Free Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal by Jon Wiederhorn Page B

bad it is, it’s hard to turn down.
ROB HALFORD: We all had second jobs. I was managing a menswear shop. I would run home after work, jump in the van, and drive to a gig. We’d load the gear onto the stage, get changed into whatever we had to wear, do the show, break the stuff down, put it back in the van, and drive home, getting back at daybreak just in time to get ready for work.
IAN HILL: I drove a van for five pounds a day, and it kept myself and my girlfriend, Sue, going. There was a time when Ken, myself, and our manager, Dave Corke, lived in a one-bedroom apartment with girlfriends. We couldn’t ever afford to get smashed.
ROB HALFORD: We went to Gull and asked for 25 quid (about $38) each a week to live on so we could be professional musicians and not have to keep running back home after shows to our second lines of work, and they turned us down.
GLENN TIPTON: We used to share bags of chips. That was a sheer luxury. I think that helped shape our character.
ROB HALFORD: We’d get in the van and take the ferry to Europe and play any pub shows we could get, then we’d sleep in the van. There was never any question of, “Oh, fuck this. This absolutely sucks. I’m not gonna do it.” We were so excited to be on this great adventure.
GLENN TIPTON: When Sony took us over and we left Gull Records, that was a big moment for us. Sony was very supportive and that helped us to address the world stage. In the States we did six weeks alone in clubs and bars, and we played with REO Speedwagon [and Black Oak Arkansas] just trying to get the word out. Then we were offered two shows on the West Coast with Led Zeppelin at the Day on the Green at the Oakland Coliseum. We got very little money and we had to hang around for two weeks in the cheapest motels with no air conditioning and very little food. But we stuck around and did these shows, and that actually helped to establish us. We had a great reaction. The combination of the deal with Sony and those two shows brought us to the attention of a lot of people. America really welcomed Priest with open arms.
    Even though they were signed, Priest lacked the finances to mount an extravagant production. By contrast, even when they were eating ramen noodles and Chinese takeout, KISS looked and acted like rock stars. Finally after their fourth release, 1975’s concert album KISS Alive , produced by Eddie Kramer, KISS achieved mainstream popularity. To perpetuate their success, the band hired esteemed producer Bob Ezrin for 1976’s Destroyer .
BOB EZRIN (producer): I was at City TV in Toronto doing an interview. As I was going up the stairs, KISS, having been on the same show, was coming down. We met in the stairwell and I said, “If you ever need any help, call me.” Within a couple months Bill Aucoin [KISS’s then-manager] reached out about doing their next record. I saw them play at an arena in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The place was half full, but everybody in the joint was on their feet from the time the band started until the show was over. The one thing I noticed, aside from the fact that everyone knew the words for every song and were all singing along, was that the audience was all teenage boys. I thought, “This is an opportunity. If they could just get to the girls, this would be the biggest band in the world.” I met them in New York and said, “I don’t want to make you into softies. You can still be the bad guys, but let’s be like Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront .” When Brando played the leader of the motorcycle gang he was dangerous, scary, and every mother’s nightmare, yet underneath it all there was this certain sensitivity and beauty that made him attractive. Every girl in the world wanted to mother, nurture, and fuck him. We went into Destroyer with that in mind.
GENE SIMMONS: At some point, I began to keep Polaroid snapshots of my liaisons to remember them. In a certain way, I loved every one of them. But when it was over, it was over. No fuss, no muss. No