How Bruce Kulick Learned What Not to Say to Gene Simmons

Bruce Kulick says he learned a big lesson from an argument with Kiss bandmate Gene Simmons while the group were being supported on tour by Bon Jovi.

Guitarist Kulick, who was a member of Kiss from 1983 to 1996, was a relative newcomer when the two groups hit the road together in September 1984.

Early on, Kulick began to encounter issues with his stage equipment, and found himself envying Bon Jovi’s gear, which was much newer than his own band’s.

READ MORE: The Worst Song From Every Kiss Album

“One time I got emotional with Gene about some equipment that was failing,” Kulick told Story Expo in a recent episode. “Bon Jovi was opening for us and they had new gear. It might have been because they just got their record deal and they spent it on all that.”

Meanwhile, he observed, “I’m inheriting stuff from the warehouse. The band started in ’73. Now it's ’84, and my wireless [guitar transmission system] kept failing.”

Kulick admitted he wasn’t yet familiar with Kiss mainstays Simmons and Paul Stanley, which probably contributed to his mistaken approach to telling Simmons about his issue. Instead of binging it up in the form of a conversation, he expressed his thoughts emotionally.

“He started to act like I was being Jerry Lewis [to his] Dean Martin,” he said of Simmons’ response. “And he really shut me down. And it was a big lesson I learned, and I appreciated it – if you’ve got a gripe like that, don’t be emotional about it.

“Don’t be tying it to, ‘And what about the opening act? They have it!’ I thought that was a good argument. But not for Gene Simmons.”

Bruce Kulick Learned From His ‘Fail’ with Kiss

While Kulick maintained that he had a reasonable point, he reflected: “I thought I was painting a fair picture – ‘Why should they have [working gear]?’ It would have been easier to say, ‘Gene, we’re Kiss. My thing is failing… please don’t leave me out there where the roadie doesn’t know [what’s wrong].”

He added: “That was a great lesson [when] I saw how pissed he was. And again that was a fail, but it was a win because now I knew going forward.”

Saying the incident was “a fail, but it was a win,” he confirmed he’s carried with him for the rest of his career: “[W]ith any other band, if I wanted to present something, I certainly was trying to be diplomatic.”