Per Ivar Stubberud postet disse mailene i juni 2005 på forumet. Han hadde tilfeldigvis sett at Fritz postet på forumet til Anton Fig. Så hvorfor ikke sende en mail over til Fritz for å se om han var villig til å svare på noen spørsmål? Her har dere et gledelig gjensyn for dere som har lest dem og til dere som ikke har lest dem... kos dere. Dette er snacks for en med interresse for 'vintage' KISS.

Mail nr. 1

Per Ivar:
Fritz. I happened to spot you at Anton Fig`s message board. I`m a kiss-crazy from Norway and since you`ve been an important part of kisstory I just could`nt stop myself from writing. It must have been an amasing journey while working for them. I love the stories that the crew has shared with the fans, and you know what, those are the most important ones. Paul and Gene has a way of twisting those old stories in a way that the credit often goes their way, you may have scratched your head once or twice over it yourself.....
I can only say that I believe things more from a crew-point of view than any other in the kiss-camp, thank you. I wish you guys could have written a book `bout that the life as roadies, crewmembers, managers. To read about the details, big challenges and responsibilities are truly a goldmine for many. I`m a tour manager myself and I love my work, you would kill for getting the show on stage. (www.smallbang.net)

What are your occupations these days? Are you in the music business?

Fritz:
It was an amazing journey. When I first worked with them as their onstage audio engineer it was, basically, a one truck and one bus tour. Six years or so later when I was the tour manager we had approximately 50 technical staff members and ten to fourteen tractor trailers, depending on the kind of venues that that tour covered. Living that closely with a group of people, as I'm sure you know, you form relationships that are in some ways like families. Not all of the things that happen in families, or on the road, are perfect and happy all of the time. That is why there are stories out there regarding the bad times (and good times) in the histories of all groups. However, overall I enjoyed working with the members of KISS. Just as I made friends with and enjoyed working with about two hundred acts such as The Bee Gees, and Bob Dylan, etc. KISS was different in that I worked with them for a long time and I spent a great deal of time with the members individually and socially, even when we weren't working. They were all good friends and very different personalities. Gene and Paul may present different slants on some of the things that occurred because 1) everyone experiences events differently from their own point of view, 2) retrospectively, history always changes to suit our current beliefs/needs, and 3) as we get older our memories become less sharp and these events were a long time ago. If you view the world as a crew vs. band, or crew vs.management, or us vs. them, you constrain yourself to an adversarial picture that may not be accurate or useful to achieving your goals and the goals of your enterprise (band, crew, management, and fans). As far as stories go, I was interviewed extensively for Chris Lendt's book "KISS and Sell" as well as Kurt Gooch's book documenting the tours. KISS's first tour of Europe took us to Scandinavia. We played at least some of the following cities: Copenhagen, Lund, Gothenburg, Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki. Assuming you are too young to have attended those shows, did your parents or relatives see KISS back in those days? Occupationwise, I left the music business many years ago to pursue more general interests. I enjoyed management and went back to school to study the subject and earn a Masters Degree. I have taught management and information technology courses at the university level and enjoy management consulting to a number of different firms in various industries. Anyway, best of luck with your tour managing and with smallbang.

Mail nr 2.

Per Ivar:
Thank you for having such a long and sinsere answer, really appreciate that! I can see that the long time period can make it difficult remember all what happened back then. But I take everything that`s available and celebrate that for what it`s worth. You also got to be aware of that memories can`t always be shared with others, but thank you for sharing(didn`t Billy Miller say that?) parts of your memory with us, they truly makes people like me understand that much better of what it`s really like. And I totaly agree with you that you create relationships that are special on the road, like a family that back you up. It`s important to get a pat on the back sometimes for what you have done, I bet thats part of your curriculum teaching those courses, and to work as a team to achieve your goals. But I also think that KISS was a school of rock in it self.

I admire that you worked your way up from beeing a monitor mixer to becoming tour manager.Especially since kiss was in continual transition with more money, bigger production, more people, etc. I guess you showed stamina, guts and work ethic in what you did and made a good impression, you tell me. Good job anyway!

