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Kiss had a rotating roster of lead guitarists over the decades – but one player in particular may very well have comfortably taken the crown for the shortest stint with the band.
Lauded L.A. studio musician and founding member and lead guitarist of the ’80s rock band Mr. Mister, Steve Farris, had the enviable, or – depending on who you ask, the unenviable – opportunity to join Kiss, at least for a few odd weeks.
Back when rumors were swirling that Ace Frehley was on the way out, Farris was well plugged into the Los Angeles music scene and, at the time, was playing with a couple of members of the country-rock band Poco.
“We started doing original shit and rehearsing down in Playa del Rey… or playing a gig at the Blue Lagune Saloon in Marina del Rey when that was still around, and [we were] playing original shit, [we had] a set,” Farris tells Vertex Effects.
However, the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself after one of those sets…
“Some tall guy comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, Ace Frehley is leaving Kiss. Would you be interested in auditioning for them? And I'm like, ‘Well, I eat peanut butter and jelly every day, and my Volkswagen Rabbit doesn’t start unless I push it off the clutch. Yeah, I would do that.’
“He writes down on a napkin – that's what you did those days – he goes, ‘Call this number; she's handling all the auditions.’”
Farris frantically put together an audition tape with the help of his friend – record producer and Carpenters lead guitarist Tony Peluso – consisting of “demos I played with, songs I'd written while I was living in the Midwest, recorded in Chicago, instrumentals, things I sat in… just anything I could find that I showed I could play guitar well.”
Farris immediately drove down to an office on Sunset Boulevard, where he found the person who was handling Kiss’ auditions. “I gave her the tape, and she went and played it while I was there, which is kind of weird. So I sat there listening to the tape while she was listening to it.”
He drove off and didn’t think much of it until two weeks later, when he got an unexpected phone call.
“‘Is this Steve Ferris?’ ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘This is Paul Stanley from Kiss.’ He said, ‘Gene and I listened to the tape last night. We really liked it. We're down at the Record Plant, cutting a record, and we just have guys come play on the records, kind of an audition. Want to come down? Come down tomorrow at 2 [pm].’”
Valley Arts Strat, Goodrich pedal, and CE-1 Chorus in hand, Farris made his way to New York’s famed Record Plant studios. What he witnessed next is forever imprinted in his memory.
“There's four studios there. I'd been in there where somebody had some free time in the middle of the night, but I [had] never been in there to see anything real. They go to Studio D, and that's where Kiss was… sliding glass doors… You look through there, you see these tall guys with black hair, but at that time [1982] you’ve never seen them without makeup.”
After waiting for three hours, and even spotting a certain Bob Kulick – Bruce Kulick’s brother – being ushered out, Farris was finally summoned.
“Paul goes, ‘Hey, I got a Marshall out there, just plug into this.’ I got the engineer sitting here, Gene's standing up, Paul's on the other side, looking at me. He goes, ‘We need an eight-bar solo, it's in D or G – I can't remember – We'll scroll up the bridge, and I'll count you in.’”
This turned out to be the title track of 1982’s Creatures of the Night – and, spoiler alert, his solo even made it onto the final record.
In fact, Stanley and Simmons were so impressed that they called it there and then.
“They go, ‘You dye your hair black?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ ‘So you wear high heels.’ I said, ‘I’ll give it a try,’ and they go, ‘Don't do a fucking thing, man. We got the guy.’”
“I was the guy,” Farris asserts. “Played two solos. So the next week, I go in and play a little more with them.”
Farris thought it was a done deal until around a month later, when he was asked to sing – a request which was less than ideal considering he didn’t see himself as a singer.
“They go, ‘Well, we got to hear you sing.’ Paul Stanley's going, ‘You know, I didn't just think I could sing either.’ I realized at one moment, ‘Well, I'm gonna take a stab at this… but if I don't sing, I don't get the gig.’ So I have the dubious distinction of having played Honky Tonk Women with Kiss, with me singing lead vocal. I wish I had that tape.”
Alas, Farris’ strong suit wasn’t singing, and unfortunately, two or three weeks later, he got the dreaded call.
“Paul calls me and goes, ‘We don't think you're the right guy for the band. We love your playing. We want to hire you to keep you in session.’” While Farris ended up playing on a couple of other tracks as a hired gun, the job went to Vinnie Vincent, who stayed with the band until mid-1984.
And, speaking of guitarists who nearly joined Kiss, Punky Meadows, best known as the guitarist for glam-rock outfit Angel, recently discussed the time he accidentally turned the band down.
