MY KISS ARMY STORY
September 10th 1975 KISS ALIVE
Was released but it was probably
Not until October or November of 75
That I was introduced to KISS.
I was 13 years old and I was asked recently
Why am I such a huge fan and why am I still so loyal to this teenage group at the age of 63? Why do I still listen to their music and watch their videos and wear their T-shirts and hoodies and jackets as if I am still a teenager? Why do I still talk about them with passion and love and joy? I have only shared this story with a few people and I may have touched on it before but here I am watching the KISS ****** Circus tour DVD With all of the original members after their reunion in 1996 so this tour was 1998.
At 13 a young person can be easily influenced and impressed and impacted by things positively and can easily be brainwashed and manipulated and be destroyed in a negative manner as well.
That’s the problem with today’s youth in this world gone crazy but this isn’t about that.
This is about me at 13 and how a couple of subtle events changed my life and direction and even so I got off track and had to have other events happen to get to where I am today. So at the age of 13 I was living in a very small town in Ohio called Hebron.
I pretty much knew everyone and everyone knew me or at least knew of me.
I was one of four in this town that everyone definitely knew about. My little brother Jimbo and my friend Jerry Gill and his little brother John. My brother and I were victims of child abuse, mentally and physically
at the hands of an Alcoholic Father.
Don’t get me wrong we always had food to eat and clothes to wear and a roof over our heads and I will forever be grateful for that.
My father would never fail to tell me how worthless I was and it was so much so that I believed him. One day in October or November of 1975, early in the morning I walked out of that house with the intention to commit suicide. I was 13 remember and I didn’t know how I was going to do this but it was definitely on my mind and that was that. I’m walking through the front yard with my head down and crying and I’m getting really close to the street so automatically I put my head up to look both ways before crossing the street, Ironic right, I was going to **** myself yet I looked up to see if any cars were coming so that I didn’t get hit by a car. When I look back at this moment I am also reminded that not only did I learn about KISS but it’s also most definitely when I found out about Angels. Angels from Heaven and Earthly Angels that God sends us to either briefly inject into our lives or permanently inject into our lives. Like people we meet that are no longer part of our lives like our friends in Hebron and like my Wife Cindy, whom I definitely feel is an Angel sent to me from God.
So I look up and unknowingly at the time
God sent me one of those brief Angels
In fact I only saw him and interacted with him twice in my life. The first encounter was this morning and this moment.
I saw a blonde haired blue eyed boy walking down my street and I had never seen him before and he was wearing a Jean jacket because it was fall and the air was crisp.
I didn’t wear a jacket because who needs a jacket when you’re just going to **** yourself.
On the back of his jacket was the KISS
Logo but I didn’t know what it was.
I thought he was a gang member and it was the name of his gang. I didn’t know anything about Rock Groups or anything. The only music I owned at the time was a an LP
By CW McCall titled Black Bear Road
Because he had a hit song called
Convoy and my mother bought for me on my 13th birthday back in March of 75.
So I walked up to him and started pushing him and hitting him for no reason and I was saying so is that the name of your gang?
Well there’s nobody here but us and you ain’t so tough without your friends around.
He begged me to stop hitting him and pushing him and he told me it’s the name of a Rock Group called KISS. He said he would love to come back with some of their music and let me hear them and maybe we could be friends. I told him what I had set out to do that day and he begged me to wait and let him come back with their music and be his friend and he told me that he needed a friend. So nobody had ever begged me or
Seemed to care for me like that, or at least in my 13 year old mind And I had never had any one need me because I was the one who always needed someone. So my path was changed for that day and that moment and I was curious about this Group and the possibility of having a new friend.
The following weekend I went outside and I was going to go next door to my friend’s house and I spot that kid headed my way with an LP in his hand.
He said we didn’t really introduce ourselves the last time we met so
I’m Jim Hunt and I said I’m Chuck Kean.
He and I walked back into the house and my brother Joey was there and he had a Hi Fi
Stereo cabinet. When you opened the top lid you exposed an AM/FM radio and a turn table and beneath that was one giant Woofer Speaker. We asked Joe if we could put a KISS record on and Joey said knock yourself out just be careful. Jim Hunt Gave me the LP and it was KISS ALIVE, A double LP and I proceeded to place side one on the stereo. As the concert began I remember instantly being blown away and I was holding the LP cover in my hands, and on the front cover the picture was a stage with four guys in costume with painted faces and long black hair and four different characters.
A Demon playing Bass guitar , A Star Child playing Rhythm guitar and a Spaceman playing lead guitar and a CatMan playing the Drums and each sharing vocals but mostly dominant was the Star Child and the Demon. I heard explosions and on the front cover it showed evidence with smoke.
The crowd was crazy the music was loud and the explosions were timely and the lyrics were amazing and when you put it all together it was overwhelming to the senses.
Needless to say I was hooked. On the back
Cover was a picture of a packed Arena at the time I didn’t know what Arena but later found out that it was Cobo Hall in Detroit Michigan. We got to side three and the raw talent and material was powerful and relentless and there was an amazing drum solo, on the middle song Titled
100,000 years and at the end of the Solo
The Star Child began addressing the audience like an Evangelist in a Church addressing a congregation. And at one point he says the following.
If you say you believe in Rock & Roll
Then stand up for what you believe in,
Come on get up. And the crowd is going crazy and he says now clap your hands because that’s what Rock & Roll is all about.
He continued if you say you believe in Rock & Roll then let me hear you say Rock & Roll.
Now come on I know you can do better than that. Let’s try it again and this time let’s say it like we mean it Rock & Roll Now I know if you really wanted to you can bring the roof down Rock & Roll. Then he sings do you feel proud, do you feel proud, do you feel alright. Tears are flowing from my eyes,
Remember I’m 13 and I am listening to something I didn’t know existed a world that I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams in fact I didn’t even know that I could dream. The kids in the audience were having the time of their lives and they were living life. I wanted to **** myself I was dead inside.
As subtle as it was I thought to myself that I wanted to live long enough to experience this kind of living, to be a kid in that audience, to live long enough to know what it was like to live. Four years later in 1979
I’m 2,000 miles away from Ohio living in Phoenix Arizona and I am wearing a KISS
T-Shirt and my face is painted with the
CatMan makeup and I’m in that audience in the Phoenix Arena. I’m having the time of my life and I’m kissing this young beautiful girl that I never met until this very moment because she was crazy for the CatMan.
That night I thought to myself maybe life is worth living. I never saw Jim Hunt or that stranger Girl in the audience of the KISS
concert. After that night I became the dedicated passionate loyal KISS fan that I am today and from that moment on every time I am going through some rough times
KISS music is what gets me through it even now at my age of 63 sitting here on my couch listening to KISS. I feel that
Jim Hunt was an Angel and I feel like KISS
are Angels and that Random beautiful Girl
Who made me feel like a King even for just one night was an Angel. So for every one out there who has ever wondered why I am the
CRAZY KISS FAN, now you know!!!
God Bless!!!!