By his personal account, Peter Criss intentionally sabotaged three of his ultimate 5 exhibits with the unique lineup of Kiss.
The first and most public of those acts kicked off every week of backstage arguments that ended with him attempting to assault a bandmate with a damaged champagne bottle.
Despite a half-decade run as considered one of rock’s hottest bands, Kiss had been coming aside on the seams in December 1979 on account of interpersonal points. After drummer Criss and guitarist Ace Frehley expressed a need to stop the earlier yr, the group members as an alternative took an prolonged break and recorded solo albums earlier than attempting to reunite as a contented household for Dynasty, which was launched in May 1979.
It did not work. Because of a automotive accident, a recovering Criss performed drums on just one tune. Even although the disco-influenced lead single “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” was successful, Dynasty had a extra scattered enchantment than earlier Kiss albums and did not sound just like the work of a unified band. Plus, lots of the band’s unique followers disapproved of the mass-appeal nature of the brand new sound, leading to less-than-stellar attendance and even canceled exhibits on the tour in assist of the album.
None of this helped enhance relationships. On Dec. 8, 1979, in the course of the fifth-to-last present of the tour, Criss took sturdy exception to frontman Paul Stanley gesturing for him to decelerate the tempo mid-song. “What that says to everybody in the arena is that I’m the one fucking up the band,” Criss recalled in his 2012 memoir, Makeup to Breakup.
Even although Criss conceded Stanley “may have had a point,” seeing as how a pre-show go to from his cocaine vendor had the drummer feeling “a little edgy and probably playing a little too fast,” he nonetheless thought-about the general public upbraiding “a slap in the face.”
Angered, Criss deliberately “slowed the song down to a crawl,” prompting Stanley to gesture “wildly” for him to deliver the tempo again up once more. “I’m like, ‘Make up your motherfucking mind!'” he mentioned. “People in the audience could hear me screaming that at him. I just stopped playing; I didn’t care anymore.”
“That crossed a line,” Stanley famous in his personal memoir, 2014’s Face the Music. “It’s one thing to sabotage things offstage — and God knows he’d done plenty of that. But this was different. This was in front of people who paid to see us.” By Stanley’s account, Frehley and Gene Simmons had been additionally “stunned” by this “betrayal,” and voted to kick Criss out of the band instantly.
“I shouldn’t have sabotaged that song,” Criss famous. “But Paul could have easily waited, finished the show and talked to me about it in the dressing room. I would have taken that fine. But the way he did it was so girly. He had to have everyone looking at him admonishing me.”
The band was satisfied to play the ultimate week of exhibits, however issues continued to deteriorate. At a live performance two nights later in Jackson, Miss., Criss stopped taking part in with out rationalization throughout a efficiency of Stanley’s solo tune “Move On.” “I was just so fed up with them,” Criss recalled. “Later that same show, after I finished singing ‘Beth,’ I threw the mike on the floor and stormed offstage again.”
Two nights later in Biloxi, Miss., “on a whim,” Criss determined to hit Simmons on the again of his head as he was throwing drum sticks to the group close to the top of the principle set. “I didn’t mean to hit him hard,” he insisted. “But the thick end of the stick whacked him.”
During the band’s pre-encore break, Simmons repaid Criss with a swift kick to the shin. The two traded some phrases earlier than returning for the primary encore. Rushing backstage afterward, Criss ready his revenge. “I found one of Ace’s empty champagne bottles and broke it against the table,” he defined. “As soon as Gene walked into that room, I went after him with the broken bottle, but some of the crew intervened and dragged me away.”
After the band in some way regrouped for a second, ultimate encore, Criss mentioned he and Simmons “begrudgingly shook each other’s hands, but I knew that was it … there was no turning back. We finished the final two shows of the Dynasty tour without incident. But Kiss, as the world knew it, was over.” The final present occurred on Dec. 16, 1979, in Toledo.
Simmons, Stanley and Frehley quickly fired Criss, changing him with Eric Carr for the tour in assist of 1980’s Unmasked. Criss returned to the group for the profitable 1996 original-lineup reunion tour, 1998’s Psycho Circus LP and a “farewell” tour in 1999 and 2000. Criss’ final present of that tour ended with him angrily destroying his drum package after he discovered he wasn’t making as a lot cash as Frehley.
The drummer returned for a 3rd and ultimate stint with Kiss in late 2002, departing when his contract wasn’t renewed in 2004. He retired from music after a short sequence of solo farewell exhibits in 2017.
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