One detail that’s always stood out from the liner notes of my younger brother’s cassette tapes of each of the four KISS solo albums is that Peter Criss was a nice Italian boy who professed loving Frank Sinatra more than any of his heavy rock contemporaries. As the photos above and below attest, Criss minus his greasepaint can pass for a nice Italian boy who could land a nice girl of his own but wouldn’t cause hearts to flutter like he did when painted as his cat character and singing “Beth.” The following photo, with some guy named Sean Delaney, suggests that Bruno Kirby might be best qualified to portray the drummer in a movie. By the way, this Delaney guy is worth investigating. I learned he was known as the “Fifth Member of KISS,” and he would produce some other funny heavy rock bands to follow (click here for a concise wealth of information on a key figure in a scene I never wanted to learn anything about).
With three original members of KISS accounted for, I’d say that Simmons is still in the lead for this dubious title.
That leaves Frehley.
I don’t know, I still think Gene Simmons still wins the contest.
Fun fact I never knew until recently: Gene Simmons was into sci-fi & regularly corresponded w/Greg Shaw when the latter was doing Tolkein fanzines. The book Bomp 2: Born In the Garage has a letter from Gene that was published in Bomp Magazine w/a picture of hin in his KISS glory.
Ace is the clear winner. Even early on, one could tell he was uglier than that kid in the movie Mask.
It’s a foot race between Gene and Ace but Ace takes it by a gin-blossom bedecked nose.
Y’know, I’m not sure that I agree with the exclusion of Stanley. I think with the make-up, he looked like he might really be one of those good-lookin’ hair metal guys, David Coverdale or something. Without the make-up, he looks a little bit like a lizard.
geo, your analysis is just one of many that I see on a daily basis that set participants in Rock Town Hall apart from participants in other rock discussion blogs. Bravo!
I’m late on this one, but I also disagree withe choice of Ace as the one who most benefitted from the make-up. The Space Ace is the best and (as we previously established in the Third Bananas thread) most powerful member of KISS, but Ace had the chops to be the guitarist in some theoretical other ’70s heavy rock group with enough good-lookin’ dudes to balance him out. I think Ace ends up just fine if he never becomes the Space Ace – he’d still have a career and would never be temporarily killed onstage by electricity.
Peter benefits the least from the makeup. He’s the Catman. He’s the only one who somehow ends up even worse off by putting on his paint. He’s not even some happy or mysterious Catman, he always just looks like a sad anthropomorphic cat.
Geo makes a great point about the benefit of the doubt bonus that Paul received by becoming the Starchild. But I still think he had the frontman and stage banter skills to hack it even without the makeup on if he’d had to. He wouldn’t have been anywhere near as successful outside of KISS, but I think he could have had a David Johansen-esque career. Paul Stanley coming out with “Hot Hot Hot” and starring in the Car 54 movie? It could have happened.
Gene is the winner. Nobody puts up with those creepy-ass songs of his if KISS doesn’t go the way of Comic Book Rock and give him the chance to hide behind the Demon makeup. Where would he have been without the paint, the codpieces, the axe-bass and the giant dragon boots? I honestly can’t picture how a KISS-LESS Gene Simmons career goes, unless he just immediately opens up Gene Simmons Toyota franchises in the ’70s.
OK, I see that a few of you disagree with what I was sure was an airtight argument for Ace. There’s only one solution before I go on the attack against anyone who disagrees with me: THE RTH POLL. Consider this topic taken to the streets!
I’m still sticking with Ace but alexmagic’s insightful analysis made me realize that I was really answering the question “Who is the ugliest member of KISS?” rather than “Who most benefited from the make up?”
This whole thing got me thinking who would make the cut if you were to form a supergroup (possibly called Fugly) of the all time ugliest rock musicians.
Clearly Ace and Mick Mars would be the guitar players.
With all due respect to Gene, that dude from the Atlanta Rhythm Section has a lock on the bass.
But who would the drummer be? Ginger Baker?
And who’s going to sing?
An ugly supergroup ought to hold a spot for Johnny Winter. The guy is a white mole with a guitar, only saved by the fact that you can almost see through him.