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# A One for the Money, a Two for the Money
- URL: https://www.jewsrock.org/a-one-for-the-money-a-two-for-the-money/
- Published: 2005-02-17T00:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2005-02-17T00:00:00.000Z
- Author: JewsRock
- Tags: Words, #Import 2026-08-16 01:56, Essays

*By Eli Attie*

Photo courtesy Michael Wylie.

It’s quite possible that Kiss, rock and roll’s P.T. Barnum equivalent, is not merely the most Jewish band in rock history but a metaphor for all of Jewish existence. Let’s take the essential traits in order:

Survivalism. Denied and disrespected at every turn, written off at about 16 different stages of their seemingly interminable career, Kiss has simply refused to die—clinging tightly to their stadium antics and greasepaint-splattered identity—even as their brand of hard rock and cartoonish camp has cycled in and out of style.

Assimilation. Once dismissed by critics as a ninth-string Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie knock-off (in fact, still dismissed by critics as a ninth-string Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie knock-off), Kiss quietly (or rather, not-so-quietly) perfected the fist-pumping, pimple-popping anthems they were accused of copying, ultimately defining the genre as much as any of their power-chord progenitors.

Ritualistic tradition. The ancient Rabbis believed in the lyrical weeping of the Shofar. The guys in Kiss swear by 18-pound codpieces and customized mirrored guitars that spew smoke and flames all the way to the rafters. Kinda similar, if you think about it.

Business acumen. OK, forgive the cheap Jewish stereotype. This much is beyond dispute: For more than three decades now, Kiss has put commerce far ahead of song-craft, cranking out lunchboxes and comic books and bobble-headed Kiss dolls with the reckless abandon of a shmata merchant’s going-out-of-business sale. Sure, the band has more gold records—24!—than any other U.S. band. They also hold more than 2,000 product licenses, for everything from credit cards to condoms to Kiss caskets (for the truly eternal fan). And as long as the checks clear, you can bet that this bunch ain’t whining about artistic integrity.

The Kiss story is, in fact, the classic Jewish immigrant’s tale. Co-founder and bass player Gene Simmons was born Chaim Witz in 1949, immigrating from Israel to Brooklyn at the age of nine, eventually changing his name so people wouldn’t think he was Jewish. (Simmons has recounted that, on seeing his very first picture of Santa Claus on a tobacco billboard, he wondered "Why’s that Rabbi smoking Kent cigarettes?") Like so many of his guitar-wielding counterparts, Simmons was mesmerized by the Beatles’ first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," especially impressed with the effect they had on the fairer gender. After playing in a succession of mediocre bar bands, Simmons met singer and guitar player Stanley Eisen, who would soon be rechristened (for lack of a better word) Paul Stanley. By all accounts, the band they assembled was less about the music and more about finding a quick path to an Ed Sullivanized version of the American dream: money, magazine covers, groupies, and some seven-inch leather platform heels for good measure.

Now, no one has ever accused Simmons or Stanley of being brilliant songwriters or virtuoso musicians. But their concept for Kiss was nothing short of visionary, and it had all the precision and deliberation of a Napoleonic conquest. By the early 1970s, one might say that rock was nearing the end of its age of flamboyant theatricality. After Townsend and Hendrix’s guitar demolitions, after Alice Cooper’s carnival-style stage histrionics, after the New York Dolls’ campy pre-punk androgyny, there was precious little territory rock hadn’t explored, which is why rock was starting to become more authentic, more organic—with many bands eschewing the costumes and the exaggerated stage poses altogether.

Kiss’ solution was to go sharply against that grain—to cover all that theatrical ground again, and to do it all at once. Nearly every moment in their stage show was the culmination of some other band’s entire career: spitting blood one minute, breathing fire the next; smashing equipment, then launching into mind-numbing ten-minute drum solos; flying all over the stage while dodging enough smoke bombs and explosions for a full-scale Iraqi invasion—everything short of assassinating the audience, and don’t think that wasn’t discussed. Kiss elevated rock stagecraft from quasi-fantasy, which it had always been, to actual fantasy. They created cartoon-like characters that defined each band member’s image and songs, shielding their fans from anything even vaguely approaching reality or authenticity. Kiss was about relentless crowd-pleasing—and please the crowds they did, racking up a six-figure fan-club membership and becoming one of the hugest bands, and brands, since the Fab Four themselves.

But what about the music? That’s where this band’s induction has to come into question. It’s hard to find a single note in the Kiss canon that’s either original or ground-breaking. In fact, their sweat-and-spandex macho rock, replete with dueling guitar harmonies, grinding metal riffs, and an almost comic level of lyrical misogyny ("My whip is always beside me… you’ll learn to love me and my sweet pain," is a typically embarrassing snippet), came to be seen as influential only because Kiss were the most successful practitioners of the form. Yet through sheer tenacity and discipline, they delivered more than their share of arena-rock anthems back in their 70s heyday: from "Detroit Rock City," to "Shout It Out Loud," to the once-inescapable FM rock staple "Rock and Roll All Nite." And quite a few of these songs have a surprisingly enduring appeal.

But inevitably, for a band that pushed style over content, the Kiss juggernaut began to lose force. By the late 70’s, Kiss were beyond ubiquitous—they were thoroughly overexposed, like a piece of raw film. Amid all the TV specials and spin-off albums and cross-marketing deals, it was hard to see them as a rock band any longer. As many of their fans grew older, Simmons’ self-proclaimed "hairy gorilla music" started to seem, well, a little bit silly. And with the advent of punk and new wave, it became harder to justify Kiss’ overblown excess, which made Caligula look like a Trappist Monk in a bath towel.

Yet the band has soldiered on, through personnel changes and pop-cultural shifts, even the eventual removal and re-application of their once-sacred face paint—until they finally emerged, by the late 1990s, as enduring icons, as a rock institution, known as much for their non-stop pursuit of money and fame as for their fistful of hit records. Repackaged and reunited biweekly, it seems; paraded around the world for an endless series of farewell tours, Kiss can never over-exploit themselves, because exploitation was the point from the very beginning. And the band makes no apologies for that. "I’ve heard people say money is the root of all evil, but of course they’re nuts," says Simmons. "Being alive means 'I want more.’ When is enough? When they stick you six feet underground!" Not Talmudic wisdom, perhaps. But Chaim Witz’s mother has got to be proud.

When Eli Attie isn't writing freelance pieces about pop music for The Washington Post, he's a writer and producer for The West Wing.

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*Eli Attie is a television writer and producer (The Diplomat, Zero Day) whose credits also include The West Wing, House, and Billions.*