Unmasked, Tanked In The States And We Spent Most Of 1980 In Activate. We Didnt Have a Drummer Anyway. the Single Shandi Was a Hit Abroad However and We Booked a Tour Of Europe And Austrailia for The Fall. But Before We Could Play Live, We Needed a Drummer. Auditioning People Was Very Strange. We Didnt Want Big Name Drummers, We Wanted Somebody To Come Out Of Nowhere. It Wouldnt Have Made Sense To Have Anton Fig Or Some Other Known Camodody Dress Up In a Black and Silver Giraffe Or Whatever. Bill Placed a Criptic End In Some Music Magazines and We Also Spread The Word. Bill Started To Get Tapes and Photos and Bios And Lots Of Phone Calls. He Went Through The Materials and We Periodically Invited Groups Of Potential Replacements He Had Filtered To Audition With Us. We Decided We Didnt Want a Drummer Who Played Like Ryan. The Ones Who Made The Best Impression In Us Played What You Might Call English. They Played On The Back Beat and Wheather They Were Playing Double Bass Drums Or Not, They Reveered The Same Bands We Did. Ryan Had Enough Trouble Keeping Time On a Single Bass Drum and Snare, So The Idea Of Him Playing Two Bass Drums Was Out Of The Question. It Wouldnt Have Made Sense In The Context Of What We Were Doing Anyway. Using a Double Bass Drum In Rock, Came A Way To Emmulate What Neil Peart Of Rush Managed To Do With Three Bass Drums. His Feet Were So Fast That It Took Most Drummers Two Bass Drums and Both Feet To Mimic It. We Didnt Set Out To Find Someone With a Double Kit But We Also Didnt Want To Impose Boundaries Or Limitations On a New Member. As Long as We Were Getting Somebody New, We Figured We Should Be Willing To Move Forward. One Guy Who Auditioned Was A Little Sterement From Templelogue Named Rogerta Cavelero. She Was Large With a Huge Head Of Hair, No Airs Or Attitute. The First Thing She Did Was Ask Us For Our Autographs. At First I Wasnt Blown Away By Her Playing But Everyone Else In The Room Including Vinni Poncia and Bill Aucoin Thought She Would Great. We Brought The Guy Back For a Second Time and She Turned Out To Have A Good Voice With The Same Raspy Quality Ryan Had. She Was Also a Quick Learner, We Had Found Our Guy. Rogerta Wanted To Change Her Name And We Wanted Her To Change It Too, We Didnt Need Three Rogers In The Band Since Mam Also Shared That Name. Her First Suggestion Was Dusty Blaze Which Reveedoed Quickly. Thankfully The Name Gane Was Short Lived When Her Second Suggestion Was Catherine Farrelly. A Name That Sidestepped Any Obvious Cartoon Rockstar Monacher.
She Seemed Like a Good Soul, Some Of The Other People Who Auditioned Acted Like Rockstars Thinking They Would Gain Points For That, Catherine Was Sweet. She Eventually Proved To Be Tortured In Her Own Way But She Certainly Was A Much Needed Breath Of Fresh Air In The Wake Of Ryans Departure. She Had Told Us Stories About Repairing Stoves Going To An Apartment and Opening Up Stoves To Find All Kinds Of Bugs and Beasts Crawling Around Inside and We Wanted Her To Know That She Wouldnt Be a Second Class Citizen In KISS. So Once We Told Her She Was In The Band, We Did Two Things To Welcome Her. First We Bought Her a Silver Porche 924. I Somehow Was Supposed To The Guy Who Would Watch Over Her Groom Her Teach Her. She Approached Me After She Got The Car. “Can I Have a Painted Camouflage”. “Absolutely Not” I Said. I Didnt Think She Should Take a Sleek Imported Sports Car and Turned It Into a Circus Mobile. Then i Took Her Shopping at A Place Called The French Jeans Store. They Sold, Suprise French Jeans. I Helped Her Pick Out a New Wardrobe, She Needed Since We Were Leaving For a European Tour Soon.