Here you are in Sweden in `76, with you behind the board. State of the art back then(?) No,Fritz. I didn`t attend any of the shows on the first European shows, nor did my parents. Kiss didn`t play in Norway until 1980 on the UNMASKED tour. Anyway I was too young too.

But I wonder `bout a couple of things:
Do you see any of the old crew-members nowadays, like the guy between Pauls legs,who`s that?
And how did you get the job with kiss? (The shortversion, don`t get me wrong:))

Finally I must thank you for taking the time writing me back, I really appreciated that! Thank you also for sharing your memories with the fans, they truly are important pieces in kisstory.
I wish you a nice summer and I hope you keep spreding your knowledge to other people.


Fritz:
I occasionally see Rick Monroe, KISS's first lighting designer as he tours with Jimmy Buffet and one of my oldest friends is Jimmy's stage manager, Tom Battista. Tom actually toured with KISS too. I see Tom and his wife a lot as he and I went to school together when we were teenagers, many, many years in the past. I have dinner with Chris Lendt, KISS's tour accountant whenever I am in New York or he is in my area. Apart from that, I don't usually see any of them. Where did you find that picture? It brought back memories. That must have been Tivoli Gardens in Stockholm. The sound system was one we picked up in London from ElectroSound, I believe. It was actually very state of the art for that time. I think the people in that photo are (excluding Paul), Rick ("Hawkey") who was Ace's guitar technician and I think went to work for Prince, Rick ("Doberman"), who was head of security before John Hart took over from him, and J. R. Smalling the road manager who looks like he's speaking into my right ear.

How did I get the job? I will try to be brief, but the story is a little complicated. I was a freelance audio engineer in New York and had been on a long and exhausting Bee Gees tour of the U.S. and Canada. The morning after last show in Montreal the sound crew were at the airport waiting to fly back to NYC when one of the sound guys called the office to check in. The owner of the sound comapny wanted to talk to me. He said he had a system out with a new act and was having trouble with the onstage monitors. He asked me to go troubleshoot the problem. I declined the offer because I hadn't been to my apartment for months and I was completely burned out from touring. He insisted because he was in trouble of losing this new act and he thought they were going to be big. I told him I would join their tour for a day or two to troubleshoot, but that was all. He told me their name was KISS and I had never heard of them. I changed my ticket from New York to Columbus Ohio and took a cab to the Civic Center to catch the end of the sound check. They were loud but so was every group. Four guys with long hair and platform shoes didn't impress or frighten me. The monitor mixer could not satisfy their need for loudness. He was ready to quit right then and there. I told him to mix the show as he had been doing and I would see what could be improved. As the mirror ball lit up and the crowd started cheering, the monitor mixer said to me, "When I put my fingers in my ears, do the same." "Also, don't wander around the stage during the three songs on the set list I have highlighted." He didn't have time to tell me why because the first chords of, I think, Deuce rang out. He put his fingers in his ears as I did the same. All of the sudden bombs started going off about 3 feet from me. I could see were four guys with Kabuki makeup dressed in glitter, spandex, and leather. There was smoke and flash and fire and it looked like World War III had started in a circus tent. I did sort out their monitors over the next couple of shows and then the tour ended. I went back to New York and was immediatley called by a lighting company owner friend of mine who wanted me to go on one of his tours. I told him I was exhausted, but he also insisted that I do it or I would, "Forever regret having turned down a historic tour." I asked who the artist was and he said he could not tell me. It was a secret tour and for security and press reasons we would not be told who was on it until we arrived at rehersals. The thought intrigued me and I accepted. I wound up on the Rolling Thunder Tour with Bob Dylan and ever other iconic rock or folk music legend of the time. From the moment I started on the Rolling Thunder Tour my roomates from NYC kept passing along messages that KISS's manager was trying to contact me. I ignored the calls. After returning from the Rolling Thunder Tour I eventually spoke with KISS's manager's office and they asked me to out with KISS. They had a different sound company but the same monitor problems. I once again agreed only to go out and troubleshoot, as I thought they would never last. I ended up being with them for five or six years and became, for most of those years, one of the family.