Former KISS guitarist, Bruce Kulick, recently talked about the KISS song, ‘Little Ceasar,’ and recalled how Gene Simmons had to modify the song written by Eric Carr so it sounds less like Aerosmith.
Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are the two original members of KISS that remained in the band while the other members kept changing. During their peak, the band consisted of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss. However, they separated their ways, starting with Criss in 1980.
Eric Carr joined KISS in 1980 as the drummer of the band, replacing Criss, and he stayed until 1991. When he first joined, he brought a song with him which was originally called, ‘Ain’t That Peculiar.’ But the sound of the song didn’t fit KISS which was more like an Aerosmith song.
The band wanted to add Carr’s song to their next album, ‘Hot in the Shade,’ however, they had to modify it to fit their style. Bruce Kulick recently recalled how the songwriter Adam Mitchell and the band’s bassist Gene Simmons took control and modified the song. According to Kulick, they fastened the tempo and put more suitable lyrics. Eric Carr was still given the credits to the song, and he sang lead for the recording and performances.
Here is how Kulick told the journey:
“That song was a long journey. Eric wrote it in a few different ways. It wasn’t called ‘Little Caesar’ at first. It started out as a demo called ‘Ain’t That Peculiar.’ It was actually slower. I have all of the demos. He and I would flesh out a lot of stuff because we had that great relationship from working on his Rockheads you know the cartoon idea. We wrote other songs [at that time as well].
To get it on the Kiss album, it took [some work]. It was like, ‘It’s going to have to really fit the Kiss thing.’ At first, it was more slinky and too [much like] Aerosmith and a little too mid-tempo. Then, he got involved with [songwriter] Adam Mitchell and Gene. We picked up the tempo and got better lyrics, writing a song that could [be related to] a nickname for him. It was like, ‘Hey, Little Caesar.’ I do think, considering that it didn’t have a big stamp of Gene and Paul, it really fit well with the Kiss thing. I was so happy for Eric to have his own song on a record.”
You can listen to the song below.
