Peter Criss

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Peter Criss
Born	December 20, 1945 (age 61) New York City, New York, USA

Peter George John Criscuola (born December 20, 1945) a.k.a. Peter Criss, is an American musician best known as co-founder and drummer for the rock band Kiss. Criss joined the pre-Kiss group Wicked Lester in 1973, and adopted the stage persona of the Catman when Kiss adopted the use of makeup and costumes.

Criss is given co-writer credit for the ballad "Beth," which was a Top 10 hit for Kiss in 1976, but he in fact did not write the song. A bootleg exists of the song from 1970 written by Stan Penridge during Criss' time in a band called Lips. "Becky" was the name of a bandmate's girlfriend and he called her "Beck," hence the original title of the song before being changed at the request of Gene Simmons. The song was a parody of something Criss' bandmate would say to his girlfriend who would normally call to ask when he was coming home from practice. The song was said to be a tribute to Criss' wife Lydia but in fact was written before Criss had even met the members of Kiss.

During the late 1970s, Criss's problems with substance abuse escalated, and he became increasingly frustrated with his role in the group. Criss left Kiss in May 1980 to begin a solo career. He released three albums over the next 15 years, none of which met with any success.

In 1995, Criss performed with Kiss during their appearance on MTV Unplugged. In April 1996, Kiss held a press conference to announce a reunion tour with all four original members. The 1996–97 Alive/Worldwide Tour was an enormous success, and the reunited Kiss released a studio album, 1998's Psycho Circus.

Criss remained a member of Kiss until 2001, when he left over a contract dispute. He rejoined the band in 2002, but departed again in March 2004 when Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons opted not to renew his contract. Since that time, Criss has kept his public appearances to a minimum. Criss now resides in Wall Township, New Jersey.

1 Early years
2 Kiss
3 Solo career
- 3.1 The homeless urban legend
4 The Kiss reunion
5 Trivia
6 Discography
7 Notes and references
8 External links

[edit] Early years

The young Peter George John Criscuola (his full real name) was a gang member in his teen years, according to an article in Spin Magazine, and as he tells the story, when his grandmother caught him making weapons for a rumble, she broke a broomstick over his head. He is the eldest of the five children of Joseph and Loretta Criscuola in Brooklyn, New York.

Despite his hoodlum mentality, he was also an avid art student and a jazz aficionado. While playing with bandleader Joey Greco, Criscuola ended up studying under his idol, Gene Krupa, at the Metropole Club in New York. This blossomed into an active musical career as he went on to play jazz and rock with a number of bands in New York and New Jersey throughout the 1960s.

Criss was involved with a number of bands throughout the mid-to-late 1960s. In late 1970, Criss joined Chelsea, who had a two-album deal with Decca Records. The group released a self-titled album in 1970, which was a commercial failure. The group never recorded a second album, and in August 1971 became Lips (a trio consisting of Criss, as well as Chelsea bandmates Michael Benvenga and Stan Penridge). By the Spring of 1973, Lips was just the duo of Criss and Penridge.

[edit] Kiss

After the demise of his band, Lips, Criss placed an ad in the East Coast edition of Rolling Stone, which read:

EXPD. ROCK & roll drummer looking for orig. grp. doing soft & hard music. Peter, Brooklyn.

Contrary to the story that has been recited by fans and by the band for years, there was never an ad placed that said "Drummer willing to do anything to make it."^[1] The ad was answered by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, who had recently dissolved their band, Wicked Lester, to form a new band. Ace Frehley was added to the lineup in January 1973, and the new band was christened Kiss that month.

Kiss released their self-titled debut in February of 1974. Throughout his Kiss career, Criss was lead vocalist on several notable songs including "Black Diamond" and their breakthrough hit "Beth". Many of Criss's contributions to Kiss were written with the help of Stan Penridge, who was a bandmate of Criss's in Chelsea and Lips.

