At the time, Kiss were searching for a replacement for departing guitarist Ace Frehley. Their commercial peak was behind them, and as work began on what would become Creatures of the Night, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were auditioning players to help revitalize the band.<\/p>\n
Steve Farris’ Wild KISS Audition Story – YouTube
\n![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780496473_313_maxresdefault.jpg\")
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Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Farris was playing original music with a group that included three members of country-rock veterans Poco when an unexpected opportunity arrived during a packed show at the Blue Lagoon Saloon in Marina del Rey.<\/p>\n After the set, some tall guy comes up to me and says, \u2018Hey, Ace Frehley\u2019s leaving Kiss. Will you be interested in auditioning?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Steve Farris<\/p>\n \u201cI play a set, and in that band I had lots of guitar solos<\/a>. The place was packed,\u201d he tells Vertex Effects. \u201cAfter the set, some tall guy comes up to me and says, \u2018Hey, Ace Frehley\u2019s leaving Kiss. Will you be interested in auditioning?\u2019<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018Well, I eat peanut butter and jelly every day, and my Volkswagen Rabbit doesn\u2019t start unless I push it off the clutch. Yeah, I would do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The man scribbled a phone number on a napkin, and Farris hurriedly assembled an audition tape featuring demos and \u201canything I could find that showed I played guitar well.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwo weeks later, I get a call,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIt\u2019s Paul Stanley. He says, \u2018Gene and I listened to your tape last night, and we really liked it. We\u2019re down at the Record Plant cutting a record, and we\u2019re having guys come and play on the record. It\u2019s kind of an audition. Want to come down?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The answer was obvious.<\/p>\n The next day, Farris arrived at New York\u2019s Record Plant carrying little more than a guitar, a few pedals and a dream.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got my Valley Arts Strat<\/a>, a Goodrich pedal, and a CE-1 Chorus<\/a>,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re in Studio Four, I\u2019m walking [down the corridor], and Tom Petty\u2019s coming out of one studio, Luther Vandross is on the phone [in another].\u201d<\/p>\n After spending three hours waiting in the hallway while other players auditioned, Farris finally got his shot.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re in the control room, and they hand me a cable<\/a>. There\u2019s a Marshall<\/a> in the other room,\u201d he recalls. \u201cGene and Paul are standing there looking at me.\u201d<\/p>\n He was asked to play an eight-bar solo. Then he played it again.<\/p>\n The response was immediate.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you dye your hair black? Can you wear high heels?\u201d<\/p>\n Farris answered yes to both questions.<\/p>\n \u201cFuck man,\u201d they replied. \u201cWe got the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going nuts,\u201d he says. \u201cThey say, \u2018Don\u2019t cut your hair, we\u2019ll see you Tuesday.\u2019 I was the guy after two solos. The second take is what you hear on the record.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiss – Creatures Of The Night (Visualizer) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n But the celebration proved premature.<\/p>\n When Farris returned the following week for a full-band rehearsal, Kiss asked him to do something he hadn\u2019t expected: sing.<\/p>\n As Farris explains, he\u2019s not a singer. But he knew he needed to be.<\/p>\n I realized at one moment, \u2018Wow, I\u2019m going to take a stab at this. If I don\u2019t sing, I don\u2019t get the gig.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Steve Farris<\/p>\n \u201cI realized at one moment, \u2018Wow, I\u2019m going to take a stab at this. If I don\u2019t sing, I don\u2019t get the gig,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those moments. So I have the dubious distinction of having played \u2018Honky Tonk Women\u2019 with Kiss, with me singing lead vocal. I wish I had that tape.\u201d<\/p>\n The audition didn\u2019t go as planned. Although Simmons and Stanley loved his guitar playing, they ultimately decided he wasn\u2019t the right fit. Farris remained involved in the Creatures of the Night sessions, but the permanent job eventually went to Vinnie Vincent \u2014 the guitarist Ace Frehley would later criticize for playing \u201ctoo fast.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n More than four decades later, Farris can still laugh about the experience.<\/p>\n \u201cI still do interviews about that freaking solo,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Not bad for the shortest-serving member in Kiss history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Farris holds a distinction no guitarist envies: he may have been a member of Kiss for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-619008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"Kiss](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780496474_327_maxresdefault.jpg\")
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