Gene Simmons has described Vinnie Vincent’s guitar contributions to KISS’s 1983 album “Creatures Of The Night” as sounding “like Yngwie Malmsteen on crack”
Vincent was brought in as the replacement for original guitarist Ace Frehley, who had left the band amidst the initial sessions for the record, despite being featured on the album’s cover.
“He played on a few tracks in total,” SImmons tells Guitar World about Vincent. “And Vinnie will often talk about his songwriting on Creatures, and yes, he helped with several, but the contributions of [Scottish singer-songwriter] Adam Mitchell are there, too. But even that was an issue because we were writing at Adam’s house, and Vinnie cornered me and said, ‘Hey, forget about this Adam guy. I should be writing the songs. We don’t need him.’”
“I remember that Vinnie brought in Killer,” adds Simmons. “We liked it, but he fought tooth and nail over the solo. Vinnie wanted to make every solo this massive thing. But Paul and I would bring him specific solos; we gave them to him and asked him to play them verbatim, but he refused.
“He didn’t want to do that, but honestly, everything that Vinnie did sounded like Yngwie Malmsteen on crack. You know, the kind of stuff that the rest of us normal human beings hate. It was ridiculous, and it certainly wasn’t Kiss.”
Vinnie remained with KISS throughout their next album cycle with 1983’s “Lick It Up“, contributing songwriting and guitar for the effort before being dismissed from the group in 1984. He wopuld be replaced by guitarist Mark St. John for the band’s 1984 LP “Animalize“.
The 40th anniversary edition of KISS‘s “Creatures Of The Night” is available now.