Criss struggled with alcoholism through many of the years he was in the band. Although he was always credited as drummer, 1977's Love Gun was the last Kiss album on which Criss played throughout. On the 1979 release Dynasty, he drummed only on his own composition, "Dirty Livin'" and did not play at all on 1980's Unmasked. David Letterman's house drummer Anton Fig secretly ghosted for Criss on most occasions, but Carmine Appice, Richie Fontana, Allen Schwartzberg and Sean Delaney have also been said to have played drums and percussion anonymously on Kiss records.

[edit] Solo career

Although Criss officially left Kiss in May 1980, his involvement with the band had ceased by December 1979. In March 1980 he began recording his first solo album, Out of Control. Released later in the year, the album was a commercial failure. So too was the followup album, 1982's Let Me Rock You, which contained one song written by Gene Simmons.

For the rest of the '80s and early '90s, Criss was involved with a number of bands (each usually lasting less than a year). One of them was The Keep, which featured ex-Kiss guitarist Mark St. John. Criss briefly reunited with former Kiss bandmate Ace Frehley on Frehley's 1989 album Trouble Walkin' (singing and playing percussion on one track). In the early '90s, Criss assembled a band named Criss. This band released the Criss EP in December 1993 and the Cat #1 album in August 1994. The group also supported Frehley's band on the 1995 "Bad Boys Tour." That same year, Criss appeared at official Kiss Konventions and at the Kiss live performance that was recorded for MTV Unplugged. Criss's band remained in existence until the Kiss reunion was announced in April 1996.

[edit] The homeless urban legend

In the late 1980s, an urban legend circulated that Criss was a homeless alcoholic, culminating in a 1989 Star Magazine article that appeared to lend credence to the notion. Jeffrey Scott Holland paid tribute to Peter's alleged plight by painting his portrait in an alley with a bottle in his hand, and Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold began a campaign to try to rescue Criss. Barr and Arnold had discovered a homeless man living under a bridge who had claimed to be Criss, but it was later revealed to be a hoax. The hoaxer, Christopher Dickinson, appeared with the real Criss on The Phil Donahue Show in 1991. For years afterward, the belief still persisted that Peter was broke and sleeping on the streets.

[edit] The Kiss reunion

After the phenomenal public response to Criss' sitting in with the band for a couple of songs at Kiss Conventions and then on MTV's "Unplugged" show, Kiss reunited in full makeup and original lineup in 1996. In 1997 Criss's label, Tony Nicole Tony (TNT) Records, filed a lawsuit against Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley alleging that the pair induced Criss to breach his contract with TNT [1].

At first, Criss was elated with the reunion, but things turned sour when his drumming was hardly used on the subsequent Psycho Circus album. Much to his chagrin, he was also forced to sing a song written by Paul Stanley ("I Finally Found My Way") rather than contribute his own original material.

As the Reunion tour was followed by the Psycho Circus tour, things began to slide for Peter on the road:

On April 5, 1997, Criss was a no-show to a Kiss performance in Columbus, Georgia, allegedly due to issues with bursitis and tendonitis of the shoulder and lower back. At the last minute, Peter's drum tech, Ed Kanon, was tasked with replacing him for the night, donning the Catman makeup and costume.^[2]

On December 5, 1998, for unknown reasons, Criss did not sing on any songs except for "Beth."^[2]

During the last few months of the Farewell Tour, Criss added a painted teardrop to his face. The teardrop symbolized the ongoing problems with Criss's contract negotiations.^[2]

At the end of the band's October 7, 2000 concert, Criss demolished his drum kit onstage in a final act of frustration, although the audience largely thought it was part of the act.^[2]

In 2002 Criss returned to the band once more.

On August 9, 2003, as the recording backing track for "Beth" began, Peter threw down his microphone and refused to sing. Later it was claimed the microphone was defective, but there were other mikes on stage.

Increasingly, Criss began complaining of severe arm cramps and other muscular health issues preventing him from playing properly for long periods of time.

Before the 2004 "Rock The Nation" tour, Criss' contract was not extended and former Kiss member Eric Singer returned as the band's drummer.

