Gene Simmons vs. Peter Criss | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: We got a little bit of time left. We'll we'll, we'll do this. Uh, we should talk about the Gene Simmons the latestmonsuff so regular listeners, longtime listeners of the show. No, Kiss is my my all time favorite band, But Gene Gene Simmons, for as long as I can remember, has had these moments where he upsets people. Uh. Here's the latest little controversy and it involves Peter Chris and the song Beth. Everybody knows that song Beth. I hear you call in all right, So this is from parade dot com, who, by the way, shame on parade dot com because in the uh, the picture that they used is not in the headline.

0:49 Speaker 1: They used a picture of Eric Carr, not Peter Cris. Eric Carr is not the original singer of Beth. Peter Cris is, but they use the wrong drummer, Wow, replaced Peter Chris.

1:01 Speaker 2: Oh that's really that's a really shoddy journey.

1:07 Speaker 1: Really sloppy, Yeah, really sloppy. All right, he's here's what the article says. In nineteen seventy six, Kiss released what would become their biggest hit song, Beth, the power rock ballad I wouldn't call it a power rock ballad appeared on the glam band's fourth studio album, Destroyer, and started out as the B side to Detroit Rock City, which is which is true, which is interesting, and this is not you know, this has happened with other hit songs. But but yeah, a lot of people might not know that Beth was actually the B side.

1:40 Speaker 1: Beth was never intended to be the single. And you know, the reason Beth was the B side is because and I remember noticing this when I was a kid. You know, singles would usually have on the A side would be what was supposed to be the single, and the B side would usually be actually one of the weakest tracks on the album. Because they would always record labels would always make sure that the B side was a song that they didn't think had any chance. They didn't want the B side to be something they might want to release as a single later, because so they would put what they considered to be a throwaway track as the B side.

2:18 Speaker 1: At least in America, British bands have a history of actually recording a separate song for the B side that isn't on the album, so it's kind of like a bonus track. But that's but that I think is cooler. Oh me too, But that was not the case in America. Hasn't been the case in America generally. So so the B side to Detroit Rock City. Everyone knows the song Detroit Rock City, but the B side was Beth. So Beth reached number seven on the Billboard Hot one hundred and won the People's Choice Award for Favorite New Song of nineteen seventy six.

2:53 Speaker 1: In a post on his official website, Chris Peter Cris has touted Beth as Kiss his biggest hit. He added that the People's Choice honor was his favorite award because the people voted, and he's even prouder of the song decades later than he was in nineteen seventy six. But in a January twenty twenty sixth interview with the Professor of Rock podcast Kiss co founder Gene Simmons downplayed Peter Cris's involvement with the hit song. Now, part of this story I already knew, but part of it I, as well as I think most Kiss fans, was hearing for the first time.

3:29 Speaker 1: Okay, here's what Jean Simmons said. Quote. The history of Beth is that Peter and I were in a limo and he starts humming. I'm like, that's a nice melody. What is that? He goes, Oh, it's a song I wrote called Beck because we had started working with Bob Ezrin. I said, why don't you bring up that song? By the way, what are the chords to that? He goes, Oh, I don't know. I thought that was peculiar. But before then I suggested in the car, why don't you change it to Beth, because when you say Beck, that hard syllable stops the and Beth is a much more romantic idea.

4:03 Speaker 1: By the way, In another interview, Jeene Simmons had once said about that specific moment, because this is part of the story I already had heard, and this is part of the story that's been consistent over the years, that they were in a limo and Jean said to Peter, Hey, that's interesting. What's that? And Peter said it's Beck and and But the previous version of the story, Jean said, he suggests these are his exact words. He said, Oh, why don't you make it instead of Beck?

4:30 Speaker 3: What?

4:31 Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, I remember now he said to Peter Beck, what is that about? Is that? Is it? About Jeff beck and uh, and Peter said, no, no, it's about Becky because I guess I was his girlfriend. And and then Jean said, well, I wonder you should instead of beck maybe you should change it to Beth so that people don't think you're playing for the other team. Those Jean's words, that's how he puts. Yeah, yeah, but anyway, but but so that's but that's the basic story, very the basic story.

