Peter Criss

George Peter John Criscuola (born December 20, 1945), better known by his stage name Peter Criss, is a retired American musician, best known as a co-founder, original drummer, and an occasional vocalist of the hard rock band Kiss.

Criss established the Catman character for his Kiss persona.

Criss was involved with several bands through the mid- to late 1960s, including Chelsea, who had a two-album deal with Decca Records; the group released a self-titled album in 1970.

They never recorded a second album, and in August 1971 became Lips (a trio consisting of Criss and his Chelsea bandmates Michael Benvenga and Stan Penridge).

A demo exists of the song from 1971.

By the spring of 1972, Lips was reduced to just the duo of Criss and Penridge.

Ace Frehley was added to the lineup in December 1972, and the band was named Kiss later that month.

However, Simmons describes first meeting Criss in his book Kiss And Make-Up thus:

"One afternoon I run across an ad in Rolling Stone Magazine that said 'Drummer available – Will do anything.' I called the guy on the telephone, and even though he was in the middle of a party, he took my call. I introduced myself and said we were starting a band and that the band was looking for a drummer, and was he willing to do anything to make it? He says that he was, right away."

Simmons later in the chapter describes going to a small Italian Club in Brooklyn to meet the drummer: "The drummer started to sing, and this Wilson Pickett-style voice came out of him. Paul and I said, 'That's it, that's our drummer.' His name was Peter Criscuola."

In 1973, Pete Shepley and Mike Brand recorded an unreleased album which included post-Chelsea Michael Benvenga, and pre-Kiss Peter Criss and Gene Simmons as session musicians.

It was titled Captain Sanity.

Another early band featuring Criss was The Sounds of Soul, notable for also featuring future New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan and The Elegants guitarist Joe Lucenti.

After the demise of his band Lips, Criss placed an advertisement in the East Coast edition of Rolling Stone Magazine, which read:

"EXPD. ROCK & roll drummer looking for orig. grp. doing soft & hard music. Peter, Brooklyn."

The advertisement was answered by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, who were looking for new members for their band.

Kiss released their self-titled debut in February 1974.

Throughout the band's initial original lineup, Paul and Gene would sing the majority of the songs on each studio album, with Ace and Peter contributing to one or two songs.

Throughout his Kiss career, in his original tenure and on the Reunion-era album Psycho Circus, Criss was the lead singer on several songs which turned out to be radio-hit and/or live favorites including "Black Diamond", "Hard Luck Woman", and their breakthrough hit "Beth".

Criss collaborated on a demo called "Beck", a song that was eventually reworked to become the ballad "Beth", a Top 10 hit for Kiss on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at No. 7 in 1976.

The song remains the highest-charting song for Kiss in the United States and it earned them a People's Choice Award for "Young People's Favorite New Song" in 1977, tied with "Disco Duck".

The song was written before Criss had joined Kiss, while he was still a member of Chelsea.

Criss came up with the melody for the song while on a train to New York City from New Jersey where the band practiced.

He and Penridge wrote the song together.

On the 1979 release Dynasty, he played only on his own composition, "Dirty Livin, and did not play at all on Unmasked (1980). Anton Fig, who also played on Ace Frehley's 1978 solo album, was hired as session drummer for Dynasty and Unmasked. At the time, the reasons Criss was fired from Kiss were never made public, although it was obvious that his relationship with his bandmates Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley was not good at the time.

Gene Simmons has said Criss was fired; Paul Stanley discussed Criss's departure in several interviews, including the commentary on Kissology 2.

Criss officially left Kiss on May 18, 1980.

As a result, Kiss postponed the European tour until the end of August, thus giving the band enough time to find a replacement drummer, who they found in Brooklyn-born Eric Carr.

In March 1980, Criss began recording his second solo album, Out of Control.

Released later in the year, the album was a commercial failure, despite remaining a favorite with Criss fans.

A spoken word CD released in 1999 titled 13 Classic Kiss Stories, features Bill Aucoin (Kiss's first manager) where he also discusses Criss being "let go".

Criss, however, has maintained that he quit the band.

The video for "Shandi" was shot in one day, and Criss was out of the band at that time; Stanley said of the shoot, "We shot a video for the song 'Shandi' after the decision to let Peter go had been confirmed. He came to the video shoot knowing it was the last time he would appear with KISS. At the end of the day, he took his makeup case with him and left. It wasn't tearful, but it was a big moment. Peter was leaving. We had fired him, and this was the last time we were going to see him in the band".

Ace Frehley in his 2011 book, No Regrets, and he stated that Criss was fired during a band meeting in which Frehley, Simmons, Stanley and manager Bill Aucoin voted Criss out of the band.

In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Kiss.

Criss was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Loretta and Joseph Criscuola, who raised their five children (of whom Peter was the eldest) as Roman Catholics.

Joseph Criscuola's family came from Scafati, Salerno, Italy.

Criss grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and was a childhood friend of Jerry Nolan, who would later find success as the drummer of the New York Dolls.

He was an avid art student and a swing aficionado.

While playing with bandleader Joey Greco, Criss ended up studying under his idol, Gene Krupa, at the Metropole Club in New York.