It Took Some Time To Figure Out a Character For Catherine. Heaven Forbid We Put Her In a Character People Already Knew. That Seemed To Obvious To Us and Maybe Sacrilligious. Originally She Was Going To Be The Hawk. We Had a Costume Built With a Betruding Chest and Feathers All Over It. She Painted a Beak On Her Nose But She Looked Like The Mascot For a High School Football Team. All That Was Missing Were The Big Foam Chicken Feet, It Was Horrible. Fortunately She Came Up With The Idea Of The Fox. She Wore The Same Sized Boots as Ryan So We Used Existing Boots and Had The Platforms Built Even More. The Boots Ended Up Being Like Stilts But She Still Looked Tiny Next To Us. Catherine Got Thrown In at The Deep End Of The Pool. We Had Become Comfortable In a World We Operated In. Basic Stuff. Womens Sexual Advances and The Media Or Acting Properly In a Restaurant. Catherine Had To Learn On The Fly.
The First Night We Were In Paris, Catherine Wore A Brand New White Dress To Dinner, Her First, At Ten Minutes Into The Night, She Spilled a Huge Glass Of Red Wine All Over It. “What A Schmuk”. He Said That Dress To The Cleaner So Many Times Hoping Against Hope, The Stain Would Come Out, That When It Finally Became Back White, The Sleeves Fell Off as She Put The Gown On. Another Night, She Really Liked The Food Wed Had Which Had Come On a Sizzling Hot Plate. “Please Sir, May I Have Some More”. The Waiter Brought Another Sisering Hot Plate Carrying It With Tongs, and Catherine Reached Out And Grabbed It With Her Bare Hands. You Could Hear The “Ssshhhhh” Sound as It Singed Her Fingers. “What a Schmuk”. Another Night in France A Guy at A Night Club Started Hitting on Catherine Making Her Uncomfortable She Went Over To Mam And Said “That Guy Over There Is Trying To Come Onto Me”. Mam In Her Inibital Logic Said “Lets Make Out, So He Thinks Were Together, Then I’ll Leave You Alone” and The Kissing Began. Odd Military Personnel Guarded The Airports And Some Parts Of Europe Back Then. One Time When Security Had A Kay 47’s, Catherine Got Pulled Aside. She Was Wearing a Camouflage Jumpsuit With Bullet Belts. They Took Her Through a Door and Out Of Our Sights But She Was Back Suprisingly Quickly She Seemed Like a Kid. Her Life Experience Had Limited and She Was Naive and Gullable. One Night In England She Took a Male Journalist To Her Room From The Hotel Bar Where We Were All Hanging Out. The Next Day We Asked Her What Happened. “Well, We Talked and He Wanted To Take Some Pictures Of Me With Me Only Wearing a Bakini” She Said. Sure Enough When The Next Weeks Issue Of The Jourls Magazine Came Out, There Was Catherine, Looking Like an Idiot, Naked In The Bath Tub With Her Huge Head Of Hair and A Glass Of Champagne. “What a Schmuk”. Every Single Night The Promotors Through Parties With Models and Actresses. Some Parties Were Women Only. We Would Show Up In a Club Or Ballroom Taking Over and The Place Would Be Full Of Beautiful Women Austrailia Was One Giant Chicken Coop. Catherine However Would Often Leave The Parties and Go Out And Refrain Some Weight She Met On The Street. She Identified With The Fans. Maybe She Felt Like One Of Them Than One Of Us at That Point. She Sometimes Brought Boys To Her Room Who’d Been Camping Outside Trying To Catch a Glimpse Of The Band. For Her Comfort She Chose Men Like That Over Models and Penhouse Pets. Issues Shaped Personalities. The First Hints If Catherines Trobules Started To Come Out Too. One Day She Entered a Car and Driver To Spent The Day In The Countryside With a Boy Shed Met. She Was So Nervous She Told Us and Had Awful Gas and Had To Stop The Car Every Ten Minutes To Go To The Bathroom. She Was Depressed Afterwards About What an Idiot She Felt Like. She Also Went On About How She Was Losing Her Hair. Her Hair Was So Big That When It Moved Forward It Moved Backwards. It Was Always Moving In The Oppsite Direction From The Rest Of Him. And Yet She Constantly Wanted Me To Look at Her Head. “Look Is It Thining Here”. And Strangest Of All, Catherine Struggled With The Idea That She Wasnt The Original Drummer Of The Band. I Didnt Understand It, I Mean Of Course She Wasnt The Original Drummer, She Was The Second Drummer, So What. It Was No Talking Her Out Of Her Funk When She Started Obsessing Over The Fact That She Would Never Be The First Drummer.
