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IN another dose of unpleasantness in the KISS camp just months after Ace Frehley’s death, Gene Simmons has told an interviewer that Peter Criss did not write their highest charting US hit, “Beth”.
Speaking on the Professor Of Rock video podcast, Simmons claimed that Criss was given a co-writing credit for the 1973 song – which went to number seven with the drummer singing it – alongside former band-mate Stan Penridge and producer Bob Ezrin because of “politics”.
“Peter did not write ‘Beth‘,” Simmons said, “and he did not write ‘Baby Driver’. Stan Penridge wrote that.
“But through politics and — hint, hint, nudge, nudge — and I wasn’t there when the conversation went down, Stan Penridge apparently agreed that Peter’s name would go in the songwriting credit. It appears first — Peter Criss, Stan Penridge… Or Peter Criss, Bob Ezrin, Stan Penridge, or the other way around. But Peter’s first.
“Peter had nothing to do with that song — nothing. He sang it. And to fix all the mythology and the gossip and the outright lies, it was Bob Ezrin who said, ‘I wanna do this like ‘Yesterday’,’ more like a string quartet and piano. So more acoustically, because the melody in the song demanded it.”
Simmons went on to say drums are “not a musical instrument”.
“Peter does not write songs,” Simmons said. “He doesn’t play a musical instrument. Drums are not a musical instrument, by definition.
“They’re called a percussive instrument. Really important — sometimes extremely important in a band. It was for us. But you cannot play a drum fill that can be copywritten but you can come up with a riff that you can own and a melody and a lyric. Those can be copywritten but nothing you do on drums will prevent anybody else from directly copying whatever you did and applying it to another song.
“Okay, that’s number one. Number two, as far as I know, Peter plays no other instruments that I’ve ever seen. Not keyboards, six-instruments at all. Peter’s got a great whiskey voice in the early days.”
Criss released his new self-titled solo-album two weeks ago. Simmons was forced to apologise after saying Frehley’s lifestyle may have contributed to his head, which was medically attributed to falling and heavily striking his head.
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