Detroit Rock City

“Detroit Rock City” opens Destroyer, KISS’s fourth album, released on Casablanca Records on March 15, 1976. Paul Stanley wrote it as a tribute to Detroit, the city that gave the band headlining gigs before anywhere else would. When KISS was still working as an opening act in most markets, Detroit brought them back as headliners. Bob Ezrin, the album’s producer, heard Stanley’s demo and told him to throw the lyric away. Ezrin redirected him toward something that had been sitting with Stanley since a tour stop in Charlotte, North Carolina. A fan had been killed in a car accident on the way to a KISS show. The song opens with the static of a car radio finding a rock station, then the crash. The narrator knows he is dying and keeps thinking about the concert he will never reach.

Destroyer was produced by Ezrin, who had made several Alice Cooper records before bringing the same theatrical ambition to KISS. The album peaked at number 11 on the Billboard 200 and became the band’s first platinum release, certified by the RIAA in November 1976. “Detroit Rock City” was released as a single that summer with “Beth” on the B-side. Radio DJs ignored the A-side and played the ballad instead. Casablanca flipped the single. “Beth” peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Detroit Rock City” never charted as a standalone hit. It became the song that has opened every KISS show since.

Twenty-seven years ago today, August 11, 1999, all four original members of KISS arrived at Hollywood Boulevard in full makeup and costume. Gene Simmons. Paul Stanley. Ace Frehley. Peter Criss. They unveiled the 2,325th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The mayor declared it Official KISS Day. The band had sold more than 80 million records worldwide by that point. Critics had spent two decades calling their music simplistic and their image a gimmick. KISS did not need critics. They had the Kiss Army.