26. April 1974: Kiss returns to Bell Sound Studios to record "Kissin' Time"

On 26. April 1974, Kiss returned to Bell Sound Studios for two days of sessions that resulted in the recording of “Kissin’ Time,” initially intended to only be non-album single in conjunction with the planned national Casablanca-sponsored kissing contest. As a result the debut album was remastered on May 10. with the new song replacing “Deuce” as the first track on side two of the vinyl. Copies of the original “NB” Warner album release soon started to appear with the song included resulting in what has become the definitive version of the album.

Julian Gill
“The original rather dated bubble-gum lyrics needed to go in order for the song to serve its promotional purpose. According to Kenny, “We sat there, we all had pads and pencils, and we just went around the board. And we went, ‘Alright, well… they’re Kissin’ in’… and somebody would go, ‘Detroit’! And we’d go, ‘Alright, they’re kissin’ in Detroit.’ And that’s how it went. We re-wrote the song in like twenty minutes. We changed it to some Rock ‘N Roll cities, and shit like that, and went in and cut it. And that came out on the second pressing of the same first album”. Gene disputes Kenny’s story suggesting in his biography that he rewrote the song by himself. Paul, Gene, and Peter shared the lead-vocals on the verses. The recording of “Kissin’ Time” caused plenty of problems for the band and they may be considered unwilling victims in the creation of the song. Kenny Kerner recalled, “That was the only fight we had during the recording of that entire album! And the fight was not with us and the band, it was the band and the producers against the record company”. Neil Bogart had many visionary ideas, but he’d also had major success in the brief “bubble-gum” musical movement of the late-60s. He could pick a gimmick out of the air, and this one seemed perfect for his band, and was simply a way he thought he could get more exposure for the band (but probably more importantly for Casablanca). While the band and producers weren’t enthusiastic about the idea, they didn’t have any choice. Neil ultimately held the purse-strings, and a newly signed band lacked any clout to go against the person who was ultimately their boss. They caved in.

The chart performance of the album was hardly staggering, even with all of the promotional efforts. It debuted at position #211 and immediately stagnated, but by June had risen to a high position of #87. This high point was undoubtedly the result of some of the exposure garnered by the “Kissin’ Time” single and related promotional hype. The single was released on May 10, backed with “Nothin’ To Lose.” That B-side had generally been ignored by radio when released (as an A-side) in March. Like the album, “Kissin’ Time” didn’t trouble the charts only reaching #83 during a five week chart run. On Cashbox the single did marginally better, during a four week run, reaching #79. Still, while performance on either chart was not spectacular it was notable as the band’s first charting single. The single helped raise the album on the charts even though, at that point, it was not even included on any pressings of the album! Everything surrounding this promotion was pure Neil Bogart. He envisaged a massive media campaign around the song and kissing contests around the nation. Casablanca issued a press release with his usual amount of hype detailing the contest: “This is one of the largest promotions in the history of radio… we are trying to get Howard Cosell to cover our finals for ABC ‘Wide World Of Sports’… Tying in with the Kiss promotion is the release this week of a new single by Kiss especially recorded for the contests… Each participating station in ‘The Great Kiss Off’ will be given 250 Kiss T-shirts, 500 posters promoting the station and the contest… The winners will be flown May 31 to Los Angeles to see and meet Kiss as they perform at the Long Beach Auditorium. From there they will depart on an 8-day cruise to Acapulco to recuperate”.

It is likely that at least some of the late-May shows that they performed “Kissin’ Time” in their set, but it certainly didn’t survive long. According to Gene the song, simply “didn’t feel right for us.” They had essentially been bullied into recording the song and they weren’t going to go out of their way to include it in live shows since it really hadn’t been that successful anyway. Regardless, it was too danceable and clashed with the band’s “thunderock.” Neil had apparently indicated to the band that the single would only be used in conjunction with the contest promotion. However, when the opportunity arose Casablanca reissued the album with the track, even before their split from the Warner Brothers distribution deal in the summer.”
– “Kiss Album Focus: Volume I: Kings of the Night Time World” by Julian Gill

