Re: KISS ~ Band of the Month ~ July 2010
1973 was a busy year for Kiss. They released their first album, toured in the spring, summer and into the fall of that year in support of the first album, taking off time in August to record their second album, then getting back on the road. Their second album,
Hotter Than Hell, was released on Oct 22nd, 1974. The band originally wanted to call the album,
The Harder They Come.
Track Listing:
1. Got to Choose (3:54)
2. Parasite (3:02)
3. Goin' Blind (3:37)
4. Hotter Than Hell (3:30)
5. Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll (2:15)
6. All the Way (3:18)
7. Watchin' You (3:44)
8. Mainline (3:50)
9. Comin' Home (2:38)
10. Strange Ways (3:18)
The Cover Art:
The cover obviously features Japanese-styled artwork, including Japanese characters/letters both next to each of the band members' names as well as in each of the upper corners. Ace's name, however, is spelled incorrectly and if properly translated from Japanese to English, would spell
Ace Fury.
As the story goes, the photo session for the front and back cover pictures were all taken on the same night at some party. Gene was the only one who was not drunk. Paul (reportedly) was so drunk they had to lock him up. If you look at Paul's right arm on the cover, it's easy to see that he needed to hold onto Peter, as well as Peter needed to hold him up just to get through the group shot.
Another fun fact about the cover, Ace's makeup was airbrushed after-the-fact due to a facial injury he had incurred in an auto accident not long beforehand and he couldn't wear makeup on that area.
Here is the design that was originally created by John Van Hamersveld for the back cover:
You can see how it was changed/evolved to include a bit of all 4 members' makeup designs when finally used on the back cover:
The Music Itself:
The band decided to use the production team from the first album, Richie Wise and Ken Kerner. The sound on this album is quite a bit different from their first album. Wise and Kerner had moved from NYC where the first album was recorded out to LA. The band flew out to LA to record the album but have said that they did not care for LA at all. Even one of Paul's guitar's was stolen the first day they were in LA.
The album itself has a much darker sound and feel to it. The lyrics are darker as well.
Goin' Blind was written Simmons and fellow Wicked Lester bandmate Stephen Coronel (obviously prior to the transition of Wicked Lester to Kiss). The album also includes two more songs written solely by Ace Frehley, but again, Ace handed over the vocal duties to Gene and Peter. The two songs are
Parasite (sung by Gene) and
Strange Ways (sung by Peter).
Album Sales and Tour:
The album itself sold poorly after it's release and there wasn't even a single to push. Supposedly part of the blame goes to Warner Brothers and Casablanca's distribution deal had ended and Casablanca didn't have a big name to push and promote the album like they had on the band's debut release. The only song that was actually released as a 'single' was
Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll, but the song never actually placed on the charts. The tour was much shorter than the previous tour due to the slow album sales and the record company basically forced the band to get back into the studio to work on their next album. The numbers that I've seen range from 50 to 60 total dates, which is about half of the previous tour.
Some of the most well known songs from this album and songs that would be used on tours for many years would be: the title track,
Hotter Than Hell,
Parasite,
Watchin' You and
Let Me Go, Rock 'n Roll. The album eventually gained "gold" status in 1977.
