Peter Criss

Lore & Background

In the mythology of KISS, The Demon was never merely a drummer. He was the primal force behind the curtain of spectacle—the one who could crawl across his own kit like a spider, hurl cymbals into the rafters, and make the audience feel the beat in their chest before a single note of guitar was struck. His red face paint and devil horns made him the visual counterweight to The Stargazer's white geometry and The Spaceman's cosmic blue. Together, the four painted faces formed a totemic quartet, and the Demon's wild, almost feral energy kept the whole tableau from tipping into pure artifice.

Fans who attended KISS shows in the mid-to-late 1970s often recall the drums as the thing that made the room shake. Criss's style was less about technical precision and more about physical commitment—full-body sways, dramatic cymbal crashes, and a relentless groove that locked in with Gene Simmons's bass like a piston engine. In the studio, that same energy translated into a punchy, driving backbeat that gave KISS's early recordings their propulsive momentum.

His departure in 1980 left a void that no amount of technical skill could fully fill, because what Criss offered was not just rhythm but ritual. When Eric Carr took over, the drums became cleaner, more intricate, and undeniably more polished—but a certain raw, almost feral showmanship that had defined the band's live identity for five years was gone. The Demon's legacy, however, is etched into the very DNA of what KISS meant to its earliest and most devoted fans.

In Their Own Story

The house lights die. A single spotlight finds the drum throne, and the red face emerges from behind a curtain of smoke. The crowd roars—not at a guitar solo, not at a pyrotechnic burst, but at the sight of those horns catching the light. He slaps the snare once. Twice. The whole arena holds its breath. Then the beat drops like a hammer, and his body sways in a way that seems to defy the geometry of the kit. Cymbals scatter. A crash cymbal arcs through the air and vanishes into the darkness above the front row. He's already back on the ride, already in the next fill, already grinning behind that painted mask. For the next three minutes, he is not a musician. He is the Demon, and the floor beneath ten thousand feet is nothing but his snare drum.

Reader's Guide

Peter Criss (born July 26, 1944, in the Bronx, New York) served as KISS's drummer from the band's formation in 1973 through 1980, and returned for the 1996–1997 reunion tour. He embodied the persona of The Demon, recognizable by his red face paint and devil horns.

As the band's founding drummer—recruited by Paul Stanley before Gene Simmons and Ace Frehley joined—Criss set the rhythmic and theatrical template for KISS's live shows. His drumming was deliberately physical and show-driven: full-body sways, the famous "spider" crawl across the kit, and cymbal throws that turned the drum set into a stage prop. In the studio, his punchy, driving backbeat anchored the band's early recordings, and he contributed backing vocals and select lead vocal duties across the group's catalog.

His departure in 1980 and replacement by Eric Carr shifted KISS's sound toward a more technically precise, less overtly theatrical drum style. The 1996 reunion briefly restored the original lineup's chemistry, though the band's sound by then had evolved considerably. Criss's legacy remains that of the original heartbeat—the drummer who made KISS's early era feel less like a concert and more like a ritual.

Did You Know?

• Peter Criss was the very first member Paul Stanley recruited to form what would become KISS, joining before Gene Simmons and Ace Frehley.
• His theatrical drumming style—crawling across the kit, hurling cymbals into the audience—became so iconic that it defined the visual language of KISS live shows for years.
• When he left in 1980, the band's drum sound shifted noticeably: Eric Carr brought a more technically precise, less physically theatrical approach that changed the feel of KISS's later recordings.
• Criss returned for the 1996 reunion tour, briefly reuniting the original four-member lineup for the first time in over fifteen years.