Kiss releases their fifth studio album “Rock and Roll Over”

On 11. November 1976, Kiss released their fifth studio album “Rock and Roll Over”, only eight months after their classic album “Destroyer”. It was recorded at the Star Theatre in Nanuet, New York.

To get the proper drum sound, Peter Criss recorded his tracks in a bathroom, communicating via video-link with the rest of the band.

Three of Gene Simmons’ songs are clear re-workings of demos from the 1975 Magna Graphics Studios demo: “Ladies Room” is based on “Don’t Want Your Romance”; “Love’Em and Leave’Em” is based on “Rock and Rolls-Royce” and “Calling Dr. Love” is a re-working of “Bad, Bad Lovin'” Criss sings “Baby Driver” – a rewrite of a Peter Criss/Stan Penridge demo from Criss’s pre-Kiss band Lips – and “Hard Luck Woman,” a song Paul Stanley originally planned to pitch to Rod Stewart, but Simmons insisted Criss sing it. “Hard Luck Woman” did not equal the success of “Beth”, but became another top 20 single. “Calling Dr. Love” became a concert staple. This is the first Kiss album to not feature a writing credit from Ace Frehley.

The cover artwork is by artist Michael Doret, who worked with Kiss again on 2009’s “Sonic Boom”. Inside the sleeve, there were a sticker of the cover art and a glossy photo press release pamphlet. The live album “Kings Among Scotland,” by Anthrax, pays homage to the artwork.

Paul Stanley:
“I really like that one. We wanted to retain some of the stuff that Bob [Ezrin] taught us, but get a little more raw. We got scared after Destroyer and decided to go back to something that was more familiar and that was the Rock and Roll Over album. It worked fine. But quite honestly the sound of Destroyer next to Rock and Roll Over was like a step toward something that was more familiar and less adventurous. It’s interesting, as we were doing Destroyer I remember being incredibly excited about the ground we were breaking and sonically what we were exploring and thematically what we were doing. It was really a step that I was excited to take. Once it was done we certainly had no intention of seeing our success wane. It was received well but in some ways tepidly compared to what we were expecting. At that point, to sell eight hundred and some odd thousand albums was a feat, but to us it was not what we had in mind. When Destroyer met with kind of quizzical response from people our first thought was, “Let’s go back in on the next album to what’s more familiar,” which is chickenshit and a matter of self-preservation. I was happy to go back to that template but again I was constantly disappointed with what those albums ended up sounding like. I wanted them to sound as good as a Zeppelin album. There was no reason that sonically we shouldn’t have sounded ballpark to the heaviest bands out there. It certainly doesn’t fall on our shoulders because we were babes in the woods. When we decided to take a left turn after Destroyer, I still had hope beyond hope that we could capture what we were about in the studio. It wasn’t like chasing the Holy Grail or the brass ring, it was done all the time. Unfortunately, some of the people we worked with didn’t have the capacity to do that. I like Rock and Roll Over very much. It’s a great album. I just think it’s so unfortunate that the recordings are so marginal. I’d give Rock and Roll Over five stars.”
– “KISS: Behind the Mask – The Official Authorized Biography” by David Leaf and Ken Sharp