People can be on their way to something that’s really a party and a celebration of being alive and die in the process of doing it. I remember thinking how weird it is that people’s lives end so quickly. And then I remembered on the previous tour, I think it was in Charlotte, somebody had gotten hit by a car and killed outside the arena.

“I had the basic riff of the song, the ‘Get up, get down’ part,” Stanley recalls, “but I didn’t know what the song was about except it was about Detroit. The B-side, “Beth”, a ballad written and sung by drummer Peter Criss, proved very popular in different markets in the US, so the single was reissued with “Beth” as the A-side and “Detroit Rock City” as the B-side.ĭetroit is briefly mentioned in the song, but the incident that inspired the lyrics did not take place in Detroit. Even though it would prove to be a fan favorite, the single failed to chart in the US even though it did poorly in sales and radio play. Recorded and released in 1976, the single was the third from Kiss’s album Destroyer and was planned to be their last in support of the album. Ace Frehley and guitarists Stanley and Frehley perform a duet on this song. It is also considered one of the more technical songs in the band’s repertoire. The song is one of the band’s most popular and is considered a classic rock classic.

The song was written by Paul Stanley and produced by Bob Ezrin. 'If for no other reason than it's haunting me.The song “ Detroit Rock City” was released by the American hard rock group Kiss on their 1976 album Destroyer. 'I want to get to the bottom of this,' he says. He's hoping that his new book, and articles like this one, will spur a lead that brings a conclusive answer: Which Kiss fan's death inspired one of the band's best-known songs? 'I'd be shocked if it was not.'Ĭampion's detective tale doesn't have a satisfying ending - at least not yet. 'Fayetteville is the ground zero of this story,' he says now with confidence. And that's when a handful of candidate names emerged, several of them with ties to Fayetteville, N.C., where Kiss performed on Nov. “It must have happened, or at least he really did think it happened,” he says.Ĭampion kept digging, moving his focus to 1974 thanks to word from a former Kiss roadie. This was a band, after all, that had invented mythology for decades.īut then, why would Stanley bring up Charlotte at all? Why not just say Detroit? “If you are going to lie, lie big,” as Campion writes in his book. He plowed through public death records, solicited help from bemused police departments and dug into old newspaper archives, looking for key details in accident reports: What time did it happen? Did the vehicle include a group of teens?Ĭoming up short, Campion began to have doubts about Stanley's story. He tracked down Kiss’s 1975 tour schedule, zeroing in on dates in and around Charlotte. With his book’s deadline looming, Campion began an intensive search. “It’s a great rock song,” Campion says, “but it’s also a beautiful, melancholy tribute to (the idea) that no matter how young and invincible you feel because of rock music, there’s mortality involved.”īut who was this fallen Kiss fan? Aside from bits of speculation among diehard fans online, there were few details to be found. Kiss tried to divert attention from the screw-up by changing the printed lyrics to 'doin' 95.') (One anecdote from producer Bob Ezrin: The band sang about driving 'down 95,' inadvertently substituting the East Coast highway for Detroit's I-75. Nailing down that vexing detail has become an obsessive, ongoing quest for author James Campion, whose just-published book, “Shout It Out Loud,” chronicles the making of the band’s iconic “Destroyer” album.Īt 380 pages, Campion’s book digs in deep, exploring the backstory of an album that many regard as Kiss’s best, with plenty of info about “Detroit Rock City,” the album’s epic lead-off track.

“Detroit Rock City” has become an anthem around these parts, a hard-rocking, much-loved Kiss classic whose title gave the Motor City another enduring nickname.Īnd here’s something you probably didn’t know: That 1976 track, a tribute to Kiss’s favorite concert town, seems to have been inspired in part by a tragedy far outside Michigan, for years shrouded in mystery.

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