KISS super-fan Mike McCready of Pearl Jam has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the band’s upcoming induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in a new essay written for Rolling Stone.
“I’ve been watching the Hall of Fame situation play out,” writes the guitarist. “My thoughts are: I saw Heart play with their original lineup, and I went and jammed with them when they got inducted in the Hall of Fame. And then they got up with their new lineup, and everybody loved it. And it can be done, and I wish they would do it. It just makes the fans happy. And that's the point, in my mind.”
Due to feuding amongst its original members and a disagreement with the Rock Hall over their induction, KISS will not be performing at the ceremony.
McCready’s essay recalls his introduction to KISS by a friend on school bus, which was a life-changing event for the sixth-grader.
“He had a lunch box that had Kiss on it,” explains McCready.”’What is that?’ Then he played me some music and I was hooked immediately. Then I had a Kiss room and I started playing guitar. They were the Beatles to me. They are the reason I started playing music.”
“Pearl Jam sit down and have conversations about Kiss all the time on tour,” he adds. “My band used to do ‘C'Mon and Love Me.’ [drummer] Matt Cameron played in a Kiss tribute band when he was 14. They got so big around San Diego that they got a cease and desist order from Casablanca Records. [bassist] Jeff Ament used to play ‘She’ in his band Deranged Diction. There’s a Kiss through-line to a lot of the music that came out of Seattle, and it hasn’t been talked about a lot.”
Read McCready’s full essay at Rolling Stone here.
On April 10, the original lineup of KISS will be inducted into the Rock Hall by Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello; other honorees include Nirvana, Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates, Cat Stevens and Linda Ronstadt. The ceremony will be held at New York’s Barclays Center and HBO will record the event for broadcast in May.
See also:
KISS featured on In The Studio
KISS to be inducted into Rock Hall by Tom Morello
Search KISS at hennemusic
