Backstage Pass Page 5

  Of course, at the end of the day, the only person I can change is me.

  In a band, for it to work, everybody has to do their job and contribute what’s necessary to make it work. When someone doesn’t do that, I can’t do it for them. I can’t do it for them any more than I can make up for what the other person in any kind of failed relationship isn’t doing.

  With Peter, ultimately it wasn’t about his not being able to play; it was about why he wasn’t able to play. It was about him as a person—his failure to commit to being the best he could be, his lack of wanting to do the work. That is much more the point.

  And to some extent, the same was true of Ace. Again, the same resentments that plagued the early days of the band resurfaced, and those resentments came from internal factors. I just became the target, the personification of whatever those guys were dealing with on a personal level.

  Throughout the reunion, Peter felt that the room service people treated him disrespectfully. He went right back to finger pointing and blaming everyone else. You’d think most hotels hired their staff based on their ability to be disrespectful to Peter Criss, because he found such people in every hotel in the world. What could we do about that? I believe that if we all had been committed to bettering ourselves as musicians and working as a team—if we all had understood our place on the team and worked individually to be better at what we did—maybe we could’ve continued.

  When Ace and Peter were out of the band, the remaining members had taken the band down to the dirt and built it back up. So there was no way Ace and Peter were going to return and have everything as it once was. Plus, during those years—the non-makeup years—I had learned a lot of aspects of the business and touring that I hadn’t known before. So for Ace and Peter to come back and be considered equals was ridiculous. It was so unfortunate when they became more concerned with how much money I made versus how much they made. A whole lot of people in the world are richer than I am, but it doesn’t eat at me at all.

  It was sad. But I don’t cry about it.

  Still, it was terrific to get back together, because it put to bed any doubts or thoughts I’d had about possibilities. Without the reunion I would’ve had to live with those thoughts. But I’ve been sleeping real soundly since then, I can assure you.

  I’ll drag something as far as I can, but at some point I know there’s no point in dragging it any farther. When is it enough? When it’s enough. It’s just that simple.

  I got to a point where I was confident that the band wasn’t failing because of me. I’d pushed it in a different direction, and since it was still failing despite my efforts to be different, then it wasn’t due to me. I was certainly cognizant of what the band had dealt with before—my shortcomings and inflexibility, my insecurities and defenses—but by 1996, fifteen to twenty years later, I was a different person.

  From the beginning, the original thinking behind KISS was that the four of us didn’t have to do an equal amount of the work; we each just had to give 100 percent of what we were capable of. That might not be the same thing within any given song. And certainly not within the band as a whole. We weren’t all the same when it came to how much we each contributed creatively to the music or to the overall image or staging. But for us to share equally, we had to contribute as much as each of us was capable of contributing.

  And once again, those guys were not doing that.

  But, again, does anything bad ever happen?

  I don’t think so.

  We dealt with crisis management as time went on. I’m sure that Ace and Peter at this point are either baffled by or dismissive of how we have evolved and what Gene and I have reached in our lives, but the irony is that without the two of them there would be no today. Even so, they had to realize that what’s true today isn’t necessarily true tomorrow—being in a band isn’t a birthright.

  When KISS started out, we believed it was all for one and one for all, and that was the way it would remain until the end. Well, that’s fine until you don’t believe it anymore. Then what do you do? Do you take your ball and glove and go home? That’s for each person to decide. I was in a band with three other guys who shared a sense of camaraderie and commitment to this force called KISS. Like a lot of things in life, I assumed that was forever. Marriage is often the same way.

  What happens when forever comes to an end?

  I refuse to let anyone else decide my fate. I refuse to let anyone else decide my life experience, because we get only one shot at this. I refuse to let a bad bandmate shut down a good band. I refuse to let a bad marriage negate the potential for a good one. I refuse to let a bad marriage make me cynical about the ideals of a great marriage.

  Each person has to make their own rules to live by and, as I’ve said, seek to revise and improve those rules on the basis of their experience.

  If someone doesn’t want to play within the rules, then find someone else to play with. I was stunned when a therapist said to me once, “If you’re working really hard in a relationship, you’re in the wrong relationship.”

  I was like, “What? It’s that simple?”

  Yep.

  And I don’t think family gets a free pass. The fact that you share common blood with somebody shouldn’t allow that person to taint, compromise, or detract from your life. This is the only life I will have, as far as I know, so I don’t care whether it’s a sibling, a mother, a father, or another relative—bringing something in that pollutes or dilutes my experience or the experience of people I care about is unacceptable.

  If you have to work at a relationship too much, you’re in the wrong relationship—no matter what. We all make things much more complex than they need to be sometimes. As opposed to the complicated and unrealistic rules I tried to impose when I was younger, this is something incredibly simple and totally based in common sense and reality.

