Preface

Believe everything and believe nothing.

This was our approach throughout researching KISS Alive Forever: The Complete Touring History, which is to say that we believed every bit of information we ran across may have occurred, but doubted that it actually did happen until we could prove it.

Keeping this theory in mind, we sat down in February 1996 and began our research into KISS's performance history, talking with as many people as possible to get the accurate story from those who were there first-hand, and accumulating over 472 hours of interviews in the process. We spent hundreds of hours at libraries around the United States, including several weeks at the Library of Congress, exchanged over 4,000 correspondences with KISS fans from five different continents, and accumulated in excess of 22,000 pieces of paperwork relating to KISS's history.

As you are about to see, much of KISS's history has remained unspoken, rewritten, and even forgotten. Over the years, these factors have combined to create a history that is full of inaccuracies, inconsistencies, exaggerations, and even outright lies. Naturally, biographical works suffer when too much information is cannibalized from one source to another, or when 'facts' are accepted at face value without much effort made to verify their accuracy. It's also natural to assume that historical information coming from KISS is accurate. But the truth is the guys in the band were far too busy living their lives to sit down and archive it properly. For these reasons, we went to as many first-hand sources as possible in order to reconstruct KISS's touring history with the utmost accuracy.

The task of analyzing and reconciling this enormous archive of information was often very difficult and the results of our research frequently surprised us. In fact, there is a tremendous amount of information here which will directly conflict with what you may have read before. Do not be dissuaded; we have thoroughly researched everything you're about to read. So, while the story told within may not mirror any history of KISS with which you are familiar, we think you'll find the real story of KISS's touring history richer, more human, and perhaps even more inspiring than ever.

Enjoy.

Curt and Jeff
August 2002

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