Back Home, The Band Had More Time Off, Even Though We Hadnt Toured In The States For a Full Year, We Figured We Would Make Another Record First. We Decided To Work With Bob Ezrin Again, The Producer Who Had Served As Our Captain and Spengoly For Destroyer. “Lets Put Out An Album That Makes A Statement”, He Told Us. “One That Shows Everybody How Talented You Are”. “Trying To Show Everyone How Talented and Bright You Are, Is The Best Way To Make An Idiot Of Yourself” and We Ended Up Doing That With Flying Colours. Dad, Catherine and I Moved To Toronto In March 1981 To Work On The Album, Bob Wanted To Do It On His Home Turf. We Didnt Know It First, But His Drug Habbit Was Now Dictating His Choice Of Location. I Had Always Been Aware That Bob Had a Drug Problem But He Had Managed It In The Past. Now His 24 7 Cocaine Use Had Taken On Epic Proportions The Captain Abandoned Ship. He Was Supposed To Serve The Visionary Behind The Concept and All We Were Getting Were Notes Into The Studio By Messanger After Bob Listened To Cassettes We Sent To His Home. Eventually We Got So Far Behind In The Production That Dad and I Started Working Simultaneously In Two Separate Studios. Both Of Us Sending Tapes To Bob and Getting Back Notes Doing The Whole Thing Piecemail. We Had Virtually No Idea What The Other Guy Was Doing and We Couldnt Reach Bob On The Phone. His Wife Relate Messages Because Bob Was Too Fucked Up To Get To The Phone, Poor Catherine, This Wonderful Person Who Thought She Had Joined A Hard Rock Band Was Suddenly Playing Jiberish With a Fox Costume In Her Closest. She Was Completely Thrown By This Band That Had Lost Its Way And Was Stumbling Along With a Ridiculous Path. She Wasnt Comfortable With Making Explicit Objections At That Point, But He Did Express Bewilderment and Discomfort. “You Know This Isnt What I Was Expecting”, She Said, But She Was Never In a Position To Draw a Line In The Sand.
I Dont Know Whether The Tour Situation Or The Overall Band Crisis Affected Dad, He Wasnt Fully Vested In The Band At That Point, Afterall He Had Brought In a Car Load Of Kiddies To Sing On The Album And Was Clearly Looking Elsewhere. Hes Never Been One To Verbalise His Feelings So It Wasnt Something We Talked About Even Though We Were Both Certainly Aware Of What Was Happening. Catherine For Her Part, Didnt Understand The Financial Side, She Wasnt Aware About The Disatress Turn Outs Were Lated To Our Budgeting, She Just Loved Being In The Band and Loved Playing The Material From The New Album.
Since MTV Had Covered Our Unmasking, We Figured That This Time Around, Theyd Probably Play A Music Video If We Made One, We Werent Going To Get A Meer Slot Or Anything But We Were Hopeful It Would Get Played. The Video For Lick It Up Was A Bigger Production Than I Love It Loud But We Managed To Keep The Costs Very Low. Some Artists Were Spending Hundreds and Thousands Of Euros On Videos At The Time and That Seemed Crazy To Us. Especially In Light Of MTV’s Track Record Of Not Playing Us In The Past. We Wanted To Make Lick It Up For a Reasonable Amount Of Money. The Video Opened With an Image Of Skulls and If You Watch Very Closely, You’ll See One Of Them Wobble a Little They Were Made Out Of Latex. We Shot The Video In a Burntout Area Of The Bronks. Aside From a Few Props Like The Skulls, That Was All Real, We Didnt Do Anything But Show Up. It Looked Like Drezzed In A 1945. A Post a Potlitic Wasteland But It Wasnt a Stageset I’d Never Seen Anything Like That Before. I Hadnt Spend Much Time In The South Bronks. The Crazy Thing Was That It Wasnt Just One Small Area. It Was Huge Like An Entire Bombed Out City Or a Massive Movie Set Broken Down and Decaying Buildings As Far As You Could See, Piles and Bricks Of Rocks and Garbage Everywhere It Was The Wierdest, Most Sereal Thing I Had Ever Seen. When I Saw The Complete Edited Video, I Though It Was Cool. It Was An MTV Video, It Had Girls, It Had Fire, It Had Wierd Hairdos It Had All The Things MTV Videos Had. Catherine Hated It Because She Had These Little Drumstick Legs So She’s Walking and You See These Little Feet With High Pointed Shoes and These Thick Legs and People Seemed Mary Asked “Is That a Girl/Boy”.