  Part Two

  Relationships and Family

  7

  Live for Others and Live Forever

  These days, because my frame of mind is different, I’m able to think about the positive things I took from my childhood—maybe in an effort to understand in as much detail as possible how I can best support my own kids. I also think that when we go through the process of deprogramming or unlearning, we can look at the past in a new way, and the negative aspects of it don’t maintain the same hold over us that they used to.

  I remember my mom would scratch my back when I was little, and nothing felt better than that. She had a way of scratching my back that nobody else could replicate. She also used to rock me to sleep sometimes, and I loved being on her lap. I identify very much with some of my mom’s food too. When I make meatloaf for my kids, I always say to them: “You know who made great meatloaf? Omie.”

  It’s interesting to realize the conflicting ways my mom has lived on in my life.

  Again, my parents may have trampled on their kids a bit, but I don’t think it was ever consciously intended to hurt. It was what they’d experienced growing up—the ideology that you don’t make your kids feel too comfortable or too complimented or give them too much approval because withholding all of that will toughen them up. And I laugh, because I know the best way to toughen kids up is to make them feel secure.

  There was always an awkward disconnect between my parents and me. Even so, they were very much about being there for me. It may have been inconsistent and erratic because of their histories, but unlike a lot of parents, they always said, even when I was an adult, “You can call us at any hour.”

  That was not the case with many people I knew. Their parents would tell them not to call after ten p.m. My parents? I remember calling them in the middle of the night. Despite whatever they lacked, they were there for me in the best ways they could be. And that’s important. When I split up with somebody in my early thirties and was pretty broken up, my mom came into the city to see me. It was an odd juxtaposition: despite their shortcomings, my parents were always concerned for me. When I was going through my divorce i
n the late 1990s, I called my mom and sobbed on the phone.

  So I have to say that despite all the odd or unhealthy aspects of our relationship, my parents were there in ways a lot of parents are not. I certainly often focus on their deficiencies, but they both had another side that was very committed and devoted. And that is the side I wish to emulate—I hope without the rest.

  This comes back around to the idea that we never die, because who we are lives on, for better or worse, in our children and their children. Who we are, and who we become, has consequences. How we live matters, because it’s what we pass on to our children and those around us—and it’s what outlives us.

  My mom’s spirit lives on in what I carry of her. I can’t make meatloaf without thinking of her. I can’t eat it without thinking of her. I made it during one of my dad’s recent visits, and it was clear to him what it meant. So, yeah, I carry the good and the bad. The bad I’ve come to terms with, and the good I embrace fondly.

  I certainly hold memories dear that keep my mom alive for me. Still, though I don’t quite understand it, I don’t find myself missing her. Before she died, I was afraid of her passing away, and then it turned out differently than I’d expected. Her death was huge the day it happened, of course—it was life changing. We are always our parents’ children. But ever since she’s been gone, I haven’t missed her. Physically she’s not here, but whatever I got from her is. So for some reason the only void I feel is that I don’t get to see her, but that’s the only thing that’s changed. What I experienced with her is all still here.

  When my dad’s gone, it will be much tougher—because I still have a connection to my parents through him. The more profound loss is when both parents are gone, because then we’re orphans; no matter how old we are, we’re then children without parents. Once my dad’s gone, I fear I’ll become what we all really are inside: a kid. And at that moment, we are children who have been abandoned, for lack of a better word. That eventuality is something I wrestle with.

  I’m well aware with all my children, at their various stages of development in life, that I’m an integral part of who they are and who they will become, and I embrace my role. There’s comfort in knowing that my path to immortality will be paved by helping my children find their own road. It’s hard for people to think of the world without them or of no longer existing. Most religion as it’s written and articulated is just a way for people to come to grips with the finality of life. I don’t have a problem with that, because in my mind, people continue to exist. Stories of an afterlife may help people in their struggle with the idea of the world without them. But guess what? The world existed before we were here, and it will continue without us. We leave our mark, and at least for me, that provides a sufficient sense of comfort.

  There’s consolation in knowing that we continue. Though that didn’t come into play for me until I had children. Until then, I used to wonder what life was about. What was the point? Well, now I know the point is what we do in our lives and what we leave behind. That is very calming and has put a lot of my questions to rest.

  So, in the same way, my mom and dad continue on through a meatloaf recipe or memories of my back being scratched or going to a museum. They are both still with me.

  And because of how involved I am with my children—and I see it already with Evan because he’s older—I know I’ll be there that much more.

  We get out of something what we put into it. And what we put into our children is paramount to who they become and how much of us continues in them. In that way, we are linked. They know it and we know it. Evan and I are very close because of things we’ve gone through and spoken about and shared. That started at an early age. And I already see instances of this in Colin, Sarah, and Emily as well, in the questions they ask and in how Erin and I respond. They are all a continuation of our input, our influence, our spirit. That’s really what this is all about: our spirit lives on in those around us, in the people we affect the most.

