Kiss visits and play a homecoming concert at Cadillac, Michigan

And obviously I wanted to know anyway. And he said, “We have a real apathy problem here at our high school. Our football team is now winning, and it’s bringing the school together.”

I said, “Yes. How does that affect me? (laughter)”

And he said, “Well, it seems like every time we play Kiss music, we win a game.”

And I said, “Well, that sounds great.”

And he says, “Well, I’m wondering if Kiss would come to our high school and kind of help the town, because it’s been a real problem. The kids are down, and there’s lots of apathy and depression and everything.”

And I said, “Really? And you think Kiss could help you with that?”

And he said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Let me call you back.”

And I thought about it, and we had some meetings on it, me and my staff. And I called him back and I said, “Well, if the school gets in Kiss makeup.”

He said, “What?”

I said, “How about if everyone in the school gets in Kiss makeup and Kiss will show up?”

And he said, “How do we do that?” I said, “We’ll make out the forms, and the kids can decide what they want to do, which member. We’ll get the makeup and we’ll send it to you. That’s what you do, and Kiss will show up.”

Now, we were really struggling then, but I just thought that this was kind of an unique thing, and let’s give it a show. To give you an idea, when we had someone actually photograph it in 16-millimeter film, we could only afford so much film. I mean, we were lucky we got any of it. I mean, literally it was like by the skin of our teeth. And paying for the makeup and everything, oh my God, this was a tough road.

But the school didn’t know that. They assumed that Kiss was this huge group. They hadn’t really made a lot money then, and if they didn’t, we didn’t. So it was a tough road at that time.

Anyway, so they agreed to do it. And then everything grows from that. If you let your mind wander and say, “What else can we do to really make this work?” We’ve already hired a cameraman to go and shoot as much film as we could afford.

Then we heard back, “The mayor would like to give you a breakfast the next day before you leave.”

Okay! So I said, “Well, this is really getting exciting. So how about if we fly in by helicopter? That’s kind of a Beatles thing.”

And we found out there was an airport very close to this school. So we could afford to have the helicopter go up over the trees, land on the football field, and go back. That’s it. (laughter) Five minutes, that’s all we could afford. But it looked fantastic.

So that’s how they arrived. We went to the airport. The airport was literally a mile or two away, it was nothing. And they get in the helicopter, went up over the trees, down, and of course, the whole school was in Kiss makeup and they had a parade. They had changed the streets to “Kiss Street” and everything else. And it was quite amazing. And it not only helped us, but it brought the whole town together. So it was positive for everyone.

And then the highlight for me was, the next morning, there was this breakfast. And we were gonna take pictures with the mayor and the senator, and the fire chief and the police chief and everything, right? So we get there, and the mayor’s in makeup, the fire chief is in makeup, the police chief is in makeup, and their wives are in makeup (laughter).
There were pictures, which you might have seen. But it’s bizarre to think that it really captured the town. And it fortunately helped them. It was great. It was great for us, it was great for them, but it came because of a phone call that I said, “You know, this could work. Let’s take this chance.”

And could we afford to do this? Well, maybe not, but somehow we’ll scrape the money together to do it, because this sounds really unique. And we have a whole town that wants you there, it’s kind of, “Wow.”

There’s nothing in the book that tells you to do this. And there’s no sane way of saying, “We’re gonna do something when we can’t afford to do it, and how are we gonna do this, and are you out of your mind? And what do you think, this town is really gonna do this? Do you think the kids are gonna do it? I can hear all the answers that would normally come back. But we never thought that way. So I think that’s what helped pull it off.

And that’s an example of, if you don’t play by the book necessarily, and you never know what’s gonna come across your path. And you just have to have either a second sense, or have someone who will guide you so that you will have the chance to have these unique experiences that could help your career.