This is the kind of interview we really enjoy doing. Mike McLaughlin is a great guitarist whom most fans of hard rock music know from his time in the band led by KISS’s original drummer, Peter Criss, during the 1990s. We reached out to him to learn as much as we could about CRISS, their recordings, their tours, and, of course, Peter himself.
Interview: Sakis Nikas
Rockpages.gr: First of All, Mike, do you remember exactly when you joined Criss? Is it safe to say that it was early 1994 right after Kirk Miller’s departure from the band?
Mike McLaughlin: Yes, it was around 93-94 ish’ after Kirk left the band.
Rockpages.gr: Let’s talk a little bit about the audition…I remember reading one interview on a KISS fanzine back in the day that it was producer Dito Godwin that urged you to try out for Criss and he actually suggested to play with a Les Paul and a Marshall amp. Is it all true? Take us back through that period…
Mike McLaughlin: Yes, it was Dito who called me about the gig. I had known Dito for several years at that point, he called me for a lot of session work. We had first met when he was producing a band I played with named ‘Them Generation’. The guitar player in that band before me was Tom Morello who left to start Rage Against the Machine. Dito was also a guitar player, so we hit it off right away. He called me and said, “hey Mike you remember Peter Criss from Kiss right. He’s looking for a new lead guitar player for his band, would you be interested in auditioning.” My answer was , “yes of course I remember Peter, and fuck yes !” Kiss were like super heroes when I was a kid, so it was like being asked if you would like to try out for your dream team. As far as the Les Paul and Marshall, l believe it was Mark Montague who mentioned it to me after the first audition. I was playing through a Mesa Boogie rig at the time, I had the big rack and I was really into that L.A. sound, you know like Steve Lukather and Michael Landau. I played through that at the first audition. I believe the guitar I was playing was a Kramer Strat. After the audition Mark said to me, “we really like how you played and would like to get together with you again. Peter really likes the Les Paul into a Marshall sound, that’s what he’s used to hearing after playing with Ace for all those years. If you could arrange that for the next time that would be great.” So that’s what I did.
Rockpages.gr: Do you remember what songs you played at your audition?
Mike McLaughlin: I showed up at the rehearsal room, and it was just Peter, Mark (Montague, the bass player for Criss) and myself. It was pretty low key which surprised me. I was expecting a big entourage, with people from the record company and agents etc. I was already pretty nervous, so the fact that it was just the three of us made it easier. The first thing we did was just an impromptu jam, you know improvising. Peter was into swing and jazz so he had that mentality for improvised playing, like a jazz guy. I remember that going really good, and there was a lot of musical connection made. The first thing I always listen to when I play in a band is the drummer, so I was locked in with what Peter was playing. When I was a kid coming up in St. Louis I had a great teacher named Duke who really stressed the importance of improvising and guided me a lot. After that I think we played some classic rock stuff like Deep Purple. And then Mark threw out some ideas of some new material they were working on, and we jammed on that. I don’t think we even played a Kiss song during that session.
Rockpages.gr: When you entered Track Records to record “Cat #1” all the songs were already written during the period 1991-1993. Do you remember any song that was written in the studio around that time?
Mike McLaughlin: A lot of the basic ideas for the songs were already there. Mark and Peter were the main writing partners. After I had officially gotten the gig, I was invited to go to Peter’s house to work on the songs. Again it was just the three of us, and we would work on the arrangements of the songs and work out the guitar parts. Peter would tell me what he wanted, which was more of a bluesy rock/ soulful approach. He wanted something that would stand out and have great feel and melody, not just technical wizardry on the fretboard. He would say “fuck all that fast flashy shit, that means nothing. It’s really got to move you and say something special.” I never really considered myself a flashy technical player, so I really took that to heart. One song in particular I remember working on from that CD was ‘The Truth’. Besides the song ‘Show Me’ which had already been recorded with Kirk, and ‘Beth’ which was recorded by an L.A. studio guitarist, I believe I played on the rest. And again, we worked out all the parts before we got into the studio. Once we got into Track Records to start recording, we would try out some new things in the studio. Like I said, Dito was a guitar player and a damn good one, so he brought a lot of ideas. And he was from New York City so he hit it off real good with Peter. One example was the song ‘Bad Reputation’. The intro guitar riff Dito said “hey why don’t we overdub that with a guitar harmony.” It was a great idea and that’s what wound up on the record. They brought Ace in later to play as a special guest on the record. They brought him in and just rolled tape and let him jam over the tunes. Afterwords, on ‘Bad Reputation’ which he played on, they wound up using all my guitar solos, and they used Ace’s soloing at the end as the song is fading out. I was a bit surprised that they didn’t use Ace’s stuff for the whole song being that it was freaking Ace Frehley. When I asked Dito about this he said “well what you played that we worked out in the studio fit the song better so that’s what we used.” I was always grateful for that. Many of the solo’s we recorded were improvised. Dito would roll tape and just say do your thing. We would do several takes then go back and pick out the best one. Another song I really enjoyed playing was ‘Down With the Sun.’ It has a long extended outro and I was able to really stretch out on that, again all improvised. I also played our engineer Michael Carnivale’s telecaster for that one which was fun. He also had an old 60’s era Les Paul custom black beauty which we affectionately named ‘Grandpa’. We also used that quite a bit on the record as well as my PRS.
