KISS Stories That Earn Them The Title Of 'The Most Calculated Band In Rock History'

KISS's songs intended to play up their image as a sex-crazed, Lucifer-loving group of guys that lived outside the lines, exactly what parents hated. The song "The Oath" is allegedly about giving into Satan:

Like a blade of a sword, I am forged in flame

Fiery hot

Tempered steel, fire-bright to the night I take 

I fear not

Now compelled by something I cannot see

I go forth surrendering to history

Your glory, I swear I ride for thee

Your power, I trust it rides with me

Your servant, I am and ever shall I be

This song, among others, got KISS a lot of attention and die-hard fans intrigued by the band's supposed demonic ties. Decades later, KISS still capitalizes on this so-called deal with the Devil - and so have the band's fans.

While the band hasn't had a hit since the late 1970s, they continue to sell merchandise and profit from their connections with the Prince of Darkness. 

What is the truth when it comes to KISS and their hardcore rock and roll lifestyle? One story that has multiple versions is what happened during a photo shoot for the Hotter Than Hell album from 1974. Based on the pictures, it appeared to entail a full-scale group sex session. Peter Criss, in his autobiography Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of KISS supports that notion.

Criss states that he was drunk, and Paul Stanley was reportedly "lying half-naked on a velvet bed, offering no resistance at all to the half a dozen girls and guys who were buzzing around him like bees drawn to honey."

Others present at the photoshoot tell a different story. Lydia Criss, Peter's ex-wife, alleged there was no sex and that her former husband may have played fast and loose with the truth in his autobiography. The original KISS drummer also wrote that Ace Frehley may have gone down on him, something his ex-wife refutes as well. Criss's autobiography is full of claims about KISS:

[We] went from smoking weed and chasing girls to f*cking 19-year-olds in their signature makeup and costumes (the ultimate form of rock-star narcissism), doing mountains of blow, destroying hotels, hurling lunch meat on naked groupies, then shoving them in hotel elevators.

It's a challenge to separate fact from fiction. 

When lead guitarist and founding KISS member Ace Frehley published a memoir in 2012, his crazy tales spread like wildfire through the internet and among KISS Army members alike. AV Club music critic Nathan Rabin reviews Frehley's book:

In his 1970s prime/nadir, Frehley's behavior deviated so wildly from even the fuzziest, most generous conception of acceptable human behavior that he might as well have been an other-galactic Harpo Marx, communicating largely through gestures and sounds.

Throughout the decades, rock-star hedonists have been able to assure themselves that while they might be pretty drugged-up and f*cked-up at any given time, at least they weren't Ace Frehley-level drugged-up and f*cked-up. They similarly could take comfort in the knowledge that even if they were losing their minds, they weren't Ace Frehley-level crazy.

Bill Starkey went to his first KISS concert in 1974 and became enthralled by the music. By the next year, he had enlisted several of his friends and started the fan group KISS Army. Starkey and his fellow high school classmates began disseminating KISS music - they claimed it wasn't about the gimmick, costumes, or makeup; it was all about the music. Starkey was the first commander in chief of the KISS Army, with his pal, Jay Evans, as his field marshal, and they made it their mission to get KISS on the radio.

Starkey's efforts on behalf of KISS got the attention of the band, and he met them in 1975. He decided to run the KISS Army out of his home, but in 1976, he received notice that KISS's management would be taking over the group. Starkey got no compensation for his idea. Management also designed a logo and began recruiting members, reaching as many as 100,000 members. The group waned for a time, but was revitalized in 2007 with a new website.

As of 2018, joining the KISS Army includes receiving a t-shirt, discounts on KISS merchandise, and pre-concert ticket information for a yearly subscription of $50. There are also millions of unofficial members.

KISS were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 15 years after the group's initial eligibility period, a delay that sent the KISS Army down a path of conspiracy theories. One theory involves journalist Dave Marsh, a key player in the Hall of Fame selection process, who once reportedly said, "KISS is not a great band, KISS was never a great band, KISS never will be a great band, and I have done my share to keep them off the ballot." This led to outrage by KISS fans around the world. 

Another theory was that KISS were kept from the Hall of Fame by the Illuminati because of their apparent relationship with Satanism. KISS's connection with the Illuminati traced back to Vinnie Vincent (real name Vincent Cusano), a member of the band from 1982 to 1984.

Vincent, who brought the band into a new artistic period (ushering in rhythm, according to one observer), was also said to have been driven by the desire to pull KISS away from Satanism, as he had defended the New World Order. Vincent became known as Ankh Warrior, wearing an Egyptian ankh, the key of life symbol, which was tied to Illuminati power.

Vincent didn't last long in KISS and failed to eliminate the connections between the Devil and the band. According to the conspiratorial line of thinking, his failures meant the Illuminati would have to find other ways to suppress KISS. The secret group had made a bold move, keeping the band out of the Hall of Fame - an entity established for the creation of recruiting "lucrative performers into their globalist endgame." The heads of the Hall of Fame are, after all, New World Order luminaries, or so some conspiracy theorists posit. 

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally inducted KISS in 2014 and, while the band decided not to perform - and there was controversy over only the four original members being inducted - it was a relatively uneventful ceremony.

The KISS name and logo have remained subjects of speculation since the band's origin. The purported ties to Satanism feed into assertions that KISS is an acronym for "Knights in Satan's Service." Gene Simmons always denied this, but has also admitted that the band didn't dismiss the idea because it was good for business:

Misinformation about the band began to spread in the southern Bible Belt states, including a rumor that the name KISS stood for Knights in Satan's Service, and that the four of us were devil worshippers. Ironically, this rumor started as a result of an interview I gave in Circus magazine after our first album; in response to a question, I said that I sometimes wondered what human flesh tastes like. I never wanted to really find out, but I was curious intellectually.

Later on, this comment seemed to ignite the whole idea that in some way KISS was aligned with devil worship. When I was asked whether I worshipped the devil, I simply refused to answer for a number of reasons: the first reason, of course, was that it was good press. Let people wonder.

When it comes to the logo, the lettering of KISS was thought by many to be remarkably similar to the SS or Schutzstaffel troops from WWII. Germany even banned the logo during the late 1970s. But according to Ace Frehley, who drew the logo, it was a coincidence.