On 21. November 1975, Indiana natives Bill Starkey and Jay Evans founded the legendary Kiss Army after a local radio station refused to play Kiss. During Kiss’ 1975 show at Hulman Civic-University Center in Terre Haute, Starkey was brought on stage and honoured with a plaque from the band!
Although its origins were nearly a year old, the Kiss Army was more or less born in November, 1975. in January of that year, two teens, Jay Evans & William R. Starkey began pestering local radio station WVTS to play Kiss. After being ignored by WVTS program director Rich Dickerson, the two began calling them saying “We are the army, yeah, The Kiss Army.”
– “Kiss Alive Forever: The complete touring history” by Jeff Suhs and Curt Gooch
“For me, Kiss is all about the music,” said Starkey, a 57-year-old Indianapolis Public Schools teacher. “It was never about the costumes. The whole idea behind the Kiss Army was to get them on the radio, because we liked the songs.”
The Kiss Army caught the attention of Kiss management, who made the band’s visit to Terre Haute an unforgettable experience for Starkey.
Starkey met the band at the airport, he appeared with Kiss during a visit to WVTS and he accepted a “Kiss Honorary Member” plaque onstage during the show. A gathering at a Chinese restaurant followed the show, and he ate breakfast with the band at its hotel the next morning.
Mid-1970s Starkey had an idea that he would run the national Kiss Army fan club from its home base of Terre Haute. Actually, a Nov. 10, 1975, letter from Rock Steady Management — the company representing Kiss at the time — to Starkey notes that the band looks forward to the organization of “national Kiss Army headquarters in Terre Haute.”
But Starkey’s leadership of the Kiss Army was short-lived.
In 1976, Starkey received a letter from Boutwell Enterprises of Woodland Hills, Calif., informing him that they would be running the Kiss Army. This for-profit version of the Kiss Army dissolved around 1980, but in the late ’70s, Kiss Army was as dedicated and influential a fanbase as the Grateful Dead’s Deadheads and Jimmy Buffett’s Parrotheads.
In 2003 book “Kiss: Behind the Mask,” Ron Boutwell is quoted as saying the Kiss Army grew to nearly 100,000 members after the release of 1976 album “Destroyer,” and the club collected $5,000 daily in membership dues.
Starkey received no financial compensation. He has been the band’s guest at some concerts in Indiana, and at other times he has fallen off the Kiss radar.
– Read more at IndyStar
Kiss manager Bill Aucoin arranged for the U.S. Army to meet Kiss and escort them to radio station WVTS – a sort of “Kiss Army meets the real Army.” Kiss Army co-founder Bill Starkey also met them at the airport, where Kiss arrived via private jet.
