On 1. April 1975, Paul Stanley smashed his guitar on stage for the first time, during the encore of the song “Black Diamond” when Peter Criss started smashing his drums. Kiss filmed four songs for the The Midnight Special TV show at NBC Studios, and appropriately enough Paul played his white Gibson Midnight Special for the occasion.
The guitar smashing became part of the shows from January 1976.
Late 1974 Kiss had secured a sponsor deal with Gibson, and got cheap Gibson Marauder guitars for $65 a piece to smash. “Truly, the Marauder was the guitar that I broke on stage every night, I never played one live! They were horrible.” (Vintage Guitar, March 1997)
According to Bill Aucoin, the Marauders that were smashed were defective, B-stock or just plain fakes:
“It cost us $65 a piece. What they would do was, they would agree to take broken parts or whatever they had and make bodies. There were no real guts to it. Then we would saw the back of it [the neck] so it would break easy, because Paul couldn’t break them.”
– “Warman’s Field Guide to Kiss Collectibles” p. 499
Photo from London, Ontario, Canada, 7/18/1977
