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By Christopher David<\/p>\n
KISS is currently on tour this year with the “Freedom To Rock” tour. They’ve got a new live DVD coming out soon called, “KISS Rocks Vegas” soon as well. Lead guitarist, singer songwriter, producer, editor and current Space Man – Tommy Thayer – has a lot on his plate but still entertains thousands of fans daily on the road with KISS.<\/p>\n
In The Loop Magazines writer, Christopher David caught up with the masked man and talked all about his amazing life on the road and behinds the scenes.<\/p>\n
Christopher David (In the Loop Magazine):<\/strong> There\u2019s a lot going on with KISS this year, and the \u2018Freedom to Rock\u2019 tour is well underway! How have things been going this time around?<\/p>\n Tommy Thayer<\/strong>: The tour\u2019s going really well, and the interesting thing is all the new people coming to see us, younger kids, new recruits to the KISS Army! Every night onstage Paul asks how many people have never seen KISS before, and it\u2019s amazing how many people raise their hands.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s inspiring, honestly, because any band that\u2019s been around a long time, you have to constantly attract new fans, and we\u2019re doing that, so it\u2019s an inspiring and gratifying thing to see.<\/p>\n ITLM:<\/strong> That\u2019s great to hear. It\u2019s interesting, too, because there aren\u2019t a lot of bands now that have been around for as long as you guys, and it seems to be a bit unique to KISS, that you\u2019re clearly bringing in a lot of new fans and pushing forward a lot more actively than many of the \u2018older\u2019 rock bands. From a fan\u2019s perspective, that seems to be the case.<\/p>\n TT<\/strong>: I think that\u2019s true, and I think part of the reason is the wide demographic. At our shows, it\u2019s a wide demographic of age, from the youngest to the oldest and everyone in between, and that\u2019s also great in terms of the life of the band. There\u2019s not just a certain window of ages or a certain age group, and I think one things that adds to it is that people bring their friends, fathers bringing their kids, you know, and it\u2019s this whole generational passing of the torch kind of thing. You see teenagers, you see everybody \u2013 I think that really adds to the surge of new fans.<\/p>\n ITLM:<\/strong> What\u2019s cool about that is that you bring up word of mouth being one of the attracting factors \u2013 and ultimately, that\u2019s how KISS became big in the first place, word of mouth, people talking about the band.<\/p>\n TT:<\/strong> Totally! That\u2019s what it\u2019s about. These days, it\u2019s definitely a different world, and attracting new fans and that sort of thing, it\u2019s a different approach. It\u2019s not like making a new record, promoting the record, going to radio \u2013 those conventional types of outreach aren\u2019t there anymore, and you have to think of new ways to get the band in front of the people. Touring is a big part of that, obviously, and other projects that we do, outside-of-the-box projects, they lend to that as well.<\/p>\n ITLM<\/strong>: Yes, and in talking to different bands\u2014new bands, established artists\u2014it does seem to be a bit of the \u2018wild west\u2019 right now, like the reset button got hit on the music industry and everyone\u2019s trying to figure out the best approach.<\/p>\n TT<\/strong>: Yeah, and it can be tough. I was actually misquoted recently, that I said that \u2018making new records was a waste of time.\u2019 That wasn\u2019t the sentiment of what I said at all, I was saying that it was more of a challenge to do a record, and then not selling records, that makes it difficult, but I applaud new groups that are out there making records, other groups making new music and getting it out there and I\u2019m all for it.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s the only way that things are ever going to move forward. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s out of the question that we\u2019ll do another record at some point, but it\u2019s not something we\u2019re going to do every year or anything.<\/p>\n ITLM:<\/strong> The role of the \u2018album,\u2019 that piece of the process, has really changed, regardless of where a band is. It used to be a regimented process\u2014album, single, radio, tour\u2014a cycle that was just perpetuated, and you\u2019re right that a record doesn\u2019t really figure in to the overall scheme in the way that it once did.<\/p>\n TT:<\/strong> Right, this is a day and age when kids pack arenas watching gamers. You have to adapt, because it\u2019s not a conventional path anymore.<\/p>\n ITLM: <\/strong>You mentioned the \u2018rite of passage\u2019 as parents introduce their kids to KISS, families, friends. That\u2019s how I became a fan back in the \u201870s, my parents were into KISS from day one. Who were some of the bands that really hooked you when you were young and led you to where you ended up with a career in rock?