| WORLD EXCLUSIVE !!!
- Chart topping and award winning bands from Norway to perform their favorite KISS-songs. - Ken Kelly who did the legendary painting for the Destroyer and Love Gun album has painted his third KISS cover for this tribute CD. - KISS-guitarist Bruce Kulick salutes his Norwegian fans by joining glam heroes Wig Wam for the hottest version of "I Was Made For Loving You" ever recorded. - The release will introduce you to "KISSettes", a Norwegian all-female KISS tribute act that will blow your mind. NORWEGIAN CELEBRITIES HONOUR KISS KAN & VME have signed chart topping and award winning artists from Norway to cover their favorite KISS classics. Some names who also has a strong international following. Most of the artists will be kept secret until early next year, but KAN & VME are now proud to tell you that such big artist as STAGE DOLLS, SURFEROSA, TNT's front-men Ronni Le Tekro & Tony Harnell, ULVER and KISS-guitarist BRUCE KULICK will be on the record. KISS Army plan to reveal more names during an event for unveiling the historical cover painting by Ken Kelly in 2005. Historic CD cover Voices Music Entertainment and KISS Army Norway have managed to come up with a historic album cover by hiring the man who painted the most classic KISS album covers. VME have invested more money into the album cover than on any other releases in their 16 year history. Executive producer Stig Karlsen says that the music and the musicians obviously are most important, but that the package alone will be so special and historic that it will put all previous KISS tributes aside. Posters and promotional sheets will be made of the album cover. The album might also be released on vinyl in a limited edition. In Norway these bands need NO introduction, but here’s a short introduction for the international rock-fans:
Platinum selling and #1 chart topping rock band from Norway who also climbed to #43 on the Billboard singles chart in 1989 with “Love Cries”. Stage Dolls ironically worked with KISS-producer Ron Nevison on their hit single“Love Don’t Bother Me” in 1991. They have also toured the world with bands such as Faster Pussycat, Warrant and Mr. Big. TNT’s Ronni Le Tekro and Tony Harnell TNT are yet another platinum selling and #1 chart topping band from Norway. They are also one of the few Norwegian bands to have entered the US billboard chart. Believe it or not KISS manager Doc McGhee were once their manager as well. TNT are the most successful hardrock band in Norway and hardrock fans from the whole world should remember their album Tell No Tales and their hit single“10.000 lovers in one”. The band have done headlining tours in USA, Japan and Europe and have also toured with Twisted Sisters and Great White. The two most important members of the group Tony Harnell (vocal) and Ronni Le Tekro (lead guitar) will record a song for this KISS tribute album. SURFEROSA: Surferosa is a synth-punk band with two top ten hits on the Norwegian charts; “Saturday Night” and Neon Commando. The band has a strong fan base and do always deliver energetic live shows. Surferosa has recently toured USA and Japan. ULVER: Nominated at the Norwegian Grammy Award twice (Spellemannsprisen 2002/2003). Strangely enough Ulver are more popular outside Norway than in it’s own country. Ulver were originally a Black Metal band that has gone more into the direction of dark and mysterious electronica / metal. They are also known to have done the soundtrack for huge Scandinavian motion pictures as “UNO”, “Svidd neger” and Lyckantropen. More artist and bands to be announced in January. Interview with executive producer Stig Karlsen. KISS Army Norway and Voices Music Entertainment will release a tribute album September 5th - 2005 that will bring tribute CD's to a new level both musically and visually. Executive producer Stig Karlsen explains in this interview what’s so special about this album.
