Greg Prato’s new book Take It Off – Kiss Truly Unmasked is out in November, and promises to lift the lid on the story of KISS in the 1980s, a period when the band ditched the make-up, established themselves as an MTV mainstay, and wrote some of their biggest hits.
In this excerpt, former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing looks back on an era when some of rock’s most hard-hitting bands visited the hairdressers and softened their sound in pursuit of airtime, and how The Gulf War brought the good times to a resounding halt.
Prato: Why do you think so many veteran hard-rock and heavy-metal acts lightened their sound around the same time in the 80s?
K.K. Downing: …When we got to the mid-80s, there was such a feel-good factor. We would come over to America, and we would do 138 shows – in North America alone. We would go all the way around the country and Canada, have a break of two weeks, and then go all the way around again, playing the secondary markets. And even the secondary markets were notable places to be, for bands like us.
But what is very important is that bands were going to the people. People were not having to spend a fortune or having to travel overnight to see bands in major cities, so they could spend more money and see more bands at this time. It was harder to do that before, and it was certainly harder to do that afterward. Most bands stopped going into the secondary markets, because we were told they had become ‘non-lucrative’ areas…
I think we saw the most positive and productive period in music history in the mid-80s. And I think it’s fair to say they were the ‘big hair’ days. We would see bands – Scorpions, Judas Priest, Dokken – all go to the hairdressers. But it was all good, because the whole rock and metal genre became more colorful. These were just magical times. But did it become a fight for positions on MTV and radio stations…
…with Judas Priest, we probably started to think – consciously or subconsciously – that we haven’t had our day yet…Judas Priest seemed to be one of the biggest bands around at the time, but our biggest-selling record was, like, two million records [1982’s Screaming For Vengeance].
Not to be greedy, but we were thinking: Our support bands are having these massive-selling records. If you create the songs, you’ve got the media outlets with radio and television now. You can have these big records—you just have to put the songs together. Hence, probably, why Priest decided not to do a double album with the Turbo album, which was originally going to be called Twin Turbos. What we decided to do was condense everything down, and put out an album together that had good continuity, a good flow, but also was pretty much a radio-friendly album.
We attempted it once, and kind of failed, because it didn’t happen for us. The producers from Top Gun wanted a song from the album to put in the movie, and that didn’t happen – our fault. Otherwise, it could have been very, very different for the band. We had an opportunity – it just didn’t click for Judas Priest. They wanted the song Reckless.
That probably would have done it, because it would have been all over the radio, I suppose, if it was in the movie. We thought Turbo Lover and Locked In were going to do it for us, but they didn’t. The tour was very successful, the album was successful, but it wasn’t the big-selling album that we hoped for. I think quite a lot of that went on with the acceptability and success of a lot of other bands that you would look at on MTV. Even Ozzy went to the hairdressers.
So that was what was going on in the mid-80s…Everybody was in a happy place – the musicians, the fans, the media…We had five years or so – maybe more – of great times, of everything getting to where it had been headed, for quite a long time. Because punk and the new-wave thing had gone, and there was an acceptance of what we were doing. Our ‘art’ became accepted by the masses. Even though we had to suffer court cases and the PMRC—there is always a battle to fight when you do what we do.
Greg Prato: Did the radio/MTV success of such bands as Motley Crue and Ratt, and later Bon Jovi, turn the tide?
K.K. Downing: Yeah. MTV and the radio stations – once you got big hits and numbers there, potentially you could have that big-selling album on your hands. We seemed to get plenty of coverage and play, but it didn’t quite fit, for some reason.
Maybe it was just quite simply the name ‘Judas Priest.’ I don’t know. It’s difficult. But it was a great place to be, because you could check into a hotel virtually anywhere in the US – any major city – and there would be lots of bands in town. Some guys would be playing the arenas, some guys would be playing theatres, and some people would be playing clubs…
Greg Prato: Priest, KISS, and Ozzy wore quite over-the-top fashions on tour in 1986, in support of their respective albums – Turbo, Asylum, and The Ultimate Sin.
K.K Downing: I think rock musicians had this awareness by then that if you could be attractive – or seemingly attractive – to the female audience, then you would be more successful. I think there was a lot of truth in that, in that particular time. Because it seemed to me that the female fraternity now seemed more comfortable going to concerts and getting out there – more so than in the 70s. I mean, when we first went to Japan, it was a 95 percent male audience. And then, it turned around – by the mid-80s, it would probably be 80 percent female. Massive, massive turnaround.
Greg Prato: “Hair metal” is the term often used to describe this era, which is fitting. Rob Halford even grew his hair long at the time.
K.K Downing: Everybody had cute-looking chicks in their videos. Scantily clad women. And I think a lot of the girls thought, I want to be in a video with a rock band. And, of course, we would use girls in our videos—mud wrestlers, you name it. Fit-looking girls. In that Locked In video.
And that video cost our record company – if my memory serves me well – $360,000. We got caught up in that. We’ll never see those days again. But I must be right about what I’m saying about it reaching its pinnacle – if you think about those video budgets, it’s absolutely insane.