Larry Harris
“As soon I said goodbye to Eddie, I called Neil. By the next morning, he had a plan. We would arrange for radio stations throughout the country to compete in a huge national Kiss-Off. Eddie had not been the only one to notice the success of the WSHE contest. Scott Shannon, a DJ at WMAK in Nashville, had the inspired idea for KISS to record a cover of Bobby Rydell’s “Kissin’ Time” as part of the promotion. Neil loved it. KISS hated the thought, however. They and their producers, Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise, were dead set against it; they didn’t want to record a cover song when they were perfectly capable of writing their own material. Neil always tried to be positive—positive people were successful people, as far as he was concerned—but if he couldn’t get his way through ebullient enthusiasm, he had no problem rolling up his sleeves and wrestling you to the ground. After his cajoling had failed (and, I’ll admit, KISS doing Bobby Rydell struck me as pretty odd, but I wasn’t about to tell Neil that), he told them, “Look, either you record the song or we’ll pull our support for you.”

It was pure bluff. KISS was our first signing, and, frankly, they were the only thing we had going for us. Neil would never have purposefully killed their career. I knew this, but the one bit of leverage Neil had was that the KISS team was even greener than we were. And with the band’s outlandish appearance and their refusal to tone down their gimmick, they had to recognize that their chances of finding another record company that believed in them were limited. They caved. Neil won, but he didn’t want to fracture the relationship, so he softened his stance. “C’mon guys, the promotion will work great, and it’s just one song. As a concession, I promise that the song will only be a single, and not part of any future KISS album.” By April 26, KISS was back at Bell Sound Studios in Manhattan, cutting the track in one twelve-hour session. We rush released “Kissin’ Time” as a single and, in direct violation of Neil’s promise, we included it on all new pressings of KISS’s first album starting in June.

The series of kissing contests, which were collectively dubbed “The Great Kiss-Off,” began on May 10. The single’s lyrics contained the names of many cities around the country, and we used this to our advantage, matching those cities to radio markets: WAYS (Charlotte), WOKY (Milwaukee), WIXY (Cleveland), WSAJ (Cincinnati), WCFL (Chicago), KLIF (Dallas), WFIL (Philly), WQXI (Atlanta), WMAK (Nashville), KJR (Seattle), CKLW (Detroit), KILT (Houston), and WPIX (New York). The names of all these stations/markets, except for Houston and New York, were included in the reworked lyrics for the single. We ran a prominent ad in the May 18, 1974 issue of Billboard (which would have hit newsstands around May 7) to bring national industry attention to the events. The lyrics made radio airplay easier to come by, because radio stations loved to play songs that mentioned their city.

Here is how the event worked. First, the stations would have a kissing contest in their own markets. Then the local winners would compete for the national title. The publicity would be enormous, and it would go on for many weeks, because it spanned both the local contests and the final national event.

On June 8, the day of the National Kiss-Off, Neil, Buck, Joyce, and I went to Woodfield Mall (then the largest in the world) in Schaumburg, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. KISS came too, and they walked around the mall in full regalia. There was heavy local media coverage for the event, and many Chicago-area celebrities were on hand. Radio personality Larry Lujack was master of ceremonies. A stage had been erected in a large open area in the middle of the mall. Neil got up on the stage and started asking the crowd for donations to a local hospital charity. He was failing miserably—I don’t think he raised a single dollar. After an hour or so, he had Buck go up to the next level of the mall, stand at the railing where he could see the stage below, and wait for a cue. Again Neil addressed the respectably large crowd that had gathered on both levels, but this time he made it about the children: “C’mon folks, the children really need your money.” At that moment, Buck released a big stack of one-dollar bills into the air, and suddenly it was raining money. People on all parts of the upper level started throwing down ones and fives, and a few tens and twenties—hundreds of them. People on the lower level were picking up the bills, crumpling them, and throwing them toward the stage. It’s a miracle Neil didn’t incite a riot. Aside from performing these onstage fiduciary duties, Neil or I, using a bank of phones, reported every half hour to the participating radio stations on how their contestants were faring. The stations, in turn, aired the results, building excitement in each city. These were mostly Top 40 stations, as Neil wanted to use the outlets that had the highest ratings. Besides, few rock stations would participate in such an obviously commercial event. The national media, television and print, picked up the story, and the KissOff became one of the most successful KISS promotions ever, though the contestants seemed to garner more attention than the band.”
– “And party every day: The inside story of Casablanca Records” by Larry Alan harris