I agree that there have been too many bad ones. I know that the people behind these albums do them with a lot of love and dedication and that's cool, but quite frankly there are very few KISS tributes that are any good. They lack strength musical or production wise. The CD packaging is often poor looking as well. Still I have a lot of respect for everybody that makes an effort to produce a tribute CD. So why haven't you released a KISS tribute before now? People kept asking why KISS Army wouldn't do a KISS tribute album. The thing is that I didn't find it interesting unless we came up with something special. I was actually getting bored with all the half ass tribute productions and I did not find the albums interesting anymore. So what changed your mind? When it was time for KISS Army to celebrate KISS 30th anniversary I came up with an idea about arranging a KISS cover song award and invited Norwegian bands to send in their version of a KISS song. I was surprised when we got 33 songs for the competition as we only advertised on our website. Additional 25 songs came later, and songs are still coming in. I got music reporters, famous musicians and KISS fans to vote for their favorite versions. We arranged a MTV style award with screening of the nominees, bands performing their KISS song and we gave out awards for the best songs. We had more than 400 wild and screaming fans attending the party and national television and newspapers were covering the happening. It was great fun! I realized that while other tribute producers were struggling to get enough bands to fill an album, we could use our contest as an audition for the album. That would make it easier to collect quality material. So the music changed it for me. You can't ignore great music and I saw that we had material that could be the start of a tribute CD that actually would be fun to have spinning in the CD player. How many bands from the competition will end up on the album? About six bands, just the best of the "up and coming bands". The rest of the album will consist of professionals, famous Norwegian bands and artists such as STAGE DOLLS, SURFEROSA, TNT's Ronni & Tony, ULVER and also KISS-guitarist BRUCE KULICK. Still there are more exciting names to be revealed next year. You came up with a really unique thing with the album cover! Tell us about that. Yet again I was thinking that if KISS Army were going to release a tribute it would have to be really special, also visually. The ultimate thing would be to have the man behind the legendary Destroyer and Love Gun cover to do our cover. I was playing with this unreal idea and finally I got in touch with the artist Ken Kelly. I told him about our album and he said he could do it for a certain amount of money. I knew it would be expensive, but not that expensive. The price for a job like that were more than our budget for the whole album alone. We could not afford it! At the time I had not started to shop the album to record companies and we were still thinking about releasing it ourselves. When I signed with the record company Voices Music Entertainment I told them about Ken Kelly. They loved the idea and were willing to put money into the cover. The cover is the most expensive in their 16 year history. Yet no one has seen the cover, has it been done yet? The painting was done this summer and it looks just great! It's up there with the Destroyer and Love Gun cover. You will be amazed! Why do you want to wait with the unveiling of the artwork? This is a special event in KISStory and we want to make an event out of the unveiling with press and fans attending. An event where we also will reveal more famous artists on the album. Tell us about getting the record contract! When it was time to shop the album concept, the first obvious record company I could think of were Sanctuary's partners in Norway - Voices Music Entertainment. They were in charge of the release of KISS ALIVE IV and GENE SIMMONS solo album in Norway. I knew some of the guys from our work with promoting KISS, so it was easy to set up a meeting to pitch the idea. They bought the concept right away and the day after I received a contract and a budget to work from. The record company is actually the largest Norwegian owned record company, so that's cool. The executives at VME are really supportive and dedicated to the project. They are great to work with. What about the working process with the music and the different bands? In addition to the famous Norwegian artists that we knew would deliver great material we took the greatest of the "up and coming bands". A few from the cover song award had already burning hot recordings, while some I had to send into the studio to re-record or to do adjustments. Unfortunate some of the artist didn't make it even though they did several sessions to improve their recordings. I had to turn dedicated people down to keep the high quality that we wanted for this album. That's what it takes to make the ultimate KISS tribute! I know there are a lot of disappointed people that wanted to be a part of the record, but the best material will win no matter what. How did you get Norwegian music stars to join? I got in touch with the artists and management that I knew had a strong relation to KISS. I told them about the project and I think it was easy for them to say yes! You know it’s important for these artists to keep their professionalism and I think they understood that we were serious about doing this high class and not half ass. There is of course also a financial issue when dealing with successful artists. Not because they are greedy, but because it is their job. They use the best studios and producers and they don’t work for free. Is there any band or artists that said no? Not really, there were some schedule and business issues with some of the artists, but generally they all said yes. We are still in negotiations with a few bands that we really would like to have on the album. When will the album be released? There’s a deadline for the tracking list December 31th, the album should be finished recorded March 31st, the artwork and mastering will be done in April. We will leave the album on the shelf during the summer and release the album September 5th. I will add that a album as great as this one will have special events and release parties to conceive with the release as well. I will stand by my word, we will set a new standard for the quality of KISS tribute albums! Look out for PART II of this interview. More about the songs and the artists on the album. |
