KISS Drummer ERIC SINGER On Growing Up Around Rock And Roll

The U.K. branch of Roadrunner Records recently conducted a short interview with KISS drummer Eric Singer as part of the "Getting To Know You" series. The question-and-answer session follows below.

Q: What were you doing when we interupted you to do this?

Singer: I was eating in the other room actually some... chicken quesadilla, with my shoes off, relaxing.

Q: Date of Birth?

Singer: May 12th.

Q: Where did you go to high school?

Singer: I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and I went to high school on the east side of Cleveland. At that time it was in the Seventies and I was lucky to grow up in a cool time of music and culturally, at least in America. It was a typical Midwestern town but Cleveland's a real rock and roll city its where the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is at. It was a great place, very open-minded — I mean, as regards to music (not so much culturally with people),but when it comes to music people just really loved rock and roll there, always have and what we looked forward to was buying records every week or going to a show. I saw so many great concerts in my formative years as a kid so I'm glad I grew up there. It was a great place to grow up, no doubt about it.

Q: What was the first instrument you ever played?

Singer: I think I tried playing piano in like the second grade or something for a short time but I gravitated towards drums, even though I love guitar and always have been influenced by mostly guitar based music. I guess I liked hitting things! My mom told me that typical drummer story - that I liked to the hit pots and pans you know when I was a little kid?! She'd pull them out of the cupboard and with the wooden spoons and all that. Once I discovered bands like LED ZEPPELIN and that in like 1969, that was it, I was hooked!

Q: What was the first band you guys ever played in and what did you guys sound like?

Singer: I had a band in sixth grade — I can remember everybody in the band and we called ourselves THE AXE. I have no idea why. We actually had two drummers because another friend of mine also played drums so we ended up taking turns playing. And I do remember playing for the school classroom and in sixth grade — we played "Hey Jude" by THE BEATLES and I remember being scared to death!

Q: Favourite food?

Singer: Anything Thai.

Q: Beverage of choice?

Singer: Sparkling water.

Q: What's your biggest peeve on the road?

Singer: Just not being able to sleep sometimes — imsomnia.

Q: Track of the moment?

Singer: THE BEATLES. I've been listening to those remastered, reissued BEATLES records...

Q: Movie of the moment?

Singer: The last one I saw that I really liked was "The Watchmen". That was killer, I thought.

Q: When you look back on your career thus far, what's the most prominent moment?

Singer: Well, in some ways it's still making them. I still look at it this way — the fact that I've been able to make a living as a musician; that in itself, to me, is the most prominent thing, rather than singling out any particular moment or any band or any person I worked with (because I've gotten to play with some great musicians and some cool situations and great people). I just remember I started off as a kid, not unlike a lot of other kids that had posters on the walls of bands saying, "I wanna do that. Some day I wish I could do that." And the fact that I've got to do that and still do that — that, to me, that's big for me. So to me the story's kinda been written every day, in a way.