  Obviously, for me, children are a part of that equation. But we live on, too, through interactions with nonfamily members, through things we do for others. We can never do too much good, and each time we do good, there are two beneficiaries: the person we help and ourselves. Yeah, I know it sounds corny. If somebody said this to me twenty or thirty years ago, I would’ve thought it was dopey. But perhaps as we move farther down the conveyor belt, we can start to figure out what the endgame is. And it really is true that helping other people achieve their goals or helping them through their struggles means they carry us with them. When we do something good for someone else, they remember it.

  The greatest thing I did in life was to stop being judgmental—stop judging and stop being intolerant or unsympathetic. Once I let go of those things, the world looked better. It looked less ominous, and it looked less menacing and ugly. Doing something like that adds a whole existential aspect to the concept of taking pride in what we do and doing things for the sake of our own personal edification. There’s a kind of cosmic scope to it as well. Because it’s not all for nothing. That’s what I used to believe, and a lot of people probably also believe—that it’s all for nothing.

  What’s the point?

  Well, it turns out the point is that we can make our mark, a mark that will keep us present beyond the time we’re here on Earth. It’s impossible for us to live forever, but our spirit can, through what we impart to the people around us.

  8

  Life Becomes Worthwhile When We Make Others Feel Worthwhile

  They say that the two most important days in our lives are the day we’re born and the day we find out why. And that’s a great insight.

  Except there’s no single day that we find out why. Life tells us why in an ongoing way. Experiencing life and taking it all in is a continuous process.

  Certainly, having children was a major defining moment in my life because it made clear to me that being a parent—being a good parent, being a father—might be the most important reason I was born. Though parenting, too, is a process that evolves. Just as we never arrive in life, we never arrive as parents either, and our dreams and goals shift as a result of circumstances and experience.

  Throughout the course of being a parent I’ve had the sense of its importance reaffirmed. If we are consciously aware of our actions, we will constantly fortify, reevaluate, and acknowledge our purpose. Over time, various ways I have either protected or steered my children, and continue to do so, are added to the answer to the question of why I’m here.

  Even the idea of being a parent changes. Some people think that being a parent is about being “present” and providing for their children—but how do we define that? No one has to be a parent to feed someone, for example, so that can’t be the root of it.

  I was talking to my daughter Sarah recently, and I suddenly said, “I can’t believe I’m your father.” I’ve said this to her before—I say it to all my kids. What I mean is that I’m so blessed to have been able to reach this point.

  When we set goals related to how we want to succeed in life, we never understand the full scope of life’s possibilities. We can only imagine what we can comprehend. The joy of being a parent and seeing these people who are part me is mind-blowing.

  There’s an incredible primal component to being a parent, and part of the power I feel is from something that is not a conscious decision. It transcends that. It is the essence of religion and spirituality. The ultimate affirmation of life is birth. Although I can’t articulate it, what’s so stunning is to suddenly understand the meaning of life and how life is perpetuated, and how, in essence, we never really die.

  We are the remnants of our parents, and we continue on through our children.

  This realization was so enormous in scope to me that, again, it opened a door to something I didn’t even know existed: the potential to give a child everything I didn’t have, and also to heal myself by doing it. There is a reciprocal joy.

  I’ve made the conscious decision that the bes
t way to lead is by example. I become a better person when I make sure I’m not only honest with myself but also honest with my children. I ask myself, Is this behavior I could explain to my children? Thinking this way eliminates many moral dilemmas. It’s a simple gut check. Even if I didn’t have kids, I could apply the same thinking in a more general way: Is this behavior I could honestly defend to future generations?

  A tobacco company once offered KISS sponsorship and much needed financial compensation at a time when we were trying to rebuild the band during personnel changes and upheaval, and our money was dwindling. But if we had accepted that money, how could I explain that to my children? We passed. At a later point someone was interested in partnering with me to create a coffee-table book of porn stars, and I thought about it. No matter how I window-dressed it, it again kept coming back to one thing: How could I explain this to my children? Well, I couldn’t, so it was another no.

  In the case of porn specifically, people have to decide for themselves whether or not it works for them. But for me, the book would have been legitimizing something I wasn’t comfortable with, and I would have been doing it because money was involved. I want my children to know that money can’t change my values. If I’m hoping they will emulate what I say, they should also be able to see that I back it up with what I do. What we do inspires people much more than what we say. That didn’t resonate with me until I got older, but now it’s my mantra with raising kids: lead by example. It’s not what I say; it’s what I do. Or as I heard another parent say, “I’m watching your feet, not your mouth.”

  Sometimes people look at couples who don’t have children and think, “Oh, isn’t that sad?” Well, who’s to say? Nobody is automatically a good parent. We don’t automatically give our children what’s best for them—even if, as it was with my parents, we have that intention. Not everyone automatically puts their children before themselves—some people are too selfish to do so. I certainly don’t think that just by having a child we necessarily develop those desires or drives.