Matt Wardlaw of Ultimate Classic Rock recently conducted an interview with Gene Simmons - and talked about all things "Monster", "Destroyer" reissue and other stuff, Read excerpts below:
You
definitely have a lot of things going on and one of those things is a
new KISS album. How would you describe ‘Monster’ from your
perspective and when can we expect to hear the album?
Paul
produced it, because he’s got a clear mind and time to think in
those terms. I don’t have the ability and the attention span
anymore to do that. We’ve both produced outside the band and both
[have] produced KISS albums before, but this was the right decision.
[The material is] all band-written. We sat together in the same room
for the first time in decades and came up with some pretty classic
stuff. It could be one of our top two or three records ever.
It’s
going to be the year of the ‘Monster’ when the album comes out.
You’ll hear everybody in the band singing lead. Everybody co-wrote
the songs – that includes Eric [Singer], our drummer. It really is
a band record. My favorite records are band records where nobody is
trying to take over and push their weight around.
There’s
also going to be a 10-hour DVD called ‘Monster’ coming out, which
is going to be ‘Kissology’ number four, the fourth one in our
series. The first three sold 20-times platinum – they’re
monsters. There’s going to be a four-foot book – literally –
called ‘Monster.’ It’s so heavy that it has its own legs,
because you physically cannot pick it up. It weighs, get ready for
this, 45 pounds.
(...)
Is
there a release date attached to the record yet?
We’re
pushing the record back, because we start the American tour with
Mötley Crüe joining us. We’ll do about 40 shows and then ‘Monster’
will come out and then the DVD and the books and all of that. [The
record] will hopefully [come out] in probably September or October.
(...)
What’s
the latest word on the deluxe ‘Destroyer’ reissue ?
That
is also coming out shortly, this summer, remixed by Bob Ezrin with
some outtakes and some stuff. Because it was a very pivotal record
for us. Bob Ezrin came along and basically decided, “Okay, we’re
going back to our roots.” We’re going to learn how to tune our
guitars and talk about song structure. Because when we first started
out, you know, we basically dove into the deep end of the pool and
[said], “Let’s see if we can swim?”
And
then once you stay in the water long enough, you want to start to get
some style and do the breaststroke and the backstroke and all of that
stuff, because you become a better swimmer. It’s not just enough to
not sink. So the sink-or-swim thing became, “Hey, let’s be really
good swimmers.”
What
sort of stuff will be part of this new deluxe edition? There’s the
remix…
There
are remixes of the entire album – there’s some different elements
that are going to be featured. So you’ll hear the DNA of what it’s
all about [with] a big booklet that shows the making of [the album]
and what everybody was going through.
Because
there was a lot of turmoil in the band at that point. That was the
first record where the future troubles with Ace and Peter surfaced.
Peter started screaming at Bob Ezrin, “Don’t tell me how to play
drums,” and Ezrin kind of going, “Well, first you have to learn
how to play drums then you can say don’t tell me how to play drums.
You’re playing it wrong, here’s what you gotta be doing right.”
So
they were butting heads all of the time. Ace literally wouldn’t
show up because he’d be in a drunken stupor at his home. It got so
bad we literally used outside players to play solos.
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