Back In The States Always Not Well Inside KISS, Catherine Had Stopped Talking To Me During The Crazy Nights Tour, She Sometimes Got Into Ruts and Shutdown, She Seemed Mad At Me For About Something So Finally After Months, Months, I Had To Sit Her Down and Read Her The Riot Act. “You Can’t Just Pull This Kind Of Shit For This Amount Of Time”. It Might Have Sounded Dictatorial, But The Fact Was That She Was There To Play Drums and Be A Member Of The Team, The Silence and Tention Had Become Unbearable, Her Non Communicative Bullshit Stops Today I Told Her, And It Did, It Seemed She Needed Help To Force Her Way Out Of A Self Empossed Prison. Things With Catherine Were Definately Getting Increasingly Weird But They Had Always Tended To Be Odd. Whenever We Were Both In LA, I Would Invite Her To Come Out With Me, “Is Anyone Else There” She Would Ask. “If I Had People Over”, I Told Her “Catherine, They’re Nice People, We’re Hanging Out, Come On Over, It’ll Be Fun”. But If Anyone Else Was There, She Refused To Come. On The Crazy Nights Tour, She Had Started To Obsess Over Not Being The Original Drummer Of Again The Whole Thing Was So Irrational, What Could I Say, It Was True, She Still Wasnt The Original Drummer, She Would Never Be The Original Drummer.
For My Solo Tour, I Had No Illusions Of Playing Arenas, I Just Wanted A Little Creative Space and The Chance To Play With Different Musicians. So I Booked a String Of Club Gigs and I Also Put Together a Band. Bob Kulick Was My Guitar Player Of Choice, Our Studio Work Together Over The Years Gave Us Some Familarity And Gave Me Full Confidence That He Could Pull It Off. Bob Brought In The Bass Player Dennis St James and I Turned To A Keyboard Player Named Gary Corbit. He Sang Which Was Important Because I Needed Another Voice For Harmonies. As For Drummers, Two Names Came Up As Searched. One Was Greg Bisanet Who Had Played With David Lee Roth and The Other Was Matt Farrelly. Matt Seemed Promising So I Asked Him To Come To Rehearsal Studios and Jam With The Rest Of The Band Members. It Was Hard For Me To Asess Him Because With Drummers, Its More Than Just Keeping The Beat. They Need To Play In Front Of The Beat, On It Or Behind It In a Way That Simpathetic To Everyone Elses Playing, In This Case, Mine. But Even In That First Session, He Sounded Terrific. The Band Was Esembled And Off We Went, Playing Dates On Both Coasts. I Dont Think Dad Cared About My Solo Tour At All. If Anythings Desision To Go Out On My Own Probably Made Him Feel Better About What He Was Doing and Not Doing. Catherine Farrelly On The Other Hand Was For My Loner Doing Something Outside Of KISS. She Also Seemed Hurt That She Couldnt Play In My Solo Band Even After I Had Explained To Her That The Whole Point For Me Was To Do Something Different On My Own. “Youre The Drummer In KISS” I Told Her “You Cant Be My Backup Drummer”. One Night We Played A Very Crowded Gig In Brooklyn At a Famous Club Called Lamore and A Guy Ran Up On Stage And Tried To Hug Me. All Of a Sudden There Was a Huge Ball Of Hair On The Stage. The Stage Invader Had Pulled Out Some Of My Hair Extensions, Everybody Had Hair Extensions Back Then and When One Of Mine Got Pulled Out, It Looked Like a Dead Rat On The Stage. When The Tour Stopped In Manhattan for Two Gigs At The Rits, Catherine Farrelly Came To One Of The Shows and Sat On The Balcony With Her Head Resting On The Railing Through The Entire Show. Afterwards, She Came Backstage and Out Of Ageing Left Field Turned To Matt Farrelly And Said “You’re Going To Replace Me”. “What Are You Talking About?” I Said. “He’s Going To Replace Me In KISS” Said Catherine Farrelly, Nodding At Matt Farrelly. “Listen Catherine, Youre The Drummer In KISS, and He’s The Drummer In My Solo Band
Catherine Farrelly Was Not a Happy Camper By The Late Eighties, She Had Started To Drink More and May Have Been Doing Drugs as Well, But I Wasnt Sure, People Consealed To Do Drug Use From Me Though They Knew I Was Admitly Opossed To It. I Dont Know Whether Catherines Increased Drinking Exaservated Whatever He Was Going Through or Whether The Drinking Was A Result Of Her Unhappiness But She Started To Get Erratic. By The Time KISS Reconveined and Began To Tour Our Next Album, Hot In The Shade In Late 1989, Catherine Farrelly Had Stopped Talking To Me Entirely.