Rockpages.gr: On the credit notes, we read that the backing vocals of the album were handled by The Phlemtones. Was it really an alias for the members of the band?
Mike McLaughlin: We wanted to get a big group chant kind of vibe for the backing vocals of one of the songs, I believe it was ‘Strike’. So we all invited a bunch of our friends to come down to the studio. We put them, as well as the guy’s in the band, in one of the big rooms and recorded those big group chant vocals. We later credited them as the Phlemtones. It was all done for fun in the spirit of Rock and Roll.
Rockpages.gr: How was the overall experience of the 1994 tour?
Mike McLaughlin: The 1994 tour was the first one I did with Criss. This was coming off the release of the Cat#1 CD, and for this one we had Mike Stone in the band. This was the first real rock and roll tour I had ever done, as well as the first time I had ever rode on a real tour bus before. It was a mind blowing experience for me! To be able to tour with one of my rock heroes was indescribable. I learned so much on that tour. Mike Stone, who we called Stoney, was pretty much a seasoned touring veteran by this point. He took me under his wing and taught me a lot. And working with Peter, come on. This was like rock and roll college. Peter was great, he always treated us guys in the band like family. We would do promos at record stores and he would always have us sitting right next to him at the table. Even though the fans were basically there for Peter, he would tell them “you need to get my guy’s autographs too, these guys are gonna be famous one day”.
Rockpages.gr: Lots of don’t know that your nickname “Angel” was given to you by non-other than Peter. Correct me if I am wrong but was it a combination of your looks back in the day and the fact that you were always right beside Peter (especially back then with the L.A. earthquake and the burglary)?
Mike McLaughlin: Yes I did get that nickname from Peter. All the guys in the band had nicknames and I had yet to be dubbed. After the earthquake and the carjacking when Peter got his face broken with a pair of brass knuckles, I was the first person he got a hold of. I got to his house and the whole left side of his face was puffed up the size of a softball and purple. I took him to his doctor down in the South Bay and made sure he was getting the medical attention he needed. After that he told me, “man Michael you were my guardian angel that night.” After that it just stuck.
Rockpages.gr: I remember watching an MTV special episode from the Concrete Foundation Forum back in 1995. You were interviewed by Vanessa Warwick and all three of you (Peter, Jason and you) were very optimistic about the future of the band although it was mere weeks since the KISS unplugged thing. Do you think that the Criss’ story ended due to the fact of the KISS reunion and the lack of interest by TNT records?
Mike McLaughlin: I remember that interview well. We were just getting ready to go back out for the second leg of the ‘Bad Boys’ tour with Ace’s band I believe, and we were all totally fired up. But we were also pretty excited about the Kiss unplugged show as well. All the guys in both bands were huge KISS fans, and we were all excited for both Ace and Peter. This was historic, all four original members playing together again without makeup. And like all the other fans we thought it was pretty awesome. And yes, the KISS reunion was what ended Criss. But what could we say, we were sad it was the end of the band. But we were also super happy for Peter that he would get to put on the makeup and be the Cat Man again. Of course he couldn’t pass up this opportunity. As far as TNT records, yes they did drop the ball by not giving us the label support we should have had. But regardless, we all felt Peter made the right move doing the reunion, that was just a given.
