{"id":52640,"date":"2025-11-25T13:53:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T13:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/25\/hear-gene-simmons-take-over-for-peter-criss-on-an-early-kiss-gem\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T13:53:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T13:53:29","slug":"hear-gene-simmons-take-over-for-peter-criss-on-an-early-kiss-gem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/25\/hear-gene-simmons-take-over-for-peter-criss-on-an-early-kiss-gem\/","title":{"rendered":"Hear Gene Simmons Take Over for Peter Criss on an Early Kiss Gem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/tags\/kiss\/\">Kiss<\/a>&#8216; new box set features a previously unreleased recording of <a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/tags\/gene-simmons\/\">Gene Simmons<\/a> performing the <a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/tags\/ace-frehley\/\">Ace Frehley<\/a>-penned <a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/tags\/hotter-than-hell\/\"><em>Hotter Than Hell<\/em><\/a> gem &#8220;Strange Ways.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You can hear the track &#8211; recorded during a July 20, 1975 rehearsal in Davenport, Iowa &#8211; below. A bluesy instrumental jam from the same session is also embedded in this story.<\/p>\n<p>Both appear on the newly released\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/kiss-alive-box-set\/\">50th Anniversary Super Deluxe edition of <em>Alive!<\/em><\/a>, Kiss&#8217; breakthrough double-live album.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More: <a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/kiss-hotter-than-hell-retro-album-review\/\">Kiss, &#8216;Hotter Than Hell&#8217;: Retro Album Review<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Although Frehley wrote the heavy, psychedelic track for Kiss&#8217; second studio album, a lack of confidence kept him from singing lead vocals until 1977&#8217;s &#8220;Shock Me.&#8221; For the <em>Hotter Than Hell<\/em> version, he instead handed the duties over to drummer <a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/tags\/peter-criss\/\">Peter Criss<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t feel comfortable as a singer at that point,&#8221; Frehley explained in the book <em>Kiss: Behind the Mask<\/em>. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t think I was as good a singer as I am. It took me a while to come out of my shell. Whenever I wrote songs in the early days, I&#8217;d always ask Peter to sing lead so he would get some of the spotlight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Our copy of the box set hasn&#8217;t arrived yet, so if the liner notes explain why Simmons and not Criss is singing &#8220;Strange Ways&#8221; here we&#8217;ll update our story shortly. According to SetList.fm, Kiss <a href=\"https:\/\/www.setlist.fm\/stats\/songs\/kiss-6bd69ec6.html?songid=73d76aa1\" target=\"_blank\">only performed the song live once<\/a> during Frehley&#8217;s tenure with the band.<\/p>\n<p>Released mere weeks after <a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/kiss-dressed-to-kill-box-set\/\">a similarly expansive box set for the band&#8217;s 1975 studio album<\/a> <em>Dressed to Kill<\/em>, the <em>Alive!<\/em> box features two previously unreleased complete concerts from 1975, as well as a disc featuring the Davenport rehearsal session and more songs from a show in Cleveland. Both sets are currently available from the band&#8217;s official website.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:center\">Hear Gene Simmons Sing Kiss&#8217; &#8216;Strange Ways&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:center\">Hear &#8216;Kiss Jam&#8217; Live From 1975<\/h3>\n<div class=\"photogallery-wrapper blog-photogallery \">\n<h2 class=\"photogallery-title\">Kiss Solo Albums Ranked Worst to Best <\/h2>\n<div class=\"photogallery-description\">\n<p>Counting down solo albums released by various members of Kiss.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"photogallery-credit\">Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/rest\/carbon\/api\/scripts.js?mver=160&#038;gver=9&#038;bid=295&#038;urls[]=https%3A%2F%2Fbtloader.com%2Ftag%3Fo%3D5642230212591616%26upapi%3Dtrue&#038;urls[]=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.p-n.io%2Fpushly-sdk.min.js%3Fdomain_key%3DmxuuNIMSzp6MHphJEoAGlLFQ3qmwQguzkGZl&#038;urls[]=https%3A%2F%2Ftownsquare.media%2Fpublic%2Fresources%2Fjs%2Fpubcid.min.js&#038;urls[]=https%3A%2F%2Fplatform.twitter.com%2Fwidgets.js&#038;urls[]=https%3A%2F%2Fapis.google.com%2Fjs%2Fplatform.js&#038;urls[]=https%3A%2F%2Fconnect.facebook.net%2Fen_US%2Fsdk.js&#038;urls[]=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.pinterest.com%2Fjs%2Fpinit.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\" async defer data-osano=\"ESSENTIAL\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/kiss-strange-ways-gene-simmons\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kiss&#8216; new box set features a previously unreleased recording of Gene Simmons performing the Ace Frehley-penned Hotter Than Hell gem &#8220;Strange Ways.&#8221; You can&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":52641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rock","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}