Criss retired from live performances after a handful of solo farewell dates in 2017. Simmons, Stanley, Frehley and Criss shared the stage but did not perform together during the band's 2014 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Instead, Simmons and Stanley opted not to renew Criss' contract when it ended in 2004, and Singer returned to what has become the longest-running lineup in Kiss history. Now, I was sort of having to walk the line. It was tough, being how I am, and doing things my own way. "You started this thing like GM, and you were a CEO, and now you’re washing floors," he said in 2012. However hypocritical he felt about performing with Thayer in makeup, Criss found his third stint in the band thoroughly miserable. "All of a sudden they bring Peter back, and you got Tommy Thayer playing guitar wearing the Ace makeup, and all of a sudden no one minded it was Ace’s makeup design," Singer noted.
They go to see them now and they think that's Kiss."ĭespite this objection, Criss wound up rejoining a Frehley-less version of Kiss for another series of tours in 2003. There's a whole generation of kids that are clueless as to what Kiss is about. He's playing Ace Frehley's licks to the T, Eric's playing my drum licks to a T. "I am the original Catman, there'll never be another one," Criss told radio host Eddie Trunk during a 2013 interview. This didn't go over well with the band's founding drummer. In a controversial move, Singer and Thayer performed onstage wearing the same makeup designs made famous by their predecessors. "For a while, honestly, we lost sight that we didn't have to stop," Stanley later said of the decision to forgo retirement and carry on without Criss and Frehley. Instead of breaking up, group mainstays Stanley and Simmons recruited Tommy Thayer to take over lead guitar. 7, 2000, show the last time the original lineup performed together. 'Yeah, you can have it,' he said softly."Īfter the more contentious final 2000 show, Criss reportedly turned down a $1 million payday for an eight-show 2001 tour of Japan, a move Stanley sarcastically called a "brilliant business decision." He was replaced by Eric Singer, who had previously played in the non-makeup version of Kiss from 1991-96.įrehley departed the group for a second time when the farewell tour ended in April 2001, making the Oct. 'Hey, Gene, can I have your bass? I'd like to have something to remember the band with,' I said. "As Gene was getting ready to leave, I saw that his bass guitar was propped up against the wall. "Ace and Paul walked out of the room without even saying goodbye to me," Criss said of the shoot. As part of the legal agreement for his 1980 departure from the group, he agreed to make it look like he was still in the band by appearing in the video for the song "Shandi," taken from Unmasked, an album on which he did not actually perform. He must have kept walking, because I didn't see him or Ace of Gene when I went in to take my makeup off."Īll told, it was much a much more dramatic day than the one that ended Criss' first Kiss tenure. So he took his guitar, threw it down on the stage and walked off. "Everyone stood up and cheered, and Paul thought the cheers were for him until he turned around and saw a huge floor tom-tom coming down at him. "I got up, and while the riser was still high up in the air, I started kicking my drums off it," he recalled. While Stanley was performing his usual end-of-show guitar-smashing ritual, Criss decided to do him one better.
"What are you talking about? You're the fucking drummer!"Įverything came to a head at the last show of the North American leg of what was intended to be the band's farewell tour, which took place on Oct.
"Peter, you're playing too slow!," Stanley recalled band manager Doc McGhee yelling at the drummer during one show. "Nobody laughed, there was no music playing in the room - it was all about just getting through those shows." "For the last seven dates, we'd put on our makeup and nobody talked to one another anymore," Criss concurred. The guitarist noted that Criss' behavior - constantly posting signs counting down the number of days left on tour, poorly putting on his makeup and playing songs too slowly in concert - made the rest of the band miserable. "I thought it made him look like Emmett Kelly's famous Weary Willie character," countered bandmate Paul Stanley in his own 2014 book, Face the Music: A Life Exposed. "But to me, it meant that they had fucked me over." "In prison, a teardrop signifies that you're tough because you had killed someone," he explained in his 2012 biography, Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss.