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Peter Criss' Life
Grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with 4 siblings. He was part of a street gang in New York and was in many brawls. Because of this he was toughened up. He would carry around zip guns and come home with many cuts and bruises. He joined Kiss after being in the band Chelsea. -
Gene Simmons' Life
Gene Simmons was born in the port city of Haifa on this day. He later moved to the village of Caramel. He became a marbles champ in Israel. He moved to New york, but due to the language barrier, he was not able to make many friends. Instead he played marbles and won a lot. He became well known as a marbles champ in his neibourhood. He later joined the band Wicked Lester where he met Paul Stanley. After an unsuccessful time with Wicked Lester, Gene and Paul decided to form a new band. -
Ace Frehly's Life
Ace was born in the Bronx into a very musical family. He ended up being the black sheep of his family. His sister got her masters degree in chemistry and was teaching before she was married. His brother graduated tenth in his class from new york university. But he was the one who had the real talent for music in his family. He was always in local bands before finally settling in with Kiss. He got the nickname Ace in school when he would set his friends up with dates. -
Paul Stanley's Life
He grew up as Stan Eisen in a bad neighborhood in Manhattan. He was always getting into fights so that no one would mess with him. He went to an art school but found he was more interested in music. He was never in a well known band other than Wicked Lester and Kiss. -
Kiss 71-78
Kiss began as a band called Wicked Lester. They recorded one album and had some live shows, But were ultimately unsuccessful. The three members of Lesetr, Simmons, Stanley, and Criss decided to form a new band and held auditions for a new guitarist. They decided to go with Ace Frehly. With there new band they made many recirds and played many live shows with the help of their manager Bill Aucoin and their new record company Casablanca Records, run by Neil Bogart. But in the end the band split. -
Kiss Solo Albums
Despite their amazing success Kiss reported difficulties within the group. They decided to split up and create their own solo albums. Frehley and Simmons created a hard rock style album while Criss created an R&B album and Stanley created an eclectic album.The albums were all ok with Frehleys barely comming out on top as the best seller. Each album sold as many copies as love gun alone. -
Movie and the decline of Kiss
After their solo album success Bill Aucoin decided that kiss would create a movie. Known as Kiss meets the phantom of the park it fell below the bands expectations but still did amazingly well with their fans. The movie caused some rumblings in the band which then lead to other problems. One of those problems was Peter Criss begginning to use harder drugs and not being able to play. His skill had noticably decreased and they removed him. Ace frehly left shortly afterward. -
Kiss unmasking
After Frehly left Kiss went through 4 more guitarists. During that time they decided to remove the makeup and play just as themselves. This suprised most fans because no one had seen them without makeup on. The success of their glam album Animalize brought lots of spotlight upon them. -
Kiss Reunion
First introduced by Tupac Shakur, Kiss played 193 shows during 1996-1998, they also had another movie made, Detroit Rock City. They also made the top 3 position for their album which was the first time ever until 2009 when an album made 2nd on the charts. -
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Present Kiss
Kiss had problems in the group and stated that they would not produce another album. But in 2008 they created Sonic Boom then Monster shortly after. They then went on tour around North America and Europe. During these tours their old manager Bill Aucoin died. Gene and Paul stated that he was like a fifth member.