5:02 Speaker 2: Okay, Well, what did did Peter ever give his side of that? I don't he ever say that conversation didn't happen or it did happen.

5:10 Speaker 1: No, I've never heard Peter dispute any of that. Okay, but he's But here's where it gets interesting. So here's here's what Jean said on the on the podcast, he said, it's time for the truth. Peter does not write songs. He doesn't play a musical instrument. Drums are not a musical instrument by definition, as far as I know. Peter plays no other instruments that I've ever seen, not keyboards, extreme instruments. Peter's got a very Peter's got a great whiskey voice in the early days, had a great whisky voice.

5:37 Speaker 1: He said, This is the important part. The person who wrote Beth is a guy named stan Pendrich. Stan Pendrich was with Peter in a group called Chelsea. They had a record out, actually it was on MCA. So Peter did not write Beth. Stan Pendrich wrote that, but through politics and hint hint, nudge, nudge, and I wasn't there when the conversation went down, stan Pendrich apparently agreed that Peter's name would go in the songwriting credit. It appears first Peter, Chris bob Ezrin, Stan Pendrich or the other way around.

6:12 Speaker 1: But Peter's first Peter had nothing to do with that song. He sang it. In other words, he had nothing to do with writing it. I'd like to know that.

6:20 Speaker 2: Any of those people have to say.

6:22 Speaker 1: Well, Pendrich died in two thousand and one, so we'll never get his story, but say that he's not a musicians so oh, well, what he said and they didn't include the full quote here, So what he actually said is he said drums are not a musical instrument. They're a percussive instrument, which is nitpicking and insulting. So Gene was definitely out of line for saying that that's a that's a crazy thing to say. Now this is the part, the part that I did not know. So because everyone knows the song Beth, but I'll just play for anyone who doesn't, I'll just play a little bit of it.

7:01 Speaker 1: But then, this is the part that blew my mind was when I found the Chelsea version. I actually went and listened to the Chelsea version of Beth. We'll go ahead and play a little bit of this, but then, well then we'll play the Chelsea version.

7:16 Speaker 2: You call in but I can't come home and this Chelsea and the boys.

7:24 Speaker 1: No, this is the kiss version.

7:26 Speaker 2: Oh okay, throw me up like really, yeah.

7:28 Speaker 1: No, this is the Kiss version. I'll be to you.

7:44 Speaker 3: What can I do?

7:48 Speaker 2: What can.

7:51 Speaker 1: Okay? So that's that's Beth by Kiss with with Peter singing. Now, this is what I had never heard before. This is Chelsea. This is Beck. It's called Beck, and the band is Chelsea. And this is the band that Stan Pendrich was in. Again he's dead, so nobody can get his side of things from from. Uh. This is this is the original this blew my mind from from when Peter and Stan Pendrich were in a band together called Chelsea.

8:42 Speaker 3: But a.

8:51 Speaker 1: But we just can't sow. Yeah, so it's definitely the same song jeans.

9:20 Speaker 2: Sour because this is the song that got real. That's the number one.

9:25 Speaker 1: No, I don't think he cares about that, and it wasn't one he wrote. I don't. I don't think. I don't think that's why do you think he's so so part of his I don't think he's I don't think he's sour necessarily.

9:35 Speaker 2: I think you just look hateful after somebody dies.

9:40 Speaker 1: Well you're now you're conflating with uh A.

9:45 Speaker 2: But you don't find it, you don't find it odd that they're happening so close together that he dies and now suddenly we're hearing this about Peter. I don't know.

9:56 Speaker 1: No, it's Jean's uh it's very on brand for Gene.

10:00 Speaker 3: He's been doing this for decades, making enemies. Well he does, Yeah, but why why do this? Why why do this? It's such a great Now this is nastiness about it?

10:13 Speaker 2: Or is he trying to garner more money by creating controversy.

10:17 Speaker 1: I think I think he likes being in the news certainly, but.

10:21 Speaker 2: This say we should say the podcast is the professor of rocks.

