Now all we need is a KISS coffee table!
WHEN Nicholas Buckland picked up a secondhand cassette of KISS compilation Double Platinum at a school fete as a child, he had no inkling it would be the beginning of a lifelong obsession with the band.
It was the one album that didn’t feature an image of the band on the cover, but he soon learned of their larger-than-life image and the massive merchandising machine behind them.
“I grew up collecting toys such as Masters of the Universe,” Buckland recalls.
“So to find a band that were part musicians, part superheroes was a huge attraction!”
And the memorabilia was a big part of it, leading to Buckland chronicling decades of merchandising online.
He has been running the EverythingKISS website and social channels since 2007, amassing nearly 23,000 followers on Facebook, 8000 on Instagram and 4000 on Twitter (including KISS co-founder Gene Simmons).
“KISS brought out so much product I wanted a place that would catalogue it all,” Buckland said.
“Currently there are close to 7000 pieces reviewed by myself.”
Now comes his new coffee table book KISS: The Hottest Brand in the Land, whose title is a spin on the “hottest band in the land” intro to the group’s seminal live album Alive! (later amped up to “hottest band in the world” on Alive II).
“I wanted a more thorough analysis of the classic era, but also, being a fan of beautiful coffee table art books, I wanted to create something really special with this topic and show the pieces like never before,” Buckland says.
The book covers KISS collectibles year-by-year during the era of manager Bill Aucoin in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
“About 60 per cent is from my own personal collection, but we had contributors shoot stuff from their private collections as far as USA, Australia, Europe, Mexico, Norway, Canada and Japan,” Buckland says.
And it didn’t take long for the approval to get the official KISS seal of approval.