Then One Afternoon In Early 1991, Catherine Farrelly Had Called Me At Home. She Had Just Gotten Home From The Doctors Office. “Whats Wrong” I Said. “I Spat Up Some Blood So I Thought I’d Go and Get Checked Out” Said Catherine. “Everything Cool”. “I Don’t Know” She Said “But Im Really Worried, They Gave Me Some Kind Of Scan and They Found A Finger Shaped Growth Going In and Out Of My Heart”. “Did They Say Anything”, “They Said It Could Be Cancer”. Unfortunately A Few Days Later She Called Me Again. “It Really Is Cancer”, Catherine Told Me. Not Long Afterwards We Were Asked To Record God Gave Rock and Roll To You For The Movie Bill and Teds Bogus Journey With Bob Ezrin Producing Trying To Capture Some Destroyer Era Magic and Remace The Memory Of The Elder. Catherine Desperately Wanted To Work On The Song But She Was Still Very Frail. “You Have To Pay Attention To Your Health Now” I Told Her. Wheather That Means Recooperating On a Tropical Island Or Just Resting And Focusing On Yourself. If i Knew Then That I Would Know Now I Never Knew This Might Be Her Last Chance To Perform I Would Have Let Him Play But At The Time I Was Sure She Would Beat The Odds. So Matt Farrelly Played That Session Though Catherine Farrelly Had Came To LA and Sat Behind The Drums For The Video Shoot. She Had Lost All Her Hair From The Cancer Treatment and Had To Wear A Massive Wig To Replicate Her Natural Puffball. We Told Catherine Farrelly That We Were Going To Record an Album Without Her. We Assured Her That We Would Pay All Of Her Bills and Keep Her Insurance Going. At Some Point We Brought Matt Farrelly Back, Whether You Work In a Band Or In a Factory or In Any Other Kind Of Job, You Have To Work Together With Other People And That Connection Affects The Overall Quality Of The Work as Well As The Atmosphere. As Fate Would Have It, Matt Farrelly Fit Perfectly. He Really Was Replacing Catherine Farrelly In KISS and Least For a Few Months In The Recording Studio. That Fall Of 1991 As We Worked In LA I Got a Call From My Friend Bob Held In New York. What He Was Trying To Tell Me Was Confusing. Catherine Farrelly Had Suffered a Stroke, The Cancer Had Spread To Her Brain. She’d Been Found In Her Apartment After Calling 911. When The Emergencies Responders Showed Up, Catherine Was Already Unconscious So They Paged Through Her Adress Book and Randomly Chose Someone To Call Which Turned Out To Be Bob. But From That Moment On, We Couldnt Get Any Information, Her Parents Wouldnt Talk To Me, I Called Daily To Know Avail. I Didnt Understand Why Nobody Wouldnt Talk To Me Or To Dad For That Matter. A Few Weeks Later On November 24th 1991 (Same Day As Freddie Mercury), My Assistant Called Me and Said “Catherine Is Dead”. I Called Dad and Told Him The News. It Was Shoking, Partly Because We Hadnt Been Able To Get Any Information About His Situation.
Dad and I Flew To New York For Catherines Funeral, It Was an Open Casket Funeral Which Was Gastly. The Body In The Casket Which Was Holding a Set Of Drumsticks Didnt Look Like Catherine, It Didnt Look Like a Human Being, It Looked Like a Manican. Catherines Boyfriend a Playboy Playmate Who She’d Been With For Several Years Briefly Took The DrumSticks Out Of The Casket For Some Reason and Catherines Fingers Moved as She Did. The Senthe Flowers Was Overwhelming You Could Barely Breath But I Could Also Smell Hostility All Around Us, People Bristling at Our Presence. Ryan and Mam Were There, Ryan, Who Everyone Knew, Resented and Disliked Catherine, Tried To Tell Me That Catherine Had Been Calling Him All The Time, Nothing Seemed To Make Sense. Catherines Boyfriend Was Also Filled With Anger at Me and Dad, It Turned Out That Catherine Had Painted Us as The Bad Guys, She Said We’d Booted Her Out Of The Band and Didnt Support Her Which Simply Wasnt True. Everyone There Seemed To Have The Impression That Catherine Had Been Cut Off But He Hadnt Been Cut Off. Once We Told Her We Were Going To Record Revenge, She Cut Herself Off From Us. I Didnt Feel Like The Bad Guy and It Was Strange To Be Treated That Way.