TONE WORLD "NEWZ"
03/25/08
Kiss Tribute Recording Sessions Report.
"Lick It Up. A Millennium Tribute to KISS" hits the stores on April 1, 2008. We started recording two tunes for that CD back in October of 2007. (Originally it was going to be three songs, but I couldn't bring myself to record yet another version of "War Machine".) The tunes were to be "Shock Me" performed by Reckless fortune (as a band) and "Detroit Rock City" performed by the Slashtones's current roster. Once again as they say, "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

Part Two: "Take the Rock City Parkway to Detroit, make a left and go straight to Las Vegas."
I was offered the chance of recording the KISS tunes while in the midst of several other projects. Frank and Joey of Reckless Fortune gave me copies of almost every version of "Detroit Rock City" as recorded by KISS and other bands. After listening to what other artists had done with the tune I came up with a future game plan, a slightly stripped down version of The Slashtones performing "Detroit Rock City". But no need to stress over it, we were busy recording new music and two Led Zeppelin songs (Misty Mountain Hop & Friends) that would be in stores way before the KISS tribute.

Then the old lighting struck again. Versailles Records flipped around their release schedule, Led Zeppelin was pushed back and KISS was moved up to next on the list, earlier than expected. Production on the Zep tunes was put on hold and production on the KISS tunes had to be moved forward right away and I had to figure out a road to take the Kiss tunes in. Before I could do that, Slashtones' guitarist Mark Hitt informed me that he was not available to record the tunes during the time frame I had due to his other recording project commitments with Brian Johnson and Cliff Williams of AC/DC.

"What the f**k am i going to do now?" I thought. After listening to all those other versions of "Detroit Rock City", and probably because we had been working on Led Zeppelin tunes at the time, I'd come up with an arrangement of "DRC" that was very "Led Zep meets Jeff Beck" influenced and only one guitarist on the planet other than Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck could pull that off and that was Mark Hit. I scrapped that plan and went back to the drawing board. I needed something to work around with and wanted to keep the tempo of the original recording of "Detroit...". Rather than program a drum machine and experiment with that, Steve Budgie just went into the studio and played to a click track set to the tempo of the original song. Budgie had played the song hundreds of times in his life in The Ace Frehley Band and with other bands and could play those drums in his sleep. Budgie gave me a perfect one take drum track that could match up to the original recording.

Then the ideas just started flowing. I was going to go in a more 70s big band arrangement of the tune and would emphasize keyboards and horns in a manner that was never done before on this song. Tony Moore would be playing bass and Felix Hanemann would be featured on keyboards. I was hesitant on using horns on the tune at first. originally because of what The Bosstones had done, but they'd done Ska style horns so i decided I was going to do Las Vegas style horns and gave Arno Hecht a free hand to write horn charts and asked him to bring in Mac Gollehon on trumpet and trombone. I was going to de-emphasize the guitars on this tune now but still needed a good guitar player to keep a solid rhythm. I recruited my good friend and former sporadic Slashtone Mickey Leigh to play rhythm guitar.

(Mickey Leigh had been an occasional member of The Slashtones since early 1994 when he guest appeared on guitar with me during the band's second "jazz based" incarnation. Mickey then briefly became the 4th on stage guitar player during the band's short lived 12 member "Big Band" incarnation. Mickey briefly returned in 1996 as a guest vocalist and finally became a full band member, main guitarist, and my co-writer in 1999. He was out of the loop again for most of 2000 but returned again to perform live with us in January of 2001 at Punk Magazine's 25 Year Anniversary Party at CBGBs.)

Mickey Leigh and Tony Moore then recorded together to Budgie's drum tracks. When Felix Hanemann came in and laid down a few tracks of keyboards the song took an a sort of "Deep Purple" ambiance. Arno Hecht and Mac Gollehon laid down horn tracks galore during the same session and the tune took on a life of it's own that far exceeded what I had planned, It had a "live" feel to it and sounded like Deep Purple playing a KISS tune with a 1960s Las Vegas style horn section. I tossed out any plans I had to sing the tune myself and called in my good friend and former Rainbow and Deep Purple vocalist Joe Lynn Turner.

(Joe Lynn Turner first recorded with us back in late 1994 when we were making out first attempt at recording our entire comedic live set. A few of the songs from those sessions with Joe Lynn ended up on the limited edition EP "Episode One". (Good luck finding a copy these days.) Joe returned during the ECW era in 1999 to record alongside Reckless Fortune. In 2000 I worked with him again on a tune for a Cult tribute and have been collaborating with him on several other projects since then.)

Joe came in to Prime Time Studios a few days later to cut the vocal tracks. The only direction I asked of him was "don't think Paul Stanley, think Louie Prima / Las Vegas circa 1959 - 1969" and Joe, as always, hit a home run with his whiskey rasp lead vocals. I added backing vocals, kazoo and cowbell (always gotta have more cowbell) and to put the tune over the top I brought back Sir Luke Luv, and Tom Pressano from Kiss Alive to do their best "Paul and Gene" on the harmonies. The end result is a pretty insane version of "Detroit Rock City" and we hope you all like it.
"Lick It Up" A Millennium Tribute To KISS, will be available in store next Tuesday, April 1st, from Versailles Records
Regards,
Harry /
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