Kiss and Motley Crue are on the road this summer for a co-headlining jaunt dubbed simply 'The Tour', but this isn’t the first time they’ve shared a bill - and when Paul Stanley appeared recently on Nikki Sixx‘s 'Sixx Sense' radio show, the duo looked back on the time Kiss gave Motley one of their first big breaks.
Pointing out that most people think
Ozzy Osbourne was largely responsible for
Motley Crue's early success, Sixx argued that Kiss shares some of the credit too, and thanked Stanley for giving them an opening slot when they visited Universal City’s Gibson Amphitheater in 1983.
To his credit, Stanley admitted that Kiss’s reasons for tapping Motley as openers weren’t exactly altruistic. "At that point, we were hurting," he recalled. "We were in a lull, we were on the West Coast, and we thought ‘Who can help us sell tickets?’"
Of course, as Stanley went on to point out, Kiss has had a lot of openers go on to bigger and better things over the years, and it’s all part of their overall philosophy. "Our opening acts were Tom Petty, Bob Seger, Uriah Heep, you guys, Bon Jovi, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden - if you didn’t open for us, you probably weren’t a band," he chuckled. "We’ve always believed you bring the best out with you and you let them try to kick your a-s."
Sixx concurred, echoing Stanley’s belief that a strong opener brings out the best in the headlining band — and, as Stanley put it, at the end of the night it’s really the songs that matter. "You’ve gotta have something other than smoke bombs and lasers," he argued. "Sooner or later, it comes down to music."
Thanks to UltimateClassicRock for the report.
Ok... why this is up again, exactly?