<\/p>\n TT: <\/strong>Well, you know, when you\u2019re thirteen or fourteen, that\u2019s a very impressionable time, and that\u2019s when you really attach yourself to a certain type of music. When I was that age, it was the early \u201870s, and to me, that was a golden age of hard rock, though it was kinda second generation, because you had that first wave of the more blues-based rockers in the \u201960s like Cream and Led Zeppelin. By the time I was there, it was more Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, even KISS, Aerosmith. And then a little bit later, one of your hometown\u2019s finest \u2013 Cheap Trick.<\/p>\n ITLM:<\/strong> Absolutely!<\/p>\n TT:<\/strong> One of the greatest bands of all time. I\u2019m a huge fan of Cheap Trick. All those great early to mid-70s hard rock bands had a huge impression on me.<\/p>\n ITLM:<\/strong> That really was a golden era of defining music. I wonder if we\u2019ll ever see a time period like that again that sets the tone so much for what comes after it.<\/p>\n TT<\/strong>: It\u2019s all in the eyes of the beholder, you know, it\u2019s subjective. If you asked Paul and Gene, they\u2019d tell you it was the mid-to-late 60s, so I think it depends on how old you are, it\u2019s all generational. You meet other KISS fans, and they\u2019re like, \u2018oh, man, when I grew up it was (1992\u2019s) Revenge<\/em>\u2019 or something like that. That\u2019s when they grew up, and they were discovering music and girls and learning to play guitar. It really depends on how old you were when you were enlightened!<\/p>\n ITLM:<\/strong> I\u2019ve seen the light\u2014and it was the KISS logo, onstage! So you\u2019re doing a really cool thing on this tour \u2013 many KISS fans already know how extensive your work has been with veterans and how dedicated to charity you are as a band, so tell us a little about the \u201cHiring Our Heroes\u201d program and how it got started.<\/p>\n TT:<\/strong> Well, first off, it\u2019s very genuine, it\u2019s not just a shtick or something, it really comes from the heart.\u00a0\u00a0 I grew up in a military family – my father is a retired Brigadier General in the Army, and Paul, Gene, and Eric are all true supporters of our veterans and their care, and we\u2019ve done different types of things before on tours where we\u2019ve donated so much per ticket to things like Wounded Warriors, and now we\u2019re doing this Hiring Our Heroes program so that we can bring awareness to veterans coming back from overseas in need of jobs and giving people opportunities to work. At the end of our show, we honor the veterans onstage, and we\u2019re doing \u201cThe Star-Spangled Banner\u201d again, and it really gets everyone fired up.<\/p>\n ITLM<\/strong>: It\u2019s been very cool to watch the veterans work with you backstage and as roadies over the course of the tour so far! (Note: videos and info on HOH can be found at www.kissonline.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n With regard to the tour, at this point in your life as a band, how do you go about putting together a setlist for a tour, especially when you\u2019re not supporting a specific record?<\/p>\n TT:<\/strong> Coming up with a setlist is always a bit of a challenge, because different fans have different perspectives on what they want to hear. We really want to cover the classics because most of the people want to hear those, and then you have some diehard fans who\u2019ve been around for years who want to hear some deep cuts from Dressed to Kill<\/em> or something, and you want to try to keep everyone happy to a certain degree. At the end of the day, we follow our own instincts, and I think a big factor for us is the dynamic of the show \u2013 you want to keep it exciting, so there are certain songs or certain orders that keep the shows exciting.<\/p>\n ITLM:<\/strong> I have to say that my jaw dropped when I saw that you guys had recently added \u201cFlaming Youth\u201d (from 1976\u2019s Destroyer<\/em>) to the show.<\/p>\n TT<\/strong>: Yeah, \u201cFlaming Youth\u201d is a song that hasn\u2019t been performed live much at all, and a good example of a cool song and a great singalong that we wanted to throw in there to spice things up a little bit!<\/p>\n ITLM: <\/strong>Before we go, what can you tell us about this KISS Rocks Vegas<\/em> package you have coming out this month?<\/p>\n TT: <\/strong>KISS Rocks Vegas<\/em> will be out on DVD and Blu-ray, and I produced it, actually! There are different packages available, there\u2019s a deluxe package that has a 60-page hardboard book, vinyl. True KISS fans will really want to check it out!<\/p>\n For more on KISS, click here<\/a><\/p>\n For more on Tommy Thayer, click here<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Tommy](\"https:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tommy-Thayer-of-KISS-guitar-Chicago.jpg\")
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