Although he was their fourth lead guitarist, Bruce Kulick was actually a member of Kiss for more consecutive years than any of his predecessors, including original guitarist Ace Frehley. When Mark St. John was affected with Reiter's Syndrome just prior to the beginning of the band's Animalize world tour, it was Bruce Kulick who was contracted as a temporary—and ultimately permanent—replacement. A professional musician for more than twenty years, the Brooklyn-born Kulick first came to prominence as a touring guitarist with Meatloaf. Although he didn't record with Meatloaf, he did play guitar on Billy Squire's debut album, Tale Of The Tape, as well as forming the band Blackjack with vocalist Michael Bolton before joining Kiss in 1984. Over the course of twelve years, Bruce's talented contributions resulted in three platinum and four gold records for Kiss, starting with Asylum in 1985. Following a whirlwind convention tour in 1995, Bruce participated in perhaps Kiss' most ambitious project to date: a live acoustic album. While Kulick's work on Kiss Unplugged is extraordinary, it was largely overshadowed by a collaboration with Peter Criss and Ace Frehley that was to be the catalyst in a reformation of the original Kiss. Recently, it was in the midst of the New England Kiss Expo that the former Kiss guitarist was given the opportunity to speak to Roger Lotring and Cindy Jackson about his current project with singer John Corabi, as well as his past musical performances.

I did some searching on the internet—I knew that you'd played with Meatloaf before, but I didn't realize that you and your brother played on the Bat Out Of Hell tour; I thought it was one of the subsequent tours.

My brother did work a lot with Meatloaf through his career, but I was only involved—that was that one big tour that we both... y'know [we were] on tour almost a year with him. It was very, very exciting—it was very exhausting, too. It was my first big taste of arenas and big gigs. But, y'know, there was a lot of people on stage.

Yeah, that's true.

Well, we did get to get featured a bit, so it was cool. And I did enjoy his music. That album is very, very special.

What did you think of the Bat Out Of Hell II album?

Well, it obviously sold very well. I guess it wasn't a fluke, although he didn't follow that up very well.

No, I don't think so.

And, actually, Bob and I went to see him play. He pointed us out in the crowd and made us take a bow, which was very cool.

Oh, that's cool.

No, he really got his shit together through the years. That year, he was pretty much like Baby Huey, a little out of control.

That was kind of his first big taste of—

Sure. Well, he was in Rocky Horror, which was very cool. But if you're not centered as a person, that kind of fame can get you a little crazy. That's why it took so long for him to put out another record. But it was a good experience for me to learn.

The other thing, too, is playing with Michael Bolton. I don't think a lot of people really expect that.

Right. Well, you've gotta remember Michael, when we had a band together, was extremely into Led Zeppelin and Bad Company. We were kind of molded more after [a] Bad Company/Zeppelin kind of band. Our business manager was the guy who handled Led Zeppelin's affairs—and Bad Company—at Swan Song. And that's what we were into.

It just seems kind of weird, the way it branched out and what he ultimately ended up doing.

Well, first, he started to write songs that were blue-eyed soul, because before we did the rock blues-based version of what turned into Blackjack, he was doing very bluesy music. So then he became more like an r&b/pop songwriter—just songwriter first—then he was singing like, Budweiser commercials.

Oh, no kidding?

Yeah. The last actual giging I did with him was, he had a solo album out called Everybody's Crazy; I played guitar on that. And then it was shortly after that, really, that he really was getting into that kind of songwriting and then it started to hit. I played a little bit on one of those other records, but by then he was using all these really, just stuffy studio kind of musicians. And the kind of music he does, even when there's a little bit of rock guitar, it's really lame. Y'know, the guy's good, but it's not the same. It doesn't have any edge to it. And he became a pop star, not where I wanna be.

Were there any other Kiss collaborations with Michael Bolton, aside from "Forever"?

Only "Forever". The only song they ever wrote, Paul [Stanley] and him.

Which, coincidentally, we're playing at our wedding in six weeks.

Oh, really? You guys are getting married? Congratulations. That's great.

Thank you. Six weeks from yesterday.

Yeah, it's a beautiful song, it came out nice.

Yeah, the guitar is nice on it, too. Real nice.

Thanks. Yeah, I played the bass on it, too.

Did you really?

Mm-hmm.

No kidding. Actually, I knew that Eric Carr had done some bass work. I wasn't aware that you—

Yeah, we pass it around. Well, Gene [Simmons] is a little heavy-handed and I cut the demo with Paul, and the demo became the record, really.