like everybody else who did that unplugged series, to hear these songs in a stripped-down way with acoustic guitars and just, you know, no bombs, no confetti, no blood, no fire, just the music of Kiss being performed as well as it's ever been performed. The Hard Luck Woman from Unplugged specifically, oh, my God, I go back to all the time.

Going Blind. Going Blind is so good. Everything off that special. They bring the guys out at the end, bring Peter out and everything. That's it. I would go. I know this. People are going to say, Oh my God. I've gone Nirvana unplugged, kiss unplugged. Wow. That's my one too. Right there. I know Alice in chains. They got some great ones out there. Kiss is my number two. Yeah. Check out kiss unplugged.

Check out anything. and have fun this is the whole point yeah yes have fun this is supposed to be fun we're here once let's have a good time we're wearing face paint podcasting right now by the way it reminded me of an episode of family guy where they go to kiss stock was that one yeah yeah yeah and peter griffin dresses his jean and lois griffin dresses his peter and peter says to lois something's the effect of nobody wants to be peter chris not even peter chris and i learned today why that is it's because this makeup design takes forever to do and there's a lot of fine moments and parts in there. And this thing is just like, yeah, I'm proud though, because I didn't know what to expect when I didn't do my own makeup.

Shout out to our sister did my makeup and you did your own. So I was like, I don't know what to expect when I log onto this. Is it going to look like Peter Chris? I mean, you nailed it. Well, I can't imagine.

I have a new found appreciation and respect for anybody who ever put on this paint and then went and played because by the time I was done, I couldn't imagine having to play a two, three hour rock and roll show after like, it's exhausting just sitting there trying to get this right. And I'm sure after a while. And they all do it themselves too. That's one of the things I feel like non-KISS fans probably don't know. All the guys do their

own makeup still to this day. They don't want anyone else touching it. Yeah. And you know what? I spent, you know, a lot of time in bands I was in on tour doing some sort of version of face paint, neck paint, something. I'll throw a picture in here so people could see. It does, you know, the bands I was in sort of lended to a certain type of look I was doing. And, you know, it does, I can vouch for the fact that it does help you get into a mode of being transformed backstage and stepping out onto the stage as something else, something, you know, that we're trying to channel and release through us. And, you know, I remember being backstage getting painted up for a show and a drummer from the band we were opening for, he said, he's Mickey, I got to ask what's with the paint. And I said, well, you know, it's's it's a vibe that you know fits what we're doing i said

it helps me kind of get into a mode i said also you know i kind of grew up a big kiss fan and his head went down and he said mick i gotta tell you something man i fucking hate kiss uh we got along very well me and this guy and And just the fact that he felt this was something he needed. To get off his chest. Almost as if, listen, if our relationship is going to continue, you should know this about me. I fucking hate kids. I venture to guess that that's because if you know somebody who's into kiss you know that they're all you've heard a bit too much about kiss from them yeah i mean look at us look at us listen one of

my best friends in the world dom growing up another drummer hates kiss just absolutely despises him and i think half of that is due to me being like we should cover like you know war machine and he's like we're not playing war machine we're a pop punk band stop it but still to this day you know what the pop punk guys have heard more than once we should do a halloween show and just dress up as kiss and the response i get from all of them is like oh yeah yeah yeah sure and then you know it's it's not happening but if i had a say in the matter we were doing we would do a full kiss tribute show and pop punk all right thank you for tuning in everyone i hope you enjoyed this if you're looking more into kiss if you want to learn more there's a documentary on hulu that uh gene and paul were

involved in the the other two guys original members were not involved but it's decent it'll give you the broad strokes on kiss and it's a good entryway to this wild world of KISS fans, the KISS army, all of that. Anything else you want to say about KISS before we get out of here? I think we covered it all. No, I think this was great. I can't wait to wash this shit off my face. Same.

You know what? I'm really excited. I had to go park my car, walk to my apartment. We're scared. It was, yeah, I'm going to have to go take this off, but thank you to everyone for tuning in. Happy Halloween. I hope you enjoyed.

And you know what? We've done a Motley episode. We've done a kiss epic episode. Next up, we got to do a guns one. Some, sometime in the, in the future, guns and roses. Sounds good. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween.

All right. Perfect.