I was terrified of KISS.
You know, the band.
With all the makeup.
And the fire.
And the blood.
They hit it big about the time I started kindergarten.
And they were everywhere.
On TV. In comic books. On lunchboxes.
The older kids in the neighborhood all wore KISS tee shirts.
And the really old kids—the highschoolers—would always have KISS blaring from their eight-track players when they drove by.
I . . . wanna rock and roll all night . . . and party ev-er-y day!
And I remember thinking, how could anyone like a group that featured a guy who stuck his tongue out until it bled?
That was KISS cofounder Gene Simmons’ signature move.
I mean . . . that had to hurt, right?
He must have truly been the devil, just like they said on The 700 Club.
That was always on in my house.
And I believed all that, because . . . look at them!
Just look at them.
Even the one made up like a cat looked like a demon.
And when Simmons—standing, like, seven feet tall in those platform boots—got that fake blood oozing down his face . . .
How in the hell did these guys wind up in a comic book?
They had their own cartoon show, too, right?
How was any of that even possible?
Why wasn’t everyone as terrified as I was?
I’d see a KISS commercial on TV, and I’d have nightmares for a week.
That was the seventies.
In the eighties, the band underwent a minor reinvention, ditched the makeup and fake blood, and gave their music a bit more of an edge.
They continued in this manner for a decade or so before returning to the makeup—for nostalgia’s sake, I assume—and continued performing off and on until they hung it up for good in 2023.
That’s a pretty damn good run.
And, somewhere along the way, I lost my fear of KISS.
Makeup, fire, fake blood, and all.
Probably because I wasn’t in kindergarten anymore.
And today, when I hear “Rock and Roll All Nite,” the classic rock standard, I can’t help but think, what was I so afraid of?
Because now, it all seems so . . .
Harmless.
On the rock-and-roll Richter scale, KISS’s music was closer to Hanson’s “MMMBop” than it was to anything Black Sabbath or AC-DC ever put out.
And when the band first got organized and started touring, its opening gig was to play the employee cafeteria at Canada’s Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
Highly unlikely members of that audience were disgruntled youths destined for lives as criminals and drug addicts.
Most of them probably went to work for IBM to spend their days in cubicles wearing white, short-sleeved oxfords and awkwardly wide ties.
That’s not to say Gene Simmons, Paul Stanely, Ace Frehley, and Peter Kriss didn’t live the hard-rock life.
Simmons met his wife at the Playboy Mansion, for example.
Which seems about right.
But, nowadays, you’re more likely to see Simmons in the news for his real estate deals and expansive art collection than you are for his KISS exploits.
Elsewhere, I recently read an article about Metallica, whose members explained their longevity as a group as the product of high mutual expectations, good communication, a solid work ethic, quality sleep, and tofu.
Tofu?
That seems very un-Metallica.
But it’s interesting that a speed-metal band would be higher functioning, with a stronger corporate culture, than most corporations.
Anyway.
Why would I delve into my early fears of KISS and the group’s subsequent un-masking, both literal and figurative?
And why would I be amused to read about Gene Simmons in The Wall Street Journal and not Rolling Stone?
First, because such depictions depart, rather dramatically, from the brand identity the group has cultivated over the course of decades.
And second, because, hey—we all have our shticks.
We’re all putting on an act.
Let’s face it:
Authenticity is a luxury few of us can afford.
If I ever brought The Real Dan to work, I’d get fired in less than a week.
It’s the price you pay to make a living.
And to exist in a society.
We all have our roles to play, and people expect us to play them to a certain standard.
And when you depart from that standard, people notice.
And get anxious.
That’s especially true if you’re a boss. Or a parent.
Or the blood-spitting bassist for a late-seventies glam-metal band.
Even if you’re shitty, you need to be consistently shitty.
Nothing is more time-wasting and value-destroying than forcing people to wonder which version of you is going to show up on any given day.
The manager whose employees gather in huddles at the beginning of each day to ask each other, “Is he in a good mood today? Did we get Jekyll or Hyde?” can only be described one way:
As a failure.
Such people exhibit a criminal lack of self-awareness.
Which, no matter how smart you think you are, is inexcusable.
We live in tribes, and that requires due consideration for how others experience us.
I have a buddy who, when speaking of his coworkers, declared, with great conviction, “I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of me.”
He’s way smarter than I am.
But also full of shit.
The truth was, he didn’t care what most people thought of him.
But he cared desperately about what a small handful of people—whom he admired and respected—thought of him.
It’s also likely he felt misunderstood, and the I-Don’t-Care bullshit was a self-defense mechanism against rejection.
Or, he was a complete narcissist and thought people were too stupid to understand him and his superior intellect.
I’ve been that guy.
And, as you may expect, it does not endear you to the other members of the tribe.
Now, it’s certainly true that not all tribes are created equal.
You may indeed excel in certain areas that no one else in your group does.
Which can be incredibly frustrating.
It can bring you down.
And then you have a choice.
Find a way to excel without pissing off and alienating those around you.
Or, find a new tribe.
Whatever the case, a little intellectual honesty goes a long way.
Recognize that you have a role to play.
Sometimes you get to choose it.
Often, you don’t.
Either way, own it!
Play the shit out of that role.
But don’t let it define you.
Because there will always be others.
Which may or may not fully align with The Real You.
And that’s okay.
Just don’t stray too far from your authentic self.
When you’re faking it too hard, people can tell.
In one of his first televised interviews, Gene Simmons, done up in full KISS regalia, told Mike Douglas he was “evil incarnate.”
That prompted fellow guest, Totie Fields—the Jewish-American singer and comedian—to quip that, beneath all the makeup, Simmons was actually “just a nice Jewish boy.”
How awesome is that?
Nicely done, Totie Fields.
And well done, Gene Simmons and KISS.
I sure as shit thought you were evil incarnate.
You know,
When I was in kindergarten.