KISS: 'Kissology' Producers Interviewed

While much of the archival KISS footage has circulated for years on the KISS underground collector's circuit in fuzzy, sub-par quality, never before has it been presented in such improved quality than on the "Kissology" series.

The project, a partnership between KISS and VH1 Classic, is overseen by producers and avid KISS fans, Alex and Roger Coletti. A couple of excerpts from their recent interview with Goldmine magazine follow:

Goldmine: Discuss your responsibilities as producers in putting together this archive project.

Alex Coletti: The way the project started was with an agreement between KISS and MTV Networks that we would go through their archives and curate it and come out with three DVD box sets that will chronologically cover the band's entire history. As we got into KISS' archives — as cool a place as it is — we realized that there's a lot more material that needs to be included on these DVDs, so that meant going to a lot of outside parties and collect all the great TV performances.

Goldmine: Both of you are longtime KISS fans. How did that shape your vision of "Kissology"?

Roger Coletti: One of the most important things for us in putting this box set together was not so much giving fans footage they've never seen but giving them the best KISS footage we could find in the best possible way we could present it.

Alex Coletti: First, what we should make clear is that while we cleaned up the concerts and TV performances and worked on the audio and video, we didn't shape the piece in any way. These are historical documents. But there's one exception to the rule, and [it] literally stands out. On the first DVD, there's a mini six-and-a-half-minute documentary about KISS' visit to Cadillac, Mich., on Oct. 9-10, 1975. There was a lot of footage that the band had in their archives, separate audio and video reels and 8- and 16-mm film. Roger got on the phone with Jim Neff, the assistant coach of the Cadillac High football team, and we used his interview as a guide. I think we were able to put together something very unique that no one's ever seen. The band loved it, and I think that really is the centerpiece on this DVD.

Goldmine: There's some nice previously unseen footage of the band performing a concert in the Cadillac high school gym.

Roger Coletti: Yeah. Of all the footage that we found on KISS's visit to Cadillac, Mich., and there was a lot of footage, the footage of the band playing in the gym was the greatest surprise that we found. I don't even think the band realized that footage existed. Once Alex and I had decided everything we wanted to put on the first box, we flew out to meet with Gene (Simmons) and Paul (Stanley) and Tommy (Thayer) and showed them the footage. We showed them footage that they had never seen. That was really fun. Also, the DVD opens up with footage of KISS performing the song "Acrobat" in Long Beach, Calif., in 1974. That song never appeared on a KISS album and only appears on the DVD as a live recording. So we found footage of them playing the song live, and the band was quite amazed to see that footage.

Read the entire interview at www.goldminemag.com.