In a recent conversation with Guitar World, Bruce Kulick revealed that reuniting with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss made Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley a huge amount of money.
The guitarist was let go from KISS in December 1996 after Frehley and Criss joined the reunion tour. Kulick was paid for a year after that. He talked about how this situation felt at the time:
“Paul and Gene did the right thing by keeping us on salary for a year, but they had to do that because they could go back if the reunion blew up. But once success came, and Ace and Peter did their jobs, the writing was on the wall.”
Kulick views his departure from KISS as being left behind for a much more profitable opportunity:
“I’ve always looked at it as I was never fired from Kiss; I was left behind for a wildly successful commercial venture. You don’t have to be an accountant to understand Paul and Gene. What Kiss would make with Eric [Singer] and me was like five million, but with Ace and Peter, we’re talking about netting 50 million; that’s truly obscene.”
Kulick Wasn’t Asked To Return To KISS
Bruce played during KISS’s no-makeup and grunge eras. When the band reunited in the ’90s, he was let go and not invited back for the End of the Road shows or other reunion attempts. In a 2022 interview with Eonmusic, the musician shared whether he was disappointed about not being asked to rejoin the band:
“That’s a great question a lot of fans ask, and they’re a little confused about it, like, why wasn’t it me? When I knew that Ace was causing problems for them, I heard the rumblings from people I knew that were close to the band, and I was always wondering, like, would they really ask me to become the Spaceman, but basically negating everything from my era.”
He added:
“I would then have to shoot rockets from my guitar. I would then be playing Ace, maybe more note-for-note, something I never had to do. And I really think they made the right choice, knowing what they were trying to do, which was just trying to sell the characters and the makeup version of the band. By going with Tommy, it was no harm, no foul.”
Kulick was also upset that Gene and Paul focused on digital avatars instead of honoring past members. He understands their choice but felt hurt when his work was overshadowed by the avatars.