Gene Simmons reminisced on the demo tape he produced for Van Halen back in 1977 in an interview to Rolling Stone. He also discussed some unreleased material he had made with Edward and Alex Van Halen that could possibly be packaged and released in a future KISS box set.
Simmons made first contact with the band during their early club days on the Sunset Strip. He mentions how he tried to get the group recognition for a record deal:
“I discovered the band,” he says. “I saw them and signed them and flew them to New York and put them in Electric Lady Studios. They were signed to my company, Man of 1,000 Faces. I produced their 24-track demo (15 songs) which I still own, and, oh, it has everything from the first record and also faster versions of ‘House of Pain‘ and stuff. It’s a lot of cool stuff, but the band just doesn’t want it to come out — you know, the back and forth with (David Lee) Roth complicated matters.”
By May 1977, KISS was recording their sixth studio album, Love Gun and Simmons decided to get some outside help for the making of Christine Sixteen.
The Van Halen brothers were invited to a session and contributed a lot of hands-on input.
“We recorded three songs I had written. I was in Los Angeles between tours, and I called Alex and Ed: ‘Listen, I got three songs. I’m going in at 2 a.m. Do you want to come down and help me?’ Usually, I play the guitars and the drums to the extent I can and put down all the parts. But I wanted to do three songs instead of one. So we did ‘Christine Sixteen,’ and I put the keyboards on, everything else. And Ed did the solo to the rhythm guitar, bass, and Alex was on drums.”
What’s more interesting was the imprint Van Halen left on the album and how the song structure was completely original.
“When I brought the songs to the band, unfortunately for Ace, I forced him to learn Eddie‘s solo note-for-note,” Simmons says. “He wasn’t fond of it, but in retrospect, it’s the right solo. It’s not the same old blues thing.”
The Van Halens also played two different songs during their session: Got Love for Sale and Tunnel of Love, a track off of Simmons‘s self titled solo record.
The KISS bassist admits he’s been trying to get these collaborative recordings on a massive box set. There doesn’t appear to be too much holding it back, but Simmons assures that if any delays were to happen, the product would still be issued as soon as possible.
“I’m talking with a few nice people, Eagle Rock and the Universal people and Walmart,” Simmons says. “Unless the distribution model is right, I’ll just hold on to it until it’s right.”
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