PETER CRISS On ACE FREHLEY's Absence From KENNEDY CENTER HONORS: 'I Was Grieving So Much That My Heart Hurt A Lot'

Peter Criss spoke exclusively and at length to Rock Candy magazine about life before, with and after KISS. During a wide-ranging and revealing interview, the band's original drummer, who turned 80 in December, unwrapped a large amount of subjects, including how he joined the group that would become known as "The Hottest Band In The World".

Peter said: "I put an ad in a local paper [after my previous bands CHELSEA and LIPS were over] and that's when [future KISS bassist/vocalist] Gene Simmons called. He asked me, 'Are you tall?', 'Are you good-looking?', 'Do you have long hair?', 'Are you willing to wear a dress and high heels?', 'Are you willing to wear lipstick?' I couldn't believe what he was asking me, but those questions fascinated me. I said to my wife at the time, 'I've got to meet this guy.'

"We had been to London for our honeymoon not that long before and I'd found some really cool clothes there. So when I went down to Electric Lady Studios in New York to meet Gene and Paul for the first time, I was really dolled up... Gene told me later that day he thought I was a rock star going into the studio to make an album."

When Criss joined Simmons and Stanley, the band played together for a little while as a three-piece, but the man who would become a close friend soon entered the picture.

"We put an ad in a local paper looking for a lead guitarist," Peter said. "We auditioned quite a few players before Ace [Frehley], but he really made an entrance wearing a motorcycle jacket and different-colored sneakers. There was some other guy already playing, but Ace didn't care. He walked right by the guy, plugged in, and started playing himself. And we all turned around, looked at one another, and went 'Holy sh*t!'. He was in straight away."

KISS deciding to wear make-up was influenced by glam rock and shock rocker Alice Cooper but THE BEATLES were also part of the thought process Paul, Gene, Ace and Peter had.

"John [Lennon], Paul [McCartney], George [Harrison] and Ringo [Starr] all had their own fans, as well as people who loved the whole band," Criss explained. "We wanted the same thing... so we took the concept they developed and made it more theatrical. We said, 'Let's start trying to apply make-up and see what's going on.' So we bought this really cheap clown-white make-up — even shoe polish at first, I think — and started putting it on for rehearsals in this real sh*tty loft with no heating. It was so cold we had to wear coats all the time, but that's were we experimented with our different looks."

But once the band became famous the make-up had a frustrating by-product when the general public didn't know what they actually looked like.

"Once we started to make it big, we started wanting to be recognized, sign autographs and have kids outside hotels screaming for us," Peter recalled. "I'd go to clubs in New York and would tell the guy on the door that I was Peter Criss from KISS. They'd go, 'Yeah, right'. In the end I started taking my driving license and other ID out with me to prove that I really was Peter Criss. It was pretty funny how the make-up thing kind of backfired."

The recent Kennedy Center Honors ceremony for KISS, last December, was a chance for the original band to be together again but sadly Frehley passed away just a few weeks earlier, on October 16, something Peter found very hard to cope with.

"It was tough for me because Ace wasn't there," Criss said. "He'd been very excited about going there. He said, 'Pete, I'm really looking forward to this.' So not having him next to me was really hard... I cried a lot of times that day, broke down actually. I missed Ace and it wasn't the same... It was great to get the award, But I was grieving so much that my heart hurt a lot."

Peter released a new solo album a few weeks ago and he feels motivated and keen to show the world he's a fit, healthy and productive musician.

"I haven't done drugs for 42 years, and I gave up drinking 30 years ago, I'm too old for that sh*t! So what you see now is the real Peter Criss. And you know what? I'm definitely not a drug addict. I'm a drum addict!"

Read the rest of the exclusive mega interview with Criss, as well as features on MEGADETH, Paul Gilbert, Alex Skolnick of TESTAMENT, Francis Rossi of STATUS QUO, Phil Collen of DEF LEPPARD talking about his previous band GIRL, a reappraisal of AEROSMITH's "Pump" album and Ian Anderson talking about the classic JETHRO TULL "Aqualung" album, Jason McMaster of DANGEROUS TOYS... and much more fascinating content in issue 54 of Rock Candy.

Rock Candy is a 100 page, full-color bi-monthly rock magazine, created in the U.K. It covers the sights, sounds and smells from the greatest era in hard rock, the '70s, '80s and early '90s. It is the brainchild of respected U.K. rock journalists Derek Oliver, Howard Johnson and Malcolm Dome — all frontline writers for the legendary Kerrang! magazine in the golden era.