Late one evening in early 1999, I got a call from a friend who was an editor/sex advisor for Playboy. He had scheduled an interview with the rock band KISS for the next day and he was hoping a KISS-loving writer like myself could help out. The magazine had planned a photo shoot of the band members posing with naked women in KISS makeup, which was going to run with just a little explanatory text. At the last minute, the band contacted the magazine, strongly suggesting that a full interview run alongside the bountiful spread. Although happy to oblige, Playboy was scrambling to get this together at the 11th hour—which was where I excitedly came in.
My friend explained that the L.A. office would fax over some general naughty questions for the editor to feed the rockers, but I was to come up with more informed topics of discussion. Although I was overjoyed as a fan, the journalist in me was worried. Considering that most of my work prior to this opportunity had appeared in underground publications, I was a little anxious about the prospect of working as a professional. But what made me downright nervous was the challenge of sitting across from one of my favorite bands and actually being professional.
Before I tell you what happened, here’s a little history for anyone who isn’t a KISS enthusiast. During the band’s original heyday in the 1970s, the New York quartet most famous for their face paint and fire-breathing was made up of two factions: the Gentiles and the Jews. The two goyim were drummer Peter Criss, a.k.a the “Cat Man” (my childhood favorite), and lead guitarist Ace Frehley, the “Space Ace.” Their Gentile-ness was more than the state of their foreskins—they had the basic rock star stuff covered, such as abusing substances, crashing cars, going bankrupt. Apparently, they used to party in Nazi uniforms, and the KISS logo with its interlocking “SS” is still banned in Germany. Although Criss and Frehley weren’t the creative force behind the band, they are credited with “keeping it real,” giving an air of credibility to a band that was all about artifice.
The Jewish faction, the two men who still perform as KISS to this day, are ex-vocalist/guitarist Paul “Starchild” Stanley (née Stanley Eisen, whose mother lives next to my Aunt Eva on Long Island) and vocalist/bass player Gene “The Demon” Simmons (née Gene Klein, née Chaim Witz, a Haifa-born Israeli immigrant). Their Jewishness comes in part from being mensches (doting fathers without drug or alcohol problems), and in part from their Esau-like hairiness.
But in all honestly, whenever anyone talks about KISS being a Jewish band he is referring to the members’ acuity with finances. From the outset, the band has been a finely tuned money machine, shameless in its endless stream of merchandising (there’s a KISS Kondom, a KISS Koffeehouse, a KISS Kasket) and its hard-line business tactics—by the ‘80s, Stanley and Simmons had taken advantage of their goyish bandmates’ woes by buying out their shares of KISS, replacing Criss and Frehley with salaried workers.
The face of KISS and de facto leader of the band has always been the lizard-tongued Simmons. Although not a particularly religious man (he attended Yeshiva as a kid, but only because it was free child care for his single, working mother), he is a fiercely proud Jew. Hence his summary of Israel’s War of Independence: “We kicked their ass, end of story.” Not long after arriving in America, the Hebrew-speaking outsider used two of New York City’s great Jewish industries, comic books and songwriting, to craft an ultra-extroverted, attention-hungry persona who was far more interested in the spotlight than in using his riches to pull strings behind the scenes, Elders of Zion-style. Thus, when he saw the opportunity in the mid-’90s to reform the original KISS lineup and once again become the top-grossing rock band on earth, he put the wheels in motion. The Playboy interview marked the third year of the vastly successful reunion.
I arrived at the downtown luxury hotel in the late morning, and, not surprisingly, the hard-partying Frehley was not rousable at that hour. So I—along with the mass of Playboy editors, photographers and audio engineers—was joined by Stanley, shirtless under leather overalls; Simmons, whose coarse blue-black ponytail looked like it was attached to his cap; and Criss, whose sleeveless shirt revealed an elbow-to-shoulder crucifix tattoo.
The interview went well. Simmons and Stanley have done this for so long that they have developed a number of Borscht Belt-esque routines and one-liners (“But that’s getting into semantics, not that I’m anti-semantic,” I recall one of them saying). And I quickly earned my shekels, as my queries yielded far better material than did the predictable faxed questions about groupies. The musicians reminisced about how important Playboy was to them as young men, Simmons recalling how the beautiful nudes represented the true American Dream to his adolescent immigrant eyes, and Stanley remembering how, when he actually began dating Playboy models, he was disappointed in them as people (he later called the magazine and retracted that statement).
