It‘s Kiss‘s biggest hit of all time. But according to bass guitarist Gene Simmons, it's been credited to the wrong person for the past 50 years.
The song is “Beth,” from the group‘s fourth album, 1976’s Destroyer. It‘s an oddity in the band‘s catalog — a ballad sung by drummer Peter Criss accompanied by piano, acoustic guitar and the New York Philharmonic orchestra.
Although the track is credited to Criss, Stan Penridge and producer Bob Ezrin, Simmons claims Criss had nothing to do with its creation and shouldn‘t be included as one of its composers.
As fans have been told for decades, “Beth” began life as “Beck,” a song co-written by Criss and guitarist Penridge years earlier while both were in the New York City rock group Chelsea. The tune was composed as a joke to make fun of Becky, the wife of their bandmate, Mike Brand, who would regularly interrupt their practices by calling to ask when he would be coming home.
“I said, ‘By the way, what are the chords to that?’ He goes, ‘I don't know.’ I thought that was peculiar.”
— Gene Simmons
As Simmons tells the Professor of Rock in a new interview, he was first introduced to the song in 1976 while Kiss were making Destroyer with Ezrin, known at the time for his success with artists like Alice Cooper, Lou Reed and Aerosmith.
“The history of ‘Beth’ is that Peter and I were in a limo, and he starts humming,” Simmons explains. “I'm, like, ‘That's a nice melody. What is that?’ He goes, ‘Oh, it's a song I wrote called ‘Beck.’
“Because we had started working with Bob Ezrin, I said, ‘Why don't you bring up that song? By the way, what are the chords to that?’ He goes, ‘I don't know.’
“I thought that was peculiar.”
Simmons says Criss found a tape of the song with the intention of presenting it to Ezrin. But first, the bass player says he suggested changing the name to “Beth,” which he thought sounded better than “Beck.”
Ezrin liked the song and thought it would help the band build a female audience. It was hard to ignore his ideas: As a hands-on producer, he‘d already helped Alice Cooper score a hit in 1972 with “Elected,” a rewrite of the shock-rocker‘s 1969 debut single, “Reflected.”
Against the protestations of Simmons and Paul Stanley, Ezrin chose to produce “Beth” as a ballad. To everyone‘s surprise, it became a huge hit, reaching number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976, the highest chart rating of any Kiss song before or since.
Fifty years later, however, Simmons claims Criss couldn‘t have written the song because “he doesn't play a musical instrument. The person who wrote ‘Beth’ and ‘Baby Driver’ was Stan Penridge [“Baby Driver” is another Criss/Penridge-credited tune from Kiss‘s fifth album, Rock and Roll Over.]
“But through politics, Stan apparently agreed that Peter's name would go in the songwriting credit. Peter had nothing to do with that song,” he says flatly. “Nothing.”
“And to fix all the mythology and the gossip and the outright lies, it was Bob Ezrin who said, 'I wanna do this like [the Beatles track] ‘Yesterday' — more like a string quartet and piano. And we'd never done that.”
“But through politics, Stan apparently agreed that Peter's name would go in the songwriting credit. Peter had nothing to do with that song — nothing.”
— Gene Simmons
Simmons’ claim is just his latest attack on a former bandmate. He recently got in hot water for his comments about the late Kiss lead guitarist Ace Frehley.
In fact, there may be some bad blood behind the bassist‘s new statements. Kiss performed “Beth” — with current drummer Eric Singer on vocals — at the last show of their final tour in 2023.
Although the song was included in the live pay-per-view performance of the concert, it was not available during replays due to copyright requirements. Fans have speculated that Criss denied the band permission to include the song in retaliation for Simmons and guitarist Paul Stanley not allowing him and Frehley to perform at the show.
We‘re sure this won‘t be the last we‘ve heard from Simmons. And it‘s certainly not the last we‘ll hear from Kiss. Despite retiring from touring in 2023, they have a busy future ahead of them, according to lead guitarist Tommy Thayer.
