In 1975, KISS were a great idea looking for their moment. Four costume-clad dudes playing zero-IQ glam rock, the band had built a loyal following by criss-crossing America, but they didnt have the gold albums or the supersized rep. With three under-appreciated LPs beneath their studded belts and their record contract coming to an end, they decided to bring the war for recognition to their home-ground - the seat right in the center of thousands of KISS fans. Singer and guitarist Paul Stanley recalls how Alive! turned out to be the KISS of life.

VH1: Whats the legacy of Alive!?
Paul Stanley: What makes Alive! so unique is it puts the listener in the audience. We wanted to bombard your senses as though you were immersed in the crowd. We were willing to do anything we had to to convey that feeling to our fans, because our album sales didn't correlate with the success we had as a live band. We decided that unless youve seen KISS live you dont understand the band. So let's do something that really captures what KISS is.
VH1: Is Alive! about the crowd as much as it is the band?
Stanley: A KISS concert experience is like sex or anything else that's done with more than one person. It's the give and take that makes it so great. When the audience takes it to the next level, we can kick it up another notch. Alive! pays tribute to the fact that were not in this alone. You can't have an album like Alive!, you can't have a success or a history like KISS, without an audience that gives you what a KISS audience gives us.
VH1: What did you do in the studio to make Alive! what it ultimately was?
Stanley: Doing a live album purely live leaves you open to the chance of doing a crappy album. The impact of being there was more important than having the album represent note for note what actually happened. So we beefed up the audience to bring them in your face, so you felt like you were sitting next to somebody, not in the back of a hall experiencing something from a distance. There were times where the audience almost overwhelms the band, but when you're at a show, isn't that the way it is? Is a live album really something where you play a song and at the end you hear people clapping? That's not a live rock album as far as I'm concerned. Even the bombs got augmented because you can't record those kinds of bombs. What we might do in the studio is take the sound of an actual bomb and lay that on top of the existing effect. If it feels like a live experience, it is a live experience.
VH1: Did the method of recording change the way you went into the performances?
Stanley: Doing the live album was an education. When you're at a concert, you're not only listening with your ears, you're listening with your eyes, so we started recording some shows to get a sense of what we sounded like, to sit back and listen without the benefit of seeing it. We were hit with how fast we played. It was exciting if you were in the audience, but listening to those tapes would take your breath away. We had to make a conscious effort to slow down and us slowing down is still going 120 miles an hour
VH1: Did it become a double album because that was what it took to capture a full set list?
Stanley: Recording a double album was a no-brainer, because our concerts at that point were probably about an hour and a half long. We wanted to give everybody the appetizer, the main course and dessert. And that's what we gave them on Alive!
VH1: Your first three albums hadnt sold very well. Was the album a make or break effort for the band?
Stanley: That's overly simplistic. Nothing could ever stop KISS. I've seen the band in down times where critics were like vultures circling overhead saying things like, Well, you know it's the end of your career. Statements like that make me go Oh yeah? Watch this! That's when teeth go flying, because that's when the boots start kicking. There's nobody who's ever gonna be able to tell me when it's over.
VH1: Why did the live version of Rock and Roll All Nite have more of an impact than the first version?
Stanley: With the live version, it would be impossible to hear that track and not hear that it was touching a chord with American youth. The idea was to write a song that was a rallying cry, a song that people would say, This is what I believe in, and thats the band that I follow. I remember going back to the hotel, picking up my guitar and going, Okay, what do we believe in? and singing, I want to rock and roll all night and party everyday. Simple and to the point. I knocked on Gene's door, he had a verse that we put together with it and lo and behold! We had the rock n roll national anthem.

VH1: What were your sales expectations for the album?
Stanley: Since our first few albums sold somewhere between 50 and 90 thousand copies each, I was hoping for 350,000. I remember sitting with our manager Bill Aucoin and saying to him, Do you think we might sell 350,000 albums? He said, Let's not get our hopes up. We probably sold 350,000 albums in an hour.
