"I've survived poverty, car crashes, bad marriages and crazy days, going through all the money," says founding Kiss drummer Peter Criss, who has written a new memoir.
A gun in the mouth — it's a terrible way to end a life, but a great way to begin a book.
Founding Kiss drummer Peter Criss closed his lips around a .357 Magnum when things looked most bleak: in the immediate aftermath of a 1994 earthquake. Criss' life was already a disaster — he was a twice-divorced drug casualty who exhausted the fortune he made with Kiss, a band he was no longer in — when his world began to shake, rattle and roll.
"I was sitting in a Hollywood dump in shambles," recalls Criss during a recent call.
"Carjacked; everything gone; 100 grand in a shoebox; gold records broken on the floor; nothing left. I owed the IRS. I thought, 'My God, I really mean it this time.' I was gonna check out."
Criss uses the incident to open his new memoir, co-written with Larry "Ratso" Sloman, "Makeup to Breakup: My Life in and Out of Kiss" ($26, Scribner).
Says the musician: "I had a lot of time by myself, thinking: What was the lowest part of my life? It had to be the earthquake. I thought, 'Holy mackerel, if I start here, at the bottom of the bucket, then who cannot turn the page and see what I did next?' "
Kiss — pancake-and-studs-wearing rockers comprised of guitarists Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley, bassist Gene Simmons and Criss — formed in the '70s and became one of the biggest acts of the decade. Wearing kabuki-influenced makeup — with Criss in a cat-inspired design — the band sold more than 100 million albums and toured with a theatrical stage show that featured pyrotechnics, fire-breathing, tons of confetti and the levitation of Criss' drum kit.
Kiss in its '70s heyday, from left: Criss, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Ace Frehley.
Criss and Kiss parted ways in 1980; Frehley left two years later; Simmons and Stanley carried on, sans makeup, in the hair-metal '80s. The original Kiss reunited for hugely successful tours in the '90s. Criss quit Kiss for the third — and, he maintains, final — time in 2004. He lives with his third wife, Gigi, in Wall, where he recently beat a diagnosis of male breast cancer.
The drummer, 66 — born Peter George John Criscuola in Brooklyn — says writing the book was cathartic.
"I relieved myself, literally, of so much anger, pain and my own insanity of going on the road of that, my whole addiction to cocaine," he says.
"I was ignorant. I had nothing. I grew up in a poor neighborhood. I was a child of the '60s and '70s. Today's kids are clueless; they don't understand that era. There was a war going on. Being a musician then? Oh, man, you couldn't be in a better place at a better time. Here was my chance. There was Motown, the 'British invasion,' Sinatra. I got to see, hear and be near the greats."
But cocaine use was pervasive in the music industry.
"Everyone surrounding my life did it — manager, lawyer, A&R guys, bodyguard, photographers," Criss says. "I would be sitting across from a bunch of guys in suits who went to Harvard, doing blow.
"Gene and Paul sat through that, not looking at it like it was a bad thing. And neither did I, until I found out how bad. It did put me in the nuthouse. For me, it was like mixing gasoline and fire."
Criss doesn't pull his punches in characterizing his onetime bandmates in Kiss: Stanley stuffed his trousers for effect; Simmons was money- and sex-obsessed; Frehley was a chronic masturbator and fellow party animal. Criss writes bitterly of the '90s reunion, during which he says Simmons and Stanley treated him like an employee rather than an equal.
"They're Machiavellians," he says.
"From Day 1, they just loved the power of everything being their way or no way. The almighty dollar. I was almost like a worker now. I was treated like a grip. But I was up in that cold loft in the beginning, seven days a week, trying to find a sound.
"They got out of control with power and money, and I watched it. Including Ace — he went totally mad and turned on me for money."
Has Criss burned his bridges with Kiss? The musician says he was only concerned with telling his story honestly.
"I've read so many books that tell you who, what, where," he says. "For me, I want to know about the 'why.' So I made up my mind that if God ever gave me the chance — like he gave me the chance to play Madison Square Garden — to write my life, I would tell it like it was. I worked heart-and-soul on this. It is me. I am a genuine guy. I let so many ghosts out of the closet.
"And I was not going to go easy on myself. I am as hard on me as I am on the others. Who am I to throw stones? I put on my pants like you; I throw up like you; I had cancer. I've been awarded ambassador for men's breast cancer (by the Jersey Shore branch of the Cancer Support Community). My whole life has changed.
"I'm a Catholic kid. My faith has never let me down. My life has been a story of survival. I've survived poverty, car crashes, bad marriages and crazy days, going through all the money. I wanted it all down there, the best I could do it."
Asked if Simmons, Stanley or Frehley have responded to "Makeup to Breakup," Criss alludes to hearing grumblings through the grapevine.
"I'm out signing books," he says, "so I'm getting a lot of feedback. I've heard things. I expect that, though. I've heard people say, 'He's crazy, he's whacked out.' I haven't been on drugs since '84. I'm 66. Come on.
"I couldn't make this stuff up. I'd be a great Hollywood screenwriter if I could. I don't expect lollipops. I'm just too damn old to care about it. My fans like it. Rolling Stone loved it. I beat out Pete Townshend. I beat out my other two pals in the band. So I'm having a great Christmas this year. I'm five years cancer free."
Both Peter and Gigi Criss have prevailed over cancer diagnoses — a life event that Criss says lent serious perspective to their existence.
"God saved me from dying from cancer," he says.
Peter Criss wearing his famous cat-inspired makeup in the '90s.
"When my wife got it before me, I wanted to put a gun in my mouth again. I'm 20 years older than her. It was so unbearable every day. Then I got it. The two of us, living in this beautiful home, both dying of cancer — if you beat that, I can't tell you how differently life looks. Now I'm all about family, my granddaughter, God, my health and my beautiful wife. And my fans. That's it."
Should "Makeup to Breakup" be adapted to film, Criss has a director and star picked out.
"I'm gonna send one to Tom Fontana, who is my angel director, who directed me in 'Oz,' " Criss says. "He's a damn genius, always on the cutting edge. So it's not out of the question. I would be in awe." He adds with a laugh: "I'd want Johnny Depp to play me."
A Criss film bio might bring things full-circle. After all, young "Georgie" Criscuola repeatedly watched a movie about his drumming idol in "The Gene Krupa Story," a 1959 film starring Sal Mineo as the jazz great.
"That would put a gleam in my eye," Criss says, "if some kid saw that and felt like that."
Reflecting on his time in Kiss, Criss is quick to add that it wasn't all bad.
"I will say we were the greatest show on Earth," he says.
"No doubt about it. The hardest-working band in world. No one worked harder than Kiss. Two hours to put the makeup on. The show was bombastic. Nothing else on Earth touched it. Easily. We wanted our show to be a grand experience. We succeeded.
"I mean, I love (Motley Crue drummer) Tommy Lee to death. He said he was gonna outdo me, when he spins on his drums. Okay, great. I see so much Kiss in the world. It's amazing how many thousands of kids play because of me. We literally changed culture of rock 'n' roll. We made history."
Mark Voger can be reached HERE.