I think bands spent a million dollars on their video – I’m sure they did. But the main thing is, we reached a point where everybody was in a good place. It seemed that people were happier and enjoying life better. And people were enjoying music a lot more than they ever did. Everybody as a whole – it was seriously big. Those massive record stores that we used to go to – doing in-stores, playing shows.
There were a lot more bands around for the people. And now, unfortunately, so many fans have to travel so far to see a band, because there are less tour dates. It’s a big investment to see a band these days for lots of people in the States.
Read more at Classic Rock.
Greg Prato’s new book, Take It Off – Kiss Truly Unmasked. will be released on November 19th. Pre-order at Amazon.
15 Responses
I know I have said this ad nauseam, but Screaming For Vengeance, is my favorite Priest album. I can certainly understand why that was their most successful selling record at that time.
Being my favorite band, I can only speak for myself. I think the reason Turbo was not the success the band hoped it would be, was not because of the band’s name, but because the average Judas Priest fan did not know what to make of Judas Priest lite.
While I was always give the band credit for thinking outside of the box, and trying different genres, it was very difficult for a hardcore fan to accept that the band who wrote Bloodstone, was suddenly using synths, drums machines, and singing about Parental Guidance. It took me decades to appreciate that album, but in my view, it will never be a classic Priest album like, Screaming For Vengeance, British Steel, etc.
Maybe not but reckless and out in the cold are masterpieces!
I prefer Private Property and Wild Nights, Hot and Crazy Days, to those songs, but again, it’s all a matter of personal taste.
I freely admit that I am not a fan of ballads. Fever, is definitely one of them, the bridge in that song is insane.
I saw this tour in Oakland. Lets not forget about Rob riding a Ninja motorcycle out instead of his Harley Davidson during the show. That was kind of a poser move . Dokken kicked ass opening for them though, lol . I remember being upset they only got to play a little more than a half hour.
I skipped the Turbo tour, I just couldn’t go, as I loathed that record at the time.
I saw them on the next go around, for Ram It Down. They performed Beyond The Realms of Death, and my boyfriend, at the time, said to, “They are breaking up.” I looked at him and asked why, and he said, “This is my favorite song, and they never perform it live.” Sure enough. Rob left the band after Painkiller.
I totally agree with Ken! People were happier and enjoying life more in the 80’s! Anything and everything went, good and bad! F–k the naysayers and all the negativity towards the greatest decade ever! It was fun, and it was the greatest time to be alive! Yeah so what some of the fashion and sh-t was hideous, (oh my God some of those videos, LOL!!!) But again, above all and everything else, the 80’s rocked!!
I agree the ’80s were the best.
Grunge was about a lot more than just opposition to glam. About the same time as it came out, the Mother Jones people published a book about the 80s called “The Worst Years of Our Lives” because Republicans were in the White House the whole time, and because jogging became popular. Grunge complemented political correctness and the political left griping about their lack of support in the 80s.
Kurt Cobain was the perfect “sex symbol” for the girl who chooses her guy so she can take care of him and nurture him.
I never liked Grunge, not just because it killed off the music of the formative years of my life, but I found it whiny (the pre EMO if you will), depressing and joyless, even the fashion looked raggedy and gloomy.
That’s not to say there weren’t a few highlights here, and there, but I hardly listen to any of my Grunge CD’s. I should probably sell them.
And yet it was a liberal Democrat (Tipper Gore) that started the whole PMRC censorship bullsh-t! Convenient how so many people on the left forget about that. Michael Jackson loved the Reagans, I guess the left conveniently forgot about that as well. The 80’s were the best years of our lives, too bad a few a-holes can’t admit just because of politics.
JP Lite, I like it. Turbo, the album does grow on ya’, eventually. Pretty cheesy compared to the first lot. Still love Stained Class out of all of em’
Savage, who is Savage!
Savage is also my favorite song off of Stained Class.
…the Turbo show I saw in Atlanta..was probably the best experience I’ve ever had at a show…the vibes were vibrant…the air was electirc; it was such an exiciting time for music because the music was changing…evolving…that’s why Priest waited two years to put out Turbo….they already made the ultimate uncompromising metal record…they were too smart to just do that again. Rob and the band were so on top of their game when they did Turbo.
KK speaks some serious truth in this interview. I agree with everything he said. I also came into Priest during Turbo and I think it was a great record. I don’t think losing their old fans was the deal breaker, I think it was not gaining the new Ratt/Dokken/Ozzy fans over in big enough numbers that failed them. I honestly can’t say why those songs didn’t win them over either. They were pretty dead on for the market at that time. Maybe there was too much history and they didn’t seem like a ‘new’ thing. Iron Maiden would have the same issue.
I can only speculate, and venture to guess, that it their previous, harder edged sound, and image, loomed large. Also, unlike Bon Jovi, Poison, etc., they weren’t pretty enough for most women.
For me, as I stated below, as my favorite band, with Vengeance, being my favorite album, I was difficult for me to accept the band going from Bloodstone to Turbo Lover.