VH1: How quickly did Alive! go from a gold album to platinum?
Stanley: Alive! caught us by surprise. People have to remember that back then, platinum was almost uncharted territory. Up until Grand Funk Railroad, there was no such thing as an RIAA certified platinum album because nobody sold that many copies of any individual album. To have that album go gold was a milestone for me. Growing up, all I ever dreamed of was to have a gold album. So when it turned platinum two weeks later - not to be ungrateful - but I already had the gold album that I dreamt of!
VH1: How did success affect the band?
Stanley: There was a time I was doing an interview and somebody said to me, How does it feel to be rich and famous? I said, Well, I can tell you how it feels to be famous. I was living in a furnished one bedroom apartment. As much as we were making with Alive! it took us until Destroyer to right a whole lot of wrongs. The financial reward is great and I love the life I have, but all money makes possible is for you to stop worrying about money. Then you have freedom to live your life. There are people who have that same freedom by not having any money. I needed the bucks, and I thank everybody out there for them.
VH1: How did you celebrate that success once the money came in?
Stanley: I never had owned a new car. My first car was a $35 car that I drove until the wheels fell off. I never wanted to get a really up-scale new car until I felt I deserved it. Around 1976 or so, I bought myself a two-seater Mercedes. I sat in that car one night and said, Do I really deserve this car? Do I really have this coming to me? I turned on the radio and what was on the radio? Beth. Then I turned to another station, and Rock and Roll All Nite was on the other station. I went, Done deal. Its my car.
VH1: Does KISS deserve credit for making live albums a profitable franchise?
Stanley: Profitable franchise sounds like youre talking about McDonald's or Burger King and I don't want to think of myself like that. Certainly Alive! paved the way for a lot of bands to realize that there was an audience that would like a live album. The beauty of doing something well is that it appears simple. Somebody will look at great art and go, I could paint that. Try it. You can't. That's why people go, I'll record an album like Alive! Guess what? A lot of them suck. Because making something that is beautiful in its simplicity and rawness and ugliness is not as easy as one might think. If it was that easy, there'd be a whole lot of live albums with VH1 Ultimate Albums shows. And guess what? I only know of one.

VH1: Whats the legacy of Alive!?
Paul Stanley: What makes Alive! so unique is it puts the listener in the audience. We wanted to bombard your senses as though you were immersed in the crowd. We were willing to do anything we had to to convey that feeling to our fans, because our album sales didn't correlate with the success we had as a live band. We decided that unless youve seen KISS live you dont understand the band. So let's do something that really captures what KISS is.
VH1: Is Alive! about the crowd as much as it is the band?
Stanley: A KISS concert experience is like sex or anything else that's done with more than one person. It's the give and take that makes it so great. When the audience takes it to the next level, we can kick it up another notch. Alive! pays tribute to the fact that were not in this alone. You can't have an album like Alive!, you can't have a success or a history like KISS, without an audience that gives you what a KISS audience gives us.
VH1: What did you do in the studio to make Alive! what it ultimately was?
Stanley: Doing a live album purely live leaves you open to the chance of doing a crappy album. The impact of being there was more important than having the album represent note for note what actually happened. So we beefed up the audience to bring them in your face, so you felt like you were sitting next to somebody, not in the back of a hall experiencing something from a distance. There were times where the audience almost overwhelms the band, but when you're at a show, isn't that the way it is? Is a live album really something where you play a song and at the end you hear people clapping? That's not a live rock album as far as I'm concerned. Even the bombs got augmented because you can't record those kinds of bombs. What we might do in the studio is take the sound of an actual bomb and lay that on top of the existing effect. If it feels like a live experience, it is a live experience.
VH1: Did the method of recording change the way you went into the performances?
