I still love Ace despite this memorable debacle. I was scanning YouTube and just wanted to share it. Gene wanted to literally kill Ace.
That was a riot. If you didn’t know the personalities of KISS before the Snyder interview, you certainly did after that.
Everyone remembers the trout/plumber lines, but there are so many other hilarious ones. “Gene was into telescopes!” “If we did a concert in Bombay there would even be cows!” “Screaming and crying - why did I spend all that money?!”
"Why did I spend all that money?" and they all burst out in hysterics, that was a very revealing moment.
Gene - miserable and too damn serious, wanted to control the interview Paul - confused not sure which side to play, leans toward Gene Peter - appears stoned out of his mind Ace - the star of the interview by far, so many quick lines that had me in tears laughing especially when countered against Gene's reaction I would love to hear a tape of what transpired backstage after this interview.
I think Gene was trying to protect the LEGACY...and prevent Ace from really doing the band damage...like when he stops Ace from doing the Nazi salute. That said, Ace is hysterical here for a drunken idiot.
What legacy? at that point they were only 7 years into their career not having a clue that 40+ years later KISS would still be a working band. Those kind of thoughts were unheard of in the 70's or earlier, it was make it big and cash in as fast as you can before it ends. Looking back now with the benefit of hindsight there's a legacy there, in my opinion KISS did a lot of things right and wrong.
I always thought Gene was mainly worried about turning off families with little kids during this interview/at this point more than anything...remember they wanted to do the KISSWORLD theme park at this point as well as churn out animated shows, movies, sell more dolls, comics, etc.
I love Gene and I have many similar personality traits (which not many people would be eager to mention), but it's always funny when Gene is being too serious and someone pulls the rug out from beneath him. The bit with Totie Fields on The Mike Douglas Show is a classic for that, too. Fields is razzing him--partially because she's having a wtf? reaction to him, amplified but the absurdity of it especially contrasted with Gene's relatively quiet/understated demeanor, and you can see Fields' jabs quickly putting Gene off of his game.
I don't think Gene had a game yet on the MDS show, he was still the quiet kid trying to figure out his public rock star persona. Still funny to watch though.
By 1979 KISS were the biggest band in the world...having a drunken guy falling off a couch and giving Nazi salutes wasn't quite on brand. Especially as little kids were becoming their target audience at that point.
Not even close don't believe the KISS hype machine, they were an arena level band in an era where the largest bands were playing stadiums.
KISS would often play multiple shows in arenas, though. I don’t remember a trend of (basically) single band stadium shows in the 70’s but that’s maybe most likely due to living in the Midwest and being, you know, just a kid. I do remember a lot being made of KISS being named most popular band in America via a 1977 Gallup poll... January 1977: KISS Rocks Detroit with Three Sold-Out Shows | Classic Rockers
Here's some information on the Dynasty tour, they had a few multiple night engagements but also some cancellations due to low sales. Overall expectations were not close to being met. Dynasty Tour - Wikipedia
Oh, no doubt the Dynasty tour was disappointing and the slide had begun! I just meant that they had reason to act like “the biggest band in the world” based on the very recent past...in some ways they were the last ones to know how much things had changed...that’s all. Sorry if that wasn’t clear...
I honestly don't recall a lot of bands playing Stadium shows in the '70's. I think it became more popular in the 1980's after the Stones did their 1981 tour. I don't think it was so much the KISS hype machine but living though it!
I remember Led Zeppelin, The Stones, The WHO, Pink Floyd and probably a few others being capable of playing arenas and stadiums throughout most of the 70's. Led Zeppelin's 1977 North American Tour was a massive financial success, as the band sold out large arenas and stadiums. On 30 April they performed to 76,229 people at the Pontiac Silverdome a new world record attendance for a solo indoor attraction, beating the 75,962 that The Who attracted there on 6 December 1975 for Opening Night, and grossed $792,361.50 (also a record breaker).[4][6][7] Lengthy stints were spent in New York City and Los Angeles, where the band performed six sold-out shows each at Madison Square Gardenand the Los Angeles Forum. In New York, the band did not advertise the concerts, relying solely on street demand to sell out the shows; enough ticket applications were received to sell out a further two nights had time permitted. Dave Lewis, an expert on the band, considers that this tour, with its staggered itinerary and massive arena and stadium venues, became the blueprint for which the likes of Bruce Springsteen and U2 would base their multimillion dollar tours during the Eighties and Nineties. Back then, though, Grant and Zeppelin were making their own rules as they went along. The unwieldy scale of just how big the Zeppelin experience had become was encapsulated over those forty-four 1977 shows.[4]