10:25 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but I mean he's not wrong though here, Like, I had no idea. See this to me as a as a Kiss fan, this is very interesting to me. I'm actually glad. I mean, I don't agree with what he said about Peter doesn't play a musical instrument and all that. That's absurd, it's mean, but but it is mean, and I don't know that he intended it that way. But but I had no idea. I had never heard. I knew. I mean, you know, obviously I know a lot about Kiss and I knew that Peter Chris was in a band called Chelsea with Pendrich.

11:00 Speaker 2: That's all I knew. I had no idea that he was involved at all with this song. You thought this song came from Kissed, right.

11:07 Speaker 1: So I didn't know. Well, I knew that San Pendrich was because he has a songwriting.

11:13 Speaker 2: Writer, but it was Kissed that did it first? That there wasn't a bandit.

11:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, I had no idea this song beck by Chelsea existed. And by the way I'm looking at this, I just I found it on YouTube. This was posted on YouTube fourteen years ago, and I had no idea until now.

11:32 Speaker 2: Doesn't the guy kind of sound like Rod Stewart?

11:35 Speaker 1: Well, that's Peter singing on it the way.

11:38 Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe it just sounds like Rod Star.

11:41 Speaker 1: Well, well, Peter sounds like Rod Stewart, he's got that same kind of voice. Yeah, Yeah, that's why there's this there's this weird story that's gone around for decades that we even talked about it. I'm not sure if we talked about it on air or off air, but it was on Retrospectrum Radio one night. We were talking about how I think we talked about it on air, this this story about Beth, that uh, that it was actually written for Rod Stewart and that and that he rejected it because it sounded too much like Maggie May.

12:12 Speaker 1: But I don't believe that.

12:13 Speaker 2: Story anymore anyway.

12:15 Speaker 1: I don't.

12:15 Speaker 2: Even if you halfway believed that, you.

12:17 Speaker 1: Can't believe it anymore. Yeah. I don't believe that story anyway, right, because that doesn't even make sense. Why would you know? Why would why do that? I think I think the way that story started. This is my theory. I think that back when when Beth came out, a lot of people probably thought, oh that kind of uh, that kind of reminds me of Rod Stewart, And so then it just became this thing. You know, some people just write an urban legend exactly. But uh but no, uh, that that is the same song. I mean, there's no getting around that.

12:53 Speaker 2: The revelation about the song fine and acknowledging that it came from another band could be very good, but to do so in the same breath as just being rotten. I'm sorry, it's rotten. I think drummers and musicians, and I think their drums are there their instrument. I don't understand that one either musical instrument versus percussion instrument. They both have instrument in the sentence. So how is how do you how do you explain that one?

13:25 Speaker 1: I understand what he's saying. I just don't. I don't agree, don't agree.

13:29 Speaker 2: I think drums is one of the hardest things to learn because all your limbs are moving in different directions. And then some of the people we watch, like under the Horizon singing at the same time. Oh by god, both legs are going, the arms are going, and singing versus screaming all in the same It's amazing talent, it's and they're incredibly musicians. And to cut them off at the knees and call them you know, anything other or make them less than anybody playing any other instrument, whether it's a guitar or whatever.

14:03 Speaker 2: It kind of gives that feeling of a drummer being less than the guitarist or the bassist. And I don't I don't like that at all. I think it's pretty cold and rude and wrong. And I guess, like you said, in keeping with his style.

14:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we gotta go. Thank you everybody who joined us today. And I thought it was a fun show. Paul Nazzole, I'm sure I'm not saying his name correctly. Of course, we had the members of Generations join us and in the first hour, of course, Uh sick dude. Hell yeah. I love those guys so much fun as I love their music, and they're really good people too. So if you want to know more about what I'm up to, Matt Connerton dot com especially you know it is January. If you want to book a hypnotherapy session, you can do that right through the website.

14:52 Speaker 1: And Jenny, you want to mention your website.

14:54 Speaker 2: Absolutely, you can always keep up with the good trouble I'm getting into at Jencoffee dot com. J E N N C O F F e y dot com and stay tuned for some stuff coming.

15:03 Speaker 1: Up this week. That's right, that's right.