During his appearance on Talking Wax With Adika Live!, KISS co-founder Gene Simmons has talked about his former bandmates, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, who were influential during the band’s career, as well as criticizing them.
The renowned rock band KISS has been working on their new documentary project which was made as a celebration of their last tour, telling the story of the band’s formation as well as some key points during their career. The documentary, titled ‘Biography: KISStory’ premiered on June 27 and 28 as a two-night event with the contribution of some of their fellow musicians and while co-founders of the band Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley reflect on the band’s successful career.
However, during the KISS documentary, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss didn’t make an appearance and some archived footage were used for the parts where they were supposed to talk. Last month, Paul Stanley has explained the reason why they were not seen in the documentary, along with revealing the issues between them. It has been surfaced that they both wanted to be paid higher amounts and Criss didn’t permit them to use the song ‘Beth’ in the project.
Speaking to Talkin Wax With Adika Live!, Gene Simmons reflected on his former bandmates’ decision not to take part in the documentary and criticized them as well as praising them for their contribution to the band’s career. As is known, Stanley has claimed that the band wouldn’t be here today without Ace and Peter being there in the beginning. Gene has also confirmed Paul’s statement during the show, saying that Ace and Peter were the best things that happened to them at the beginning of the band.
He then claimed the pair had made such horrible choices in their life and they are continuing to do so, especially in terms of their career choices. Simmons clarified this by saying that he and Paul reached out to the pair, telling them to be a part of the documentary as they also helped to create the band, but they refused. Gene then added that Ace was making certain demands like editing rights, saying even he doesn’t have them and that was not going to happen.
Simmons praised his former bandmates, saying that:
“God love ’em, both Ace and Peter, at the beginning of the band, were just the best thing that ever happened to us.”
But later on, he added:
“But they made such horrible choices in their life. And they continue to do that — they continue to make really bad choices, not just in terms of their health and what you ingest, but career choices. Like, we just had this documentary that came out that’s a headlining thing at the Tribeca Film Festival, and, of course, without even thinking twice about it, we reached out to both Ace and Peter, ‘Hey, come and be part of this thing. You helped create the band. No question about it.’
And they refused. Ace wanted certain… ‘I want this. I want that. I want editing rights,’ and that kind of stuff. And God love him, that wasn’t gonna happen. I didn’t get those rights and didn’t want them; I just wanted to throw caution to the wind and get the thing done. So they barely appear in it.”
KISS was known to perform a mini-concert as part of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on June 11, and their five-song performance was in celebration of their documentary ‘Biography: KISStory.’ Their farewell tour titled ‘End Of The Road Tour’ is also postponed to 2022, and the band plans to complete it by the end of that year.
