Who Made The Bigger Impact In KISS?

Bruce Kulick


Tenure: 1984-1995
Studio Albums: 5
Misc: Ghost guitar on two songs on "Animalize"; "Alive III"

KISS Co-Writes: 20
"Asylum" (3): King Of The Mountain/Trial By Fire/I'm Alive
"Crazy Nights" (4): I'll Fight Hell To Hold You/No, No, No/Hell Or High Water/When Your Walls Come Down
"Hot In The Shade" (2):Prisoner Of Love/Boomerang
"Revenge" (1): Tough Love
"Carnival Of Souls (9):Hate/Rain/Master & Slave/Childhood's End/I Will Be There/Jungle/It Never Goes Away/In The Mirror/I Walk Alone
"Psycho Circus" (1): Dreamin'

- Bruce co-wrote one KISS single: Jungle
- Out of Bruce's 20 co-writes, 4 (20%) of the songs were performed live on KISS tours.
- None of Bruce's co-writes remained in the KISS live set beyond one tour.

Vinnie Vincent


Tenure: 1982-1984
Studio Albums: 2
Misc.: Co-writer of three songs on "Revenge"; Vinnie is the only lead guitarist to perform on tour with KISS with makeup and without makeup

KISS Co-Writes: 14
"Creatures Of The Night" (3): I Love It Loud/I Still Love You/Killer
"Lick It Up" (8): Exciter/Not For The Innocent/Lick It Up/Young And Wasted/Gimme More/All Hell's Breakin' Loose/A Million To One/And On The 8th Day
"Revenge" (3): Unholy/Heart Of Chrome/I Just Wanna

- Vinnie co-wrote five KISS singles: I Love It Loud/Lick It Up/All Hell's Breakin' Loose/Unholy/I Just Wanna
- Out of Vinnie's 14 co-writes, 10 of the songs (72%) were performed live on KISS tours; 11 (79%) if we count A Million To One, which was performed on Paul's "Live To Win" tour.
- I Love It Loud and Lick It Up remained staples in the KISS live set, are considered KISS classics, and they were among the rare '80s KISS songs to resurface in the "reunion" era.
- Interesting side note: Ace had 19 co-writes on KISS studio albums

With the RNRHOF beckoning in April, I've been thinking about various band members' contributions. I like Bruce Kulick a lot and think he made some solid contributions. I think it took him a little while to find his footing in the band. If you look at only the number of years spent in the band, Bruce would seem to be the favorite in this battle. However, in studying more closely, I think Vinnie's contributions were far more significant, despite his brief tenure. He really hit the ground running and made an impact right away. Surely, there's more than meets the eye when it comes to Vinnie's work in KISS.

Thoughts/comments?

Bruce is a genuine nice guy (how the %#@* did he end up in the music business?!?!) and was a better fit personally and arguably, stylistically but, songs still played make Vinnie the winner.

Sounds bad to say this but, I wish I'd never heard of Bruce! I wish KISS with Vinnie could have lasted for years!

Bruce needed to be there in order for Kiss to survive... obviously Vinnie wasn't gonna last in the band no matter how good the material would've been.

Good work there Tim.

It's true, the songs Vinnie did write were simply better tunes. More of them got played live and continue to be played live. I Love It Loud and Lick It Up are played to this day.

I too wish that Bruce was not known to me as a Kiss guitarist, with Vinnie staying on until the reunion, and then coming back.

Knowing what we know now, that was never going to happen unfortunately.

Great points Tim !

Bruce is the model of the perfect, good musician musically but has who it misses that this brilliant stalk at the level of the compositions which Vinnie had! Even if Bruce stayed 11 years against 18 months has Vinnie, he had no same impact on the music of Kiss! Vinnie illuminated creatures, lick it up and revenge! Vinnie boosted Gene and Paul, Bruce has them that accompanied! What remove anything has its talent!

Bruce is a very talented guitar player and had an important role is Kiss and their ability to stay afloat ... but like most lead guitar players, all they or he could do is play the guitar !!! Vinnie could do it all...write, sing and master the guitar with a much cooler stage presence in makeup or not !!!

Yeah agreed. I like bruce on asylum but vv is in a different league.

Wish I could say Bruce, but biggest impact? VV hands down!