No Regrets by Joe Layden Ace Frehley John Ostrosky Page A

same way that Muff Divers would have been a dead end. You want to be taken seriously as a band? Well, then, your name can’t be a punch line. And it can’t be so profane that no one will want to say it out loud (unless they’re really pissed off).
    Eventually we began talking about other bands we had been in, mainly as a source of inspiration. One name can cause a spark, and suddenly you’re tossing out ideas, until finally you settle on something that just feels right. I’d been through the process multiple times with other bands. It was simple brainstorming, and it usually worked. Peter had once been in a band called Lips, and at some point the conversationwent in that general direction, until finally Paul suggested “KISS.” The collective response was, “You know, that’s not bad.”
    It was that simple, that organic.
    It was the same way with the now famous (or infamous) KISS logo. As soon as we settled on the name, I went home and started messing around with various stylistic renderings of the band name. While it’s true that I wasn’t much of a student when it came to traditional courses, I did have artistic ability. In fact, I used to double up in art at DeWitt Clinton. I got really close to the head of the art department, Doc Goldberg. He encouraged my interest in sketching and design; he’d even write passes for me when I came in late. Doc was used to dealing with students who had trouble fitting in. Most of the kids in his department were uncomfortable in a public school setting, but that didn’t mean they lacked talent. They were just… different. I was one of the best artists at DeWitt Clinton. I even designed a very cool psychedelic cover for the biannual school magazine, the
Magpie
. My idea was to sketch the words “Youth Revolts” on the cover, but the faculty advisor on the project felt that was too inflammatory.
    “How about ‘Youth Dissents’?” she suggested. “That might be better.”
    I’m not sure I even understood the meaning of the word
dissent,
but I did as I was told and the cover still looked very cool.
    After moving on to Roosevelt High, I was prompted by my art teacher to enter one of my paintings in an art competition involving all the high school students in the five boroughs of New York City. That’s more than one hundred thousand kids! I was good enough to have won an Art Achievement Award naming me one of the top one hundred high school artists in the city and my painting was displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. Not bad for a street punk from the Bronx.
    Like Paul, I probably should have gone to the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan. I definitely would have had a better academic career, that’s for sure. But I didn’t want it bad enough. I loved art, but I loved music even more, and constantly dreamt about where it could take me. Like I said, I lacked focus and discipline.
    Being excited about my new band, I roughed out a sketch of the original KISS logo in no time at all. It wasn’t a whole lot different than the logo as it appears today. My original concept featured the twin
S
’s in jagged detail, like lightning bolts, and a small dot in the shape of a diamond over the letter
I
. I then transferred the logo to a button using a felt-tip pen and presented it to the group. I later dropped the diamond over the
I
and that was that. Designing one of the most recognizable rock logos in history wasn’t really that difficult. Everyone loved it. Paul was a trained artist, so when things got really serious he polished my design, making everything nice and neat. (Thanks, Paul!)
    And that’s how “Kiss” became “KISS.”
    Incidentally, there was never any secret meaning to the logo or the name. I’ve been accused of trying to mimic the
SS
of the Nazi storm troopers. Fucking ludicrous. I wasn’t that subversive or nihilistic. I thought lightning bolts would look cool, and I had already decided that my character in the band would be called the