How Kiss almost blinded themselves: “My eyes were swollen shut”
When you think of Kiss, the first thing that springs to mind, even before the music, is the makeup.
In many ways, counterintuitive as it may seem, that had to be the case – they wanted to become the poster boys for shock rock, after all, so naturally this had to come with a particularly striking aesthetic. The first time they slapped on the face paint must have seemed like a great idea, but unbeknownst to one member at the time, it nearly ruined his real looks forever.
The band have a lot to thank Ace Frehley for – lead guitar duties, of course, but also the fact that he came up with their iconic logo. But in terms of their other iconic look, this was something that almost inadvertently cost Frehley the rest of his music career. After all, if you’re playing the guitar and leaping around the stage every night, it’s really quite important that you’re able to see.
But this was almost stripped away from Frehley in an instant – both literally and metaphorically – during the early stages of the band’s career. Piling on that level of monochromatic paint to his face was such a great idea… until he had an allergic reaction to it. Yes, believe it or not, the single most enduring element of Kiss’ look was what almost cost Frehley his sight back in the day, so it’s probably best to hear the story of this fateful near-miss from the horse’s mouth.
Legend has it that the reaction occurred when the guitarist was trialling a look for the band’s debut album cover, which involved spraying his hair silver. Reportedly, he couldn’t remove the dye, thus leading to some pretty gnarly results, but according to Frehley himself: “It was just silver spray that washed out.” With that rumour subsequently firmly put to bed, the man was finally able to explain what really happened.
“I think whoever wrote that is confused with what happened to me in Paris,” he once told Loudwire. “I was in Paris, and I bumped into a model — a fashion model that I knew from New York. She was doing a photo shoot there. We ended up getting drunk on about four bottles of champagne, and I ended up passing out in the bed with my makeup on after the show. When I woke up, I had an allergic reaction from not taking the silver off — because it’s ground-up metal. My eyes were swollen shut. I was blind.”
Anyone who wears makeup will be aware of the rookie mistake of not removing it before you go to sleep when you’re pissed. But in Frehley’s case, with metals now worryingly coursing his system, more than just some ruined mascara the next morning, his eyes were sealed shut in a totally terrifying ordeal. As such, he had no choice but to call for back-up.
Putting in a frantic call to his manager, Frehley said: “They rushed a doctor over, and they shot me up with, like, Prednisone — an anti-inflammatory that took it down. But for a minute there, I thought I was blind. I didn’t know what had happened. It was insane.”
With crisis and permanent loss of sight narrowly avoided, you’d think Kiss might have treaded more lightly when it came to their death-defying stunts, given that such an innocuous event had nearly taken out their lead guitarist.
But anyone who thinks this is truly out of their mind, as this was never part of their daredevil nature. Indeed, it’s frankly a miracle all of them made it out the other side of their tenure alive, as between Gene Simmons setting his hair on fire and Paul Stanley zip-lining around stadiums, the margin for error was practically imperceptible. Suddenly, Frehley nearly blinding himself was the least of their worries.
