KISS Guitarist TOMMY THAYER On 'Monster': 'Whatever Was In Our Hearts Made It Onto The Record'

October 23, 2012

In a recent interview with AOL's Noisecreep, KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer spoke about the band's 20th studio album, "Monster", which sold 56,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 3 on The Billboard 200 chart.

"We're all super happy and super proud of 'Monster' and we put a lot of time and effort into making it great," he said. "We approached it from a very organic and simple place, like a band just starting out. We were just hanging out at each other's houses, we arranged the songs at rehearsal then we'd go in and just knock them out. We didn't even do demos. We didn't have a label involved when we did it so there was no manager or A&R person telling us what to do, it was just the four of us making the calls, so whatever was in our hearts made it onto the record."

Asked how his role in KISS has evolved over the years, Thayer said, "It has evolved a lot. My first dealing with KISS was an opening act on the 'Asylum' tour in 1985 while I was in my band BLACK 'N BLUE. We did about 24-25 shows with KISS and I got to know Paul [Stanley] and Gene [Simmons] and then the relationship with Gene evolved after that. He produced some of our records, and then I worked on some KISS albums after that. BLACK 'N BLUE then ran its course and I was hired to work behind the scenes with KISS, managing different sorts of things. Then ten years ago things evolved again and I came on board as lead guitarist."

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