Stanley: Doing the live album was an education. When you're at a concert, you're not only listening with your ears, you're listening with your eyes, so we started recording some shows to get a sense of what we sounded like, to sit back and listen without the benefit of seeing it. We were hit with how fast we played. It was exciting if you were in the audience, but listening to those tapes would take your breath away. We had to make a conscious effort to slow down and us slowing down is still going 120 miles an hour
VH1: Did it become a double album because that was what it took to capture a full set list?
Stanley: Recording a double album was a no-brainer, because our concerts at that point were probably about an hour and a half long. We wanted to give everybody the appetizer, the main course and dessert. And that's what we gave them on Alive!
VH1: Your first three albums hadnt sold very well. Was the album a make or break effort for the band?
Stanley: That's overly simplistic. Nothing could ever stop KISS. I've seen the band in down times where critics were like vultures circling overhead saying things like, Well, you know it's the end of your career. Statements like that make me go Oh yeah? Watch this! That's when teeth go flying, because that's when the boots start kicking. There's nobody who's ever gonna be able to tell me when it's over.
VH1: Why did the live version of Rock and Roll All Nite have more of an impact than the first version?
Stanley: With the live version, it would be impossible to hear that track and not hear that it was touching a chord with American youth. The idea was to write a song that was a rallying cry, a song that people would say, This is what I believe in, and thats the band that I follow. I remember going back to the hotel, picking up my guitar and going, Okay, what do we believe in? and singing, I want to rock and roll all night and party everyday. Simple and to the point. I knocked on Gene's door, he had a verse that we put together with it and lo and behold! We had the rock n roll national anthem.

VH1: What were your sales expectations for the album?
Stanley: Since our first few albums sold somewhere between 50 and 90 thousand copies each, I was hoping for 350,000. I remember sitting with our manager Bill Aucoin and saying to him, Do you think we might sell 350,000 albums? He said, Let's not get our hopes up. We probably sold 350,000 albums in an hour.
VH1: How quickly did Alive! go from a gold album to platinum?
Stanley: Alive! caught us by surprise. People have to remember that back then, platinum was almost uncharted territory. Up until Grand Funk Railroad, there was no such thing as an RIAA certified platinum album because nobody sold that many copies of any individual album. To have that album go gold was a milestone for me. Growing up, all I ever dreamed of was to have a gold album. So when it turned platinum two weeks later - not to be ungrateful - but I already had the gold album that I dreamt of!
VH1: How did success affect the band?
Stanley: There was a time I was doing an interview and somebody said to me, How does it feel to be rich and famous? I said, Well, I can tell you how it feels to be famous. I was living in a furnished one bedroom apartment. As much as we were making with Alive! it took us until Destroyer to right a whole lot of wrongs. The financial reward is great and I love the life I have, but all money makes possible is for you to stop worrying about money. Then you have freedom to live your life. There are people who have that same freedom by not having any money. I needed the bucks, and I thank everybody out there for them.
VH1: How did you celebrate that success once the money came in?
Stanley: I never had owned a new car. My first car was a $35 car that I drove until the wheels fell off. I never wanted to get a really up-scale new car until I felt I deserved it. Around 1976 or so, I bought myself a two-seater Mercedes. I sat in that car one night and said, Do I really deserve this car? Do I really have this coming to me? I turned on the radio and what was on the radio? Beth. Then I turned to another station, and Rock and Roll All Nite was on the other station. I went, Done deal. Its my car.
VH1: Does KISS deserve credit for making live albums a profitable franchise?
Stanley: Profitable franchise sounds like youre talking about McDonald's or Burger King and I don't want to think of myself like that. Certainly Alive! paved the way for a lot of bands to realize that there was an audience that would like a live album. The beauty of doing something well is that it appears simple. Somebody will look at great art and go, I could paint that. Try it. You can't. That's why people go, I'll record an album like Alive! Guess what? A lot of them suck. Because making something that is beautiful in its simplicity and rawness and ugliness is not as easy as one might think. If it was that easy, there'd be a whole lot of live albums with VH1 Ultimate Albums shows. And guess what? I only know of one.

