Producer Bob Ezrin recently gueste on the Rockonteurs Podcast, hosted by Pink Floyd / David Gilmour bassist Guy Pratt and former Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp. Ezrin is known for his work with Alice Cooper, KISS, Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel.
During the chat, Ezrin discussed the fact that, in the early days, KISS only appealed to 15-year-old boys prior to Destroyer, which was released in March 1976.
Ezrin: "The purpose of Destroyer, from my point of view, was to take them from being a cock and balls rock band that appeals to 15 pimply year old boys and no one else. When we first met I said to them, you know there's a there's a famous movie in the 50s called The Wild One with Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin. There were two warring motorcycle clubs. Bad guys... all bad guys. The thing is that Lee Marvin was monochromatic, dressed in black, a bad bad bad guy. Lee Marvin was just nasty. Whereas Marlon Brando: there was something about him that was a little vulnerable, a little more humane, and the girl, the pretty daughter of somebody important – a tightly wound good Christian, lovely girl, you know, virgin, whatever – she saw something in Johnny, Marlon Brando's character that she fell in love with."
So I said to them: 'Right now you're Lee Marvin, and that's a glass ceiling. We'll never go wide with that; it'll just be the 15 year old boys who go 'Oh, that's cool'. But we want to expand to where every girl in America looks at you guys and goes: 'I can fix that. I love him and I'm gonna fix them.' Because that's what girls do."
Destroyer is the fourth KISS studio album by American hard rock band Kiss, released on March 15, 1976, via Casablanca Records in the US. It was the third successive KISS album to reach the top 40 in the US, as well as the first to chart in Germany and New Zealand. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA on April 22, 1976, and Platinum on November 11 of the same year. Destryer was the first KISS album to achieve platinum status.
In February 2022, Professor Of Rock released the video below, along with the following message:
"The fire breathing, blood-spitting icons of rock, KISS didn’t want 'Beth', the song that became their band's biggest hit in America, to be included on their Destroyer album. In fact, they hated the song so much, they didn’t even show up at the studio when it was recorded. Allegedly written by Peter Criss, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley thought he didn’t write it and Ace Frehley was too busy playing poker to care. The saga behind the People’s Choice for Favorite Song in 1977 next is on Professor of Rock."
