Reader’s Digest UK – July 2019

READER’S DIGEST

I know where I’ve been and I

certainly know where I want to go.

Having that clarity means you’re less

stressed and more confident, which

helps a lot in life.

...SMALL, SKINNY ENGLISH

PEOPLE WITH FUNNY HAIRCUTS

CHANGED MY LIFE. When The

Beatles first appeared on the Ed

Sullivan Show in 1964, I’d never

encountered anything like it. The

only British voices I’d heard were the

posh ones Nazis had in black and

white war films. When George spoke

in a Scouse accent, I was transfixed.

Even before I knew how to play an

instrument, I started singing in

bands. For at least a year,

I went around with a fake

accent, trying to persuade

chicks I was English.

...MOVING FROM OFFICE

JUNIOR TO ROCK STAR.

After school, while I was

getting bands together,

I worked as an assistant at

Vogue: a Man Friday who did

everything the editor wanted

me to do. The entire floor was

covered with females. That

didn’t hurt. The male of the

species has the primordial

urge to merge.

But by 1973, Kiss had

formed after Paul Stanley [the

band’s guitarist and other lead

singer] and I had been a band

called Wicked Lester. Kiss’s first

records weren’t big successes to begin

with, but we were much more of a live

band, and started selling 10,000-seat

arenas very quickly.

We opened for a lot of British

groups, such as Manfred Mann and

Argent. But they would kick us off

tours—for the simple reason that we

blew them off the stage. We just let it

all hang out. It was like scream

therapy, this safe place where you

could be your goddamn self.

...A TRIP TO WOOLWORTHS

CREATED OUR IMAGE. In early

1973, we were rehearsing in a

cockroach-infested loft in New York.

Gene with Brooke

Shields, 1979

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