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This KISS trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and runs the whole 50-year story of the band, from a first gig for fewer than ten people in Queens to the last bow at Madison Square Garden. It covers the four original personas, the Alive! breakthrough, Destroyer and Beth, the four simultaneous solo albums, the Marvel comic printed with the band's blood and the gloriously odd TV movie Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. The non-makeup years are here too: Eric Carr and the Fox, Vinnie Vincent's ankh, the 1983 unmasking, Animalize, Forever, Revenge and the 1996 reunion, then the Farewell tour, Sonic Boom, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the End of the Road tour that ended in December 2023 with digital avatars waiting in the wings. There is a run of Kiss Army, Kiss Kasket and other merchandising lore for the completists. About a third of the questions are easy warm-ups for casual fans; the rest climb toward the detail only a lifelong Kiss Army member would know. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing. No lyrics are quoted anywhere.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which comic-book-style persona did Gene Simmons take on in Kiss?
The Demon
Simmons's fire-breathing and fake-blood spitting were built around the character.
Q 02Kiss traces its roots to which earlier New York band led by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley?
Wicked Lester
Simmons and Stanley left the group behind and recruited a drummer through a newspaper ad before Kiss existed.
Q 03Roughly how many people watched Kiss's first-ever performance in January 1973?
Fewer than ten
The show was at the Popcorn Club in Queens, which was renamed Coventry shortly afterward.
Q 04Paul Stanley suggested the name Kiss after Peter Criss mentioned he had been in a band with what name?
Lips
The name came up while Stanley, Simmons and Criss were driving around New York City.
Q 05On the 1975 business-suit album cover, who owned every suit except Peter Criss's?
Manager Bill Aucoin
Criss was the only member who owned a suit; the shot was taken at West 23rd Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan.
Q 06The live Rock and Roll All Nite hit No. 12 in 1976; where had the studio single peaked in 1975?
No. 68
It became the group's closing number at almost every concert from 1976 onward.
Q 07Who produced Kiss's breakthrough 1975 live album Alive!?
Eddie Kramer
The band later admitted on VH1 that the album was overdubbed to capture the energy of the show.
Q 08Destroyer's producer had previously worked with which shock-rock act?
Alice Cooper
The same producer went on to co-produce Pink Floyd's The Wall.
Q 09Which Kiss single won Favorite Song at the 1977 People's Choice Awards?
Beth
It started life as a B-side and climbed to No. 7, the band's first US Top 10 hit.
Q 10Peter Criss's hit ballad began as a demo about the wife of a bandmate in which of his pre-Kiss groups?
Chelsea
The demo was originally called 'Beck' after Becky, who kept phoning rehearsals to ask when her husband would come home.
Q 11The opening track of Destroyer tells the story of what?
A fan killed driving to a Kiss show
The album became the first Kiss record certified platinum, in November 1976.
Q 12A 1977 Gallup poll named Kiss what?
The most popular band in America
Between 1977 and 1979 Kiss merchandise sales reached an estimated $100 million.
Q 13What did Kiss famously add to the red ink used to print their first Marvel comic?
Their own blood
The 40-page 1977 story was written by Steve Gerber and pitted the band against Doctor Doom and Mephisto.
Q 21Eric Carr's proposed 'Hawk' persona was dropped after Paul Stanley said it looked like which character?
Big Bird
Carr's first show with the band was at New York's Palladium on July 25, 1980.
Q 22Which persona did drummer Eric Carr end up adopting?
The Fox
Carr, born Paul Charles Caravello in Brooklyn, drummed for Kiss from 1980 until his death in 1991.
Q 23Eric Carr died on November 24, 1991, the same day as which other rock frontman?
Freddie Mercury
Carr was 41 and had been diagnosed with heart cancer.
Vinnie Vincent's Kiss makeup was designed around which symbol?
Q 14Which animation studio produced the 1978 TV movie Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park?
Hanna-Barbera
It debuted on NBC on October 28, 1978, with the band playing superpowered versions of themselves.
Q 15Under what title was Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park released in cinemas outside the United States?
Attack of the Phantoms
AVCO Embassy Pictures put it in theaters abroad in 1979, a year after its US TV debut.
Q 16New York Groove, the hit from Ace Frehley's 1978 solo album, was originally recorded by which band?
Hello
Russ Ballard wrote it; Frehley's version rose to No. 13 on the Hot 100, the best showing of any single from the four solo albums.
Q 17Gene Simmons closed his 1978 solo album with a cover of which Disney song?
When You Wish Upon a Star
Simmons said he barely spoke English when he first heard it but knew the words were true.
Q 18Which hit songwriter co-wrote I Was Made for Lovin' You with Paul Stanley and Vini Poncia?
Desmond Child
Stanley said he wrote it partly to prove how easy it was to make a hit disco record; it peaked at No. 11 in the US.
Q 19The Kiss Army began in 1975 as a teenage fan campaign to get local radio play in which city?
Terre Haute, Indiana
Bill Starkey and Jay Evans pestered station WVTS until it played the band; it became the official fan club soon after.
Q 20In October 1975 Kiss played a gymnasium in Cadillac, Michigan, to honor which local group?
The high-school football team
Assistant coach Jim Neff had been playing Kiss music in the locker room to motivate the players.
An Egyptian ankh
Vincent, born Vincent Cusano, co-wrote eight of the ten songs on the first album he was pictured on.
Q 25Kiss's first public appearance without makeup, on MTV in 1983, coincided with the release of which album?
Lick It Up
It became their first album certified gold since 1980's Unmasked.
Q 26Which Velvet Underground founder co-wrote songs on the 1981 concept album Music from The Elder?
Lou Reed
The album flopped badly enough that Kiss skipped a supporting tour for the first time in its history.
Q 27Guitarist Mark St. John's brief 1984 stint in Kiss was cut short by what?
Reactive arthritis
He played only a handful of shows before being dismissed that December.
Q 28I Walk Alone, from Carnival of Souls, is the only Kiss track with which member on lead vocals?
Bruce Kulick
He and Mark St. John are the only two members never to have worn makeup or costumes.
Q 29Which album, helped by the Heaven's on Fire video, was Kiss's top US seller of the 1980s?
Animalize
It sold more than two million copies in America.
Q 30Kiss's 1990 Top 10 power ballad Forever was co-written by Paul Stanley and which singer?
Michael Bolton
It peaked at No. 8, the band's first US Top 40 single since 1979.