Rockpages.gr: Despite the fact that TNT didn’t come up with the money and support for a second album, you did a showcase for them and demoed quite a few songs for a second album that eventually found their way on the Skoff project and the One of a Kind CDs. How do you feel about those songs?
Mike McLaughlin: We loved those songs. And it felt like the next evolution of the band after the Criss Cat#1 record. We felt like we were really starting to develop and find our sound as a band. A lot of the new material, actually almost all of it, we played live on the ‘Bad Boys’ tour. Those songs were near and dear to all of us, including Peter. The idea was to take them out on the road and fine tune them. Then go right into the studio after the tour while the band was still hot. Obviously the later didn’t happen, but a lot of the material we continued to play in the band Skoff, which was basically Jason, Mark, and myself from Criss. We recruited Marks old buddy Eddie Rogers on the drums. Eddie and Mark had played in a band together named ‘Sick Puppies’, and Eddie was a slamming drummer. We did the scene in L.A. for several years, then Mark put out the ‘One of a Kind’ CD which the two of us collaborated on, which also contained some of the material from the Criss days. I thought that record was pretty slamming myself.
Rockpages.gr: Another interesting fact is that during the 1995 live shows the set list was heavily based on the new songs which were darker and more in line with the current grunge movement. If I am not mistaken only “Bad Reputation” and “Good Times” remained from the old songs. Did you do it as a kinda rehearsal for the studio and to see how they will go down with the fans?
Mike McLaughlin: Absolutely, as I said we used the tour as an opportunity to fine tune the material. This might not have been the best idea as far as giving the fans what they wanted, but we believed in the songs so we did it 110 percent. And it turned out we got great response from the fans. There are quite a few bootleg recordings online now of much of that material. We were young back then and had a lot of energy. I listen back now to some of those recordings and think, ‘damn we were kicking ass.’ And Peter’s drumming is on fire!
Rockpages.gr: You were literally the only person from the Criss band that kept in touch with Peter throughout the years and you were involved in his next two albums (“One For All” and “Peter Criss”). Why do you think that happened?
Mike McLaughlin: Well Peter as I said had always treated us like family. After the reunion tour was underway, I joined the L.A. band ‘Green Jello’, I got the gig through Peter’s drum tech Eddie who also played with them while he was not touring with Kiss. Eddie called me one day and told me Kiss was working on a new album ’Psycho Circus’ and Peter was looking to write some music for it. We got together the three of us and wrote two songs, both which didn’t make it onto the record. But the remnants of one of them actually made it onto the new Peter Criss album. In the early 2000s I moved to Asia. Originally for a gig, and then stayed for my now wife. But that’s a whole different story. Mark Montague reached out to me and told me Peter was looking for new songs for a new album. That was the start of me getting back together again with Peter as a writing partner.
Rockpages.gr: Have you kept in touch with any of the other Criss members?
Mike McLaughlin: Yes, I just saw Jason in Las Vegas earlier this year. I was playing a show at the MGM Grand with an Asian artist. It’s funny, some of the biggest venues I have ever played have been with Asian artists. It backs up what I have always believed, that music is a universal language. I contacted Jason and went to his recording studio in Vegas where he now lives. Jason and I have stayed in touch throughout the years and have always been like brothers. We hung out and I actually laid down some guitar tracks for an artist he is producing, it was a blast. Mark and I had stayed in touch up until around 2012. I had talked to Stoney back in around 2003. He had moved back to the Midwest, we ended up talking about playing the banjo, which we both love.
Rockpages.gr: Do you think that Criss had more to offer on the table for the music fans?
Mike McLaughlin: Well we could have kept writing music, there’s no doubt about that. But sometimes life just has other plans for you. As I mentioned, there is quite a bit of live Criss material online. There’s a video of our full set in Toronto from The “Bad Boys’ tour on YouTube. I also recently stumbled across some of the recordings we did in the studio (also on YouTube) of our original material we were doing as pre-production for TNT records. This would have been before we were getting ready to go out on the ‘Bad Boys’ tour. I had totally forgotten about this and haven’t heard these recordings since then. When I listened it brought back a flood of memories from then. It actually sounds pretty damn good. I think our music can live on and be remembered in these mediums today.
Rockpages.gr: Last but certainly not least, would you change anything…anything at all regarding your career?
Mike McLaughlin: Not a thing, I feel fortunate for all the experiences I’ve had playing music, and I hope I can continue to do so God willing for many years to come!
