Alice in Chains producer Toby Wright has reflected on working with KISS in 1994 on the band’s seventeenth studio album, Carnival of Souls.
In a conversation with Louder Sound, Wright revealed that during the recording sessions Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons wanted to jump on the grunge hype.
“They [Kiss] wanted to follow a little hip trend going on at the time called grunge music. The bottom line was, like all artists, they wanted to sell records,” Toby reminisced.
Wright went on to detail that Kiss wanted to replicate the sound of Smashing Pumpkins.
“I remember getting into a big argument with Gene about the direction of the album. He said he wanted to be like that ‘bald guy, the one that’s on the top of the charts.’ He meant Billy Corgan,” he revealed.
“We were about done with the record when Gene got the call. Somebody offered him 100 million to put back on the makeup with all the original members. We all knew right as the words came out of his mouth that we were done.”
In other news, Smashing Pumpkins recently announced that on Friday, November 27th, they will release their eleventh studio album, Cyr.
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It features the bands previously released singles ‘Cyr’ and ‘The Colour of Love’ which were unveiled last month. It marks the band’s first studio album since 2017’s SHINY AND OH SO BRIGHT, VOL. 1 / LP: NO PAST. NO FUTURE. NO SUN.
The record was produced by Billy Corgan in Chicago and was performed with founding members James Iha, Jimmy Chamberlin, and longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder.
