Kiss enters Electric Lady Studios to start recording “Destroyer”

On 3. September 1975, Kiss started the first recording sessions for the album “Destroyer” at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, during a brief break between the “Dressed to Kill” and “Alive!” tours. The basic album tracks were recorded during this time. Bob Ezrin, who had previously worked with Alice Cooper, was brought in to produce the album.

The majority of the recording sessions for “Destroyer” took place in January 1976, after the conclusion of the “Alive!” tour. Ezrin introduced to Kiss sound effects, strings, screaming children, reversed drums (on “God of Thunder”) and a children’s choir. The song “Great Expectations” uses the first phrase of the main theme from the second movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 (known as “Sonata Pathétique”), but the songwriting is credited to Simmons and Ezrin.

Corky Stasiak:
“I have diaries going back over twenty-five years. The sessions for Destroyer started on January 4, 1976, and we finished mixing the album on February 3. We did the binaural recording of the introduction of “Detroit Rock City” on February 4 and mixed that into the record. Then we mastered the album on February 5.”
– “Kiss: Behind The Mask” by David Leaf.

Jeff Suhs and Curt Gooch:
“The recording of Destroyer, KISS’s fourth studio album, was divided into two sections separated by five months of touring. Most of the album’s basic tracks were laid down at Electric Lady between September 3 and 6, 1975, a full six months prior to its release on March 15, 1976; the recording was completed in January of that year. Although it’s not often discussed, the mixing sessions for Alive! and the first Destroyer sessions were only separated by a matter of days.”
– “Kiss Alive Forever” by Jeff Suhs and Curt Gooch.