Criss, relishing his rare moment in the spotlight, discussed his desire to be recognized by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and nostalgically recalled stalking his idol, drummer Gene Krupa, with Jerry Nolan of the New York Dolls. Unfortunately, the Cat’s occasions of oratory were limited. Displaying an almost pathological need to be the center of attention, Simmons consistently cut off his disgruntled drummer. Although Simmons knew he needed to keep Criss content to keep the lucrative reunion rolling, Simmons resorted to his trademark antics during the interview: While Criss attempted to wax poetic, Simmons picked up a Playboy and bugged his eyes at the centerfold, grunting, “Aooga, aooga!” But when Criss slammed his fist on the table in frustration, Simmons floridly declared, “I will let my bandmate address this question,” with a royal wave of the hand. As Criss began speaking again, Simmons gave us a histrionic wink behind his drummer’s back.
Unaware that one is not supposed to draw attention away from Simmons when addressing him, I broke this commandment by occasionally jesting with Mr. Stanley. So Simmons started working little insults into his answers, at one point referring to a faction of their fans as pathetic obsessives, pointing at me and adding, “Like this fellow here.” I’m pretty sure he also compared me to a fan that got Simmons’s face tattooed on his ass, that infamous tongue emerging from his rectum.
At this point, the Playboy editor read the next question on his list: a request for Simmons to pitch his dream porno movie. After some initial hesitation in which he compared watching skin flicks to the passivity of sports spectatorship (he couldn’t comprehend observing rather than participating), he gave in: “Young girl out of Chicago, dysfunctional family, goes off to boarding school, has her first sexual experience in the back of a Chevy… She’s a very hot-looking girl and she’s only had a kind of a physical effect on people; every time they see her body, they think, ‘Look at them: They’re lifted, separated and pointed in my general direction, thank you Jesus…’ She decides because of that, that she is going to disavow her physical attributes and go the other way, and so she becomes spiritual. She becomes a nun in training…”
Criss (of the massive crucifix tattoo) was shaking his head with a look of disgust. “I don’t like this story. I don’t like the Jesus crack, and I don’t like this story…” he said.
The Playboy editor, somehow mistaking this palpable tension for playful banter pressed on, “So she’s a nun…”
“This offends Peter,” Simmons offered apologetically.
“But the nun is unobtainable,” the editor insisted, pleading with Simmons to continue. “That’s part of the appeal. I’m with you on the nuns…”
Thus Mr. Simmons found himself at a crossroads. With his multimillion- dollar empire rebuilt, it was crucial to keep his employees happy, yet here was Playboy magazine begging him to continue with this story. “Needless to say, some of the things we’ve heard about in newspapers occur…” he said, continuing the pitch by segueing into a molesting priest joke. Quickly changing the subject, Stanley stepped in with a Jewish joke: “Why did the rabbi like watching the porno movie run backwards? He liked the part at the end where she handed him the money.” This led to the Playboy editor boasting about a recent article in his magazine on “kosher sex.”
“Am I the only Catholic in this room?” a furious Criss interjected, pointing an accusatory finger at the soundman to his left. “You’re Jewish aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes,” the curly haired slacker sheepishly replied.
“You’re Jewish! You’re Jewish! You’re Jewish!” he continued around the table, eventually getting to the Protestant editor to my right, the first to reply in the negative. Pointing his cat claw my way he said, snarling, “You’re Jewish?”
“Yes,” I answered.
And here is where the magic happened.
“Hmm…” Simmons said, lifting an eyebrow and looking at me with pleasurable disdain. Then he offered what he perceived as the ultimate putdown: “You could pass for a Gentile. You don’t have the Jew thing.”
At that instant I knew I was experiencing one of the greatest moments of my life. If it had only been my childhood hero angrily calling me a Jew, it would have been enough. But the glorious absurdity of one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest icons, the leader of my favorite band, my Jew-Rock idol, attempting to cut me down like a marauding moyel was so surreal, surprising and bizarre that it made me palpably giddy. Somehow, despite every molecule in my body commanding me to unleash gales of joyful laughter, I managed to stay stonefaced. That was the moment I knew I was a professional.
Heeb‘s Storytelling will return to New York on April 29th and travel to Los Angeles on May 20th. See heebmagazine.com/events for more info.
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