By Shane Pinnegar / 100% ROCK MAGAZINE
There�s two Tommy Thayers. There�s the all-American chisel-jawed boy from Oregon who played in garage bands during high school and started the band Black n� Blue with best friend and classmate Jamie St James, before going on to work in video production and tour manage his ex-producer�s band. And then, there�s Tommy Thayer, the successor to the role Ace Frehley created in KISS � The Spaceman.
That producer was Gene Simmons, KISS bass player and singer, and after the bottom fell out of the hard rock industry in the mid-90s, Thayer found ever-increasing work with Simmons and KISS, first as a session guitarist, then co-ordinating a lot of their video releases (including the KISStory series), road managing the band during the reunion tours with the original line-up, and finally, as part of the band. Since slapping on the greasepaint as an official member of KISS in 2002, Thayer has played countless shows as lead guitarist, made two albums with the band, and even made his singing debut.
Suffice to say, we have plenty of questions�
100% ROCK: Hey Tommy, thanks for your time today � it�s much appreciated.
Tommy: I sure appreciate your time as well, and I look forward to talking a little bit about what�s going on with me and KISS.
100% ROCK: Of course we�re always excited when KISS comes back to town, and you�ve got the huge Spider stage set coming this time around, which just looks magnificent.
Tommy: It�s a fantastic stage. Before I did any interviews, I double checked with our management people and our production managers, just to make sure that we are, in fact, bringing the Spider stage to Australia � because I was doing some interviews before we went to Europe this summer, and I was saying, �Yeah, we�re bringing the Spider stage,� and then I found out later that we weren�t even bringing the Spider stage to Europe!
Yes, the Spider stage� it�s really very cool. You just have to see it � it�s all-encompassing. It�s huge. We come down on it. It moves constantly through the show. It�s a great visual and it�s probably one of the coolest stage sets that KISS has ever toured with.
100% ROCK: I�ve seen some of the photos, and it really does look magnificent, but between that thing moving around and all the pyro going off, is it dangerous to be up there? Do you have to really be careful you�re not in the wrong spot at the wrong time?
Tommy: There�s no doubt about it, you have to absolutely be careful. We rehearse the show [so] we know where everything�s going off. We know where the pyro spots are and where they�re placed. It�s well-rehearsed, and we�ve got a very professional pyrotechnics team with us, so fortunately, we�ve never had any mishaps in the long history of KISS and certainly while I�ve been around. Hopefully we�ll keep it that way. Again, it�s very professionally done. We know where everything�s going to be going off and where it�s positioned and where it�s placed. There�s a lot of preparation and work that goes into it in advance, and it�s, like I said, very professionally done [so] we�re in good shape.
100% ROCK: Looking forward to seeing it. KISS has got such a huge back catalogue, not only of hits, but of much beloved album tracks as well. How hard is it, when you start a tour, to sit down and pick a set list?
Tommy: When we�re getting ready to tour, it�s very difficult to pick a set list. As you know, with forty-plus years of albums and songs, it�s just difficult to decide what to do, especially when you have to keep in mind the classics. 99% of the people that are coming to the shows are expecting to hear certain songs, just like if you go see The Rolling Stones, you want to hear Satisfaction, you want to hear Jumpin� Jack Flash, etc. It�s the same with KISS, so we try to make sure that we please as many people as we can, but it�s sometimes a no-win kind of situation, as well, because you have die-hard fans out there that are saying, �Well, we�re tired of hearing this song. We want to hear something obscure.� We try to take that into consideration to a point, but the way you judge this is when you get on stage and the way the crowd reacts and the energy, and if you throw an obscure song in there, usually the crowd dies down and it gets very quiet out there. I think that affects the show, so you�ve got to be careful with that sort of thing and stick to, really, what most of the people want to hear.
100% ROCK: That makes a lot of sense. We�re taking our 8 year old daughter along to see the show, and she is beside-herself excited � it�ll be her first time seeing KISS. There�s just no generation gap at all with KISS, is there?
Tommy: Not anymore. I think when KISS started out in the early-to-mid �70s, it was about a teenage rock thing, but it�s evolved over the years, and today, 40-some years later, like I said, it�s not exact to a certain generation at all. It�s everybody. It�s all generations. There�s multiple generations. I don�t know how many generations, but many, and it�s all ages. It�s like going to see the circus. It�s anybody from 5 to 65, and probably beyond that. We have all ages. It�s a communal gathering of everyone, and everybody, period. It�s interesting, because a lot of bands are more defined to a certain age group or a certain niche or a generation of fans, and KISS is all generations, all niches, all races, all creeds, everybody. Everybody�s at a KISS concert.
100% ROCK: When you had Gene produce your band Black �n Blue way back in �85, I think it was, you can�t have had any idea that fast-forward thirty years, you�d be in the band, up there in the makeup and everything � so you must have made a good impression on him, I would imagine.
Tommy: That was a long time ago. Think about it, that was thirty years ago, really, because I met those guys in 1985, 30 years ago, when Black �n Blue was on tour with KISS during their Asylum tour. It�s interesting, thinking back now. Gene was interested in bands, and at the time, we had done our second record with Bruce Fairbairn. We wanted our third record to be more of a raw rock n� roll album. We thought Gene would be perfect to do that, so that�s why we basically hired him.
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