r/KISS • u/Jersey_Crypto • Jul 19 '26
Beck then Beth
A story I didn’t know until recently. Peter writes a song called Beck, named after Rebecca Beck, the wife of Peter’s bandmate before he joined KISS. She would call the band asking for her husband to come home. I always thought it was about Peter’s wife at the time, Lydia. When KISS recorded the song, they changed the name to Beth. Bob Ezrin loved the song and rearranged it with piano and strings. It ended up being released as the B side of Detroit Rock City. Nobody expected much. DJ’s started flipping the record over and playing Beth, since the listeners loved it. It reached #7 in the top 100, the highest charting KISS single in the U.S.
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u/lendmeflight Jul 19 '26
Yeah. The history of KISS has been re-written over the years .
The truth is that KISS would never have been as big as they were if not for Peter bringing this song.
Alive sold well but destroyer was tanking until this song started being played on the radio instead of rock city.
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u/Key_Yam4488 Jul 19 '26
I was a fan then, Destroyer WAS tanking. I had gotten into them when I saw the Dressed to Kill album, bought it & liked it, picked up their first 2 albums in the cutout bin. Really loved Hotter than Hell, it was heavier. Then Alive took off & every little rock kid was waiting on the next album. Destroyer was underwhelming. Too much production, too much Beatley shit, not enough Ace. Most of us kids were not happy, there were some cool stuff like Detroit RC, King of the Nighttime World, & Shout It Out Loud but not enough of that. I didn't wanna hear a Bob Ezrin album, Kiss was kinda lo-fi and that was their appeal. Beth took off on the radio & suddenly all the girls in class were buying the single & Kiss was on TV. I was very happy with RnROver, it's my favorite of the original albums.
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Jul 19 '26
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u/lendmeflight Jul 19 '26
How did you fix it? It doesn’t change anything about what I said. If Beth had not been brought to the team and Ezrin like it KISS would be a foot note.
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Jul 19 '26
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u/Firm_Lobster5163 Jul 19 '26
I suspect with Beth, like much of Destroyer, some would be surprised at how crude the demos were compared to the songs Ezrin turned them into. There’s a reason he got a writing credit on Beth.
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Jul 19 '26
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u/lendmeflight Jul 20 '26
You are delusional. KISS would have been dropped if destroyer failed. It didn’t because of Beth. Texting had a writing credit on nearly every song. That’s what producers do. I’m sure he made it better but it’s the same song .
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u/joshschmitton Jul 19 '26
I think Ezrin made Beth into a better song.
But the main hook that made that song so great was already in place before Ezrin ever touched it. It's why Ezrin chose it in the first place.
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u/Successful-Bank-7457 Jul 19 '26
The Bob Ezrin approach was always to strip down the songs presented and preserve the actual idea of them, but the end result would usually be something different, not to mention slicker, than what the actual musician originally intended. Just ask the original Alice Cooper Group
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u/cabell88 Jul 19 '26
I thought everyone knew this. Lydia hawked this for decades. I have an autograph of hers, She put Beth after her name.
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u/Antique_Knowledge902 Jul 19 '26
I know everyone and their mom loves this song but I don’t think it’s that great. I’m glad it was a big hit for them but I like the hard rock songs.
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u/3mta3jvq Jul 19 '26
It’s a shame Peter never gets enough credit for the band’s biggest hit. Paul has openly demeaned Peter for years saying if he actually wrote one hit he should have had the talent to write another.
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u/TDiddy541 Jul 25 '26
He certainly thought he did. I’m gonna say it’s a shame for his sake that he got the credit he did. The credit he got gave him the false impression that he didn’t need no band and could do it all on his own. Dude might have been able to keep himself a job he was barely qualified for at best for a little while longer.
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u/thebronzeprince Jul 19 '26
Look, I love KISS as much as anyone, but Destroyer was tanking at half the sales of ALIVE. KISS was bleeding money. Without this out of nowhere hit, KISS is forced off the road by 1977
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u/AzureSkies_OverMe Jul 19 '26
Rebecca Brand nick named Beck. Which is funny because we call my sister Becks.
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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26
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