Information AboutPeter Criss |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT PETER CRISS | |
| 1945 births | |
| living people | |
| american heavy metal drummers | |
| people from brooklyn | |
| kiss members | |
| italian-american musicians | |
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George Peter Criscuola (born December 20 , 1945 ) a.k.a. '''Peter Criss''', is an American Musician best known as the Drummer for the Rock Band KISS . EARLY YEARS The young George Criscuola was a gang member in his teen years, according to an article in Spin Magazine , and as he tells the story, when his grandmother caught him making weapons for a rumble, she broke a broomstick over his head. He the eldest of the five children of Joseph and Loretta Criscuola in Brooklyn, New York . Despite his hoodlum mentality, he was also an avid art student and a jazz aficionado. While playing with bandleader Joey Greco , Criscuola ended up studying under his idol, Gene Krupa , at the Metropole Club in New York. This blossomed into an active musical career as he went on to play jazz and rock with a number of bands in New York and New Jersey throughout the 1960s. One of Criscuola's best friends growing up was Jerry Nolan , who would later go on to drum for the New York Dolls . KISS Criss (then known as Peter Cris) joined Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons in 1972 as the drummer for their band, Wicked Lester . The two musicians had answered an ad placed in a local paper by Criss, who was looking for a band after the demise of his band Lips, the ad read "Drummer willing to do anything to make it." When Ace Frehley was added to the Wicked Lester lineup, the band changed their name to KISS. Around this time, Criss added the second S to his last name. KISS released their self-titled debut in February of 1974 . Throughout his KISS career, Criss was lead vocalist on several notable songs including "Black Diamond and their breakthrough hit " Beth ". Many of Criss's contributions to KISS were written with the help of Stan Penridge , who was a bandmate of Criss's in Chelsea and Lips. Criss struggled with alcoholism through many of the years he was in the band. Although he was always credited as drummer, 1977's '' Love Gun '' was the last KISS album on which Criss played throughout. On the 1979 release ''Dynasty'', he drummed only on his own composition, "Dirty Livin'" and did not play at all on 1980's '' Unmasked ''. David Letterman 's house drummer Anton Fig secretly ghosted for Criss on most occasions, but Carmine Appice , Richie Fontana , Allen Schwartzberg and Sean Deanley have also been said to have played drums and percussion anonymously on KISS records. SOLO CAREER Although Criss officially left KISS in May 1980, his involvement with the band had ceased by December 1979. In March 1980 he began recording his first solo album, ''Out of Control''. Released later in the year, the album was a commercial failure. So too was the followup album, 1982's ''Let Me Rock You'', which contained one song written by Gene Simmons. For the rest of the '80s and early '90s, Criss was involved with a number of bands (each usually lasting less than a year). One of them was The Keep, which featured ex-KISS guitarist Mark St. John . Criss briefly reunited with former KISS bandmate Ace Frehley on Frehley's 1989 album '' Trouble Walkin' '' (singing and playing percussion on one track). In the early '90s, Criss assembled a band named Criss. This band released the ''Criss'' EP in December 1993 and the ''Cat #1'' album in August 1994. The group also supported Frehley's band on the 1995 "Bad Boys Tour." That same year, Criss appeared at official KISS Konventions and at the KISS live performance that was recorded for MTV Unplugged . Criss's band remained in existence until the KISS reunion was announced in April 1996. The homeless urban legend In the late 1980s, an Urban Legend circulated that Criss was a homeless alcoholic, culminating in a 1989 Star Magazine article that appeared to lend credence to the notion. Jeffrey Scott Holland paid tribute to Peter's alleged plight by painting his portrait in an alley with a bottle in his hand, and Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold began a campaign to try to rescue Criss. Barr and Arnold had discovered a homeless man living under a bridge who had claimed to be Criss, but it was later revealed to be a hoax. The hoaxer, Christopher Dickinson , appeared with the real Criss on ''The Phil Donahue Show'' in 1991. For years afterward, the myth still persisted that Peter was broke and sleeping on the streets. THE KISS REUNION After the phenomenal public response to Criss' sitting in with the band for a couple of songs at KISS Conventions and then on MTV's "Unplugged" show, KISS reunited in full makeup and original lineup in 1996. In 1997 Criss's label, Tony Nicole Tony (TNT) Records, filed a lawsuit against Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley alleging that the pair induced Criss to breach his contract with TNT {Link without Title} . At first, Criss was elated with the reunion, but things turned sour when his drumming was hardly used on the subsequent '' Psycho Circus '' album. Much to his chagrin, he was also forced to sing a song written by Paul Stanley ("I Finally Found My Way") rather than contribute his own original material. As the Reunion tour was followed by the Psycho Circus tour, things began to slide for Peter on the road:
Before the 2004 "Rock The Nation" tour, Criss' contract was not extended and former KISS member Eric Singer returned as the band's drummer. TRIVIA During an early KISS tour, someone threw an M-80 firecracker onstage, and blew Peter off of his drums. He couldn't hear for the rest of the night. Peter was somewhat of a prankster while in KISS. Once, as a joke, he left a trail of his clothes from his hotel room bed to the open window (Peter was hiding under the bed). In a Family Guy episode, Peter and Lois Griffin go to a KISS concert and when Peter finds she is not a KISS fanatic says, "I should have known you weren't a true KISS fan. You even dressed up as Peter Criss . Nobody wants to be Peter Criss Lois, not even Peter Criss!" In early 2002, Criss had a role on the HBO series, '' Oz ''. He has also appeared on Family Guy and Millennium . In the 2006 album "Everyone is Out to Get Us" by Far-Less , the end of the song "Semper" is dedicated to "Peter Criss, that guy from KISS." DISCOGRAPHY
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