Criss's most recent public appearance was a short interview on VH-1's Rock Honors special (aired on May 31, 2006), in which he talks about the role he had in Kiss and that band's longevity. He was not asked to play with Kiss but was asked to play with the supergroup paying tribute to them, which featured Rob Zombie, Ace Frehley, Scott Ian, Slash, and Tommy Lee. He declined.

Criss appeared as the guest of honor at the Halloween Chiller Convention in New Jersey 2006, drawing record numbers of fans to the horror themed convention. Criss signed autographs and posed for photos with fans for all three days of the event.

Peter Criss was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006.

[edit] Trivia

Peter Criss as he appears today

His former wife, Lydia Criss, recently published a book entitled "Sealed with a Kiss" which contained thousands of photos and first hand accounts on the early days of Kiss.

In his teen years, as the "war counsel" for a Brooklyn street gang, Peter was responsible for making weapons. When his grandmother discovered him making a zip gun, she broke a broomstick over his head (Chronicled in SPIN Magazine's Kiss issue, 1998).

During an early Kiss tour, someone threw an M-80 firecracker onstage, and blew Peter off of his drums. He couldn't hear for the rest of the night.

Peter had a reputation of being somewhat of a prankster while in Kiss. Once, as a joke, Peter left a trail of his clothes from his hotel room bed to an open window, while he hid underneath the bed.

In early 2002, Criss had a role on the HBO series, Oz. He has also appeared on Family Guy and Millennium.

Name dropped (along with former Kiss member Ace Frehley) in Weezer's song "In the Garage." Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo has pointed to Kiss as being a primary reason in his life he decided to take up music.^{[citation needed]}

A song playfully entitled "The Peter Criss Jazz" appears on Don Caballero's album American Don.

Is cited by Tommy Lee as an influence. On VH1's Behind The Music: Mötley Crüe, he says, "I think the biggest impact was KISS. I remember Peter Criss' drum set was like... just endless."

In the episode of Family Guy titled "Road To Europe", Peter Griffin finds out Lois was never a KISS fan at all, stating "I should've known [you weren't a fan] when you asked to be Peter Criss. Nobody wants to be Peter Criss, not even Peter Criss!"

[edit] Discography

[edit] Chelsea

Chelsea (1970)^[3]

[edit] Kiss

Kiss (February 18, 1974)
Hotter Than Hell (October 22, 1974)
Dressed to Kill (March 19, 1975)
Alive! (September 10, 1975)
Destroyer (March 15, 1976)
Rock and Roll Over (November 11, 1976)
Love Gun (June 30, 1977)
Alive II (November 29, 1977)
Peter Criss (September 18, 1978)
Dynasty (May 23, 1979)^[4]
Unmasked (May 20, 1980)^[5]
Psycho Circus (September 22, 1998)^[6]
Kiss Symphony: Alive IV (July 22, 2003)

Cat #1 (1994)

[edit] Solo

[edit] As Peter Criss

Out of Control (September 1980)
Let Me Rock You (May 1982)

[edit] Notes and references

^ Gill, Julian. The KISS Album Focus, Volume 1 (3rd Edition). Xlibris Corporation, 2005. ISBN 1-4134-8547-2
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Gooch, Curt and Jeff Suhs. KISS Alive Forever: The Complete Touring History, Billboard Books, 2002. ISBN 0-8230-8322-5
^ Credited as Peter Cris.
^ Criss performed on only one song, "Dirty Livin'."
^ Although Criss is shown on the cover art, he did not participate in the recording of the album.
^ Vocals on "You Wanted The Best" and lead vocal on "I Finally Found My Way"

[edit] External links

Preceded by Original	Drummer for Kiss 1973–1980	Succeeded by Eric Carr
Preceded by Eric Singer	Drummer for Kiss 1996–2001	Succeeded by Eric Singer
Preceded by Eric Singer	Drummer for Kiss 2002–2004	Succeeded by Eric Singer