Mark St. John on Animalize

[VVInvasion]

"I woke up one morning in California with the inflammation in my hand. It started all there. I don't know what it was. I think it was the stress, I really do. I never had arthritis in anywhere in my family. I was playing violin concertos on the guitar before KISS, you know? I think it was just the stress of the whole thing. And people only see the tip of the iceberg. "Oh he's in the band, he's the fourth member. They all get the same, everything is equal." There was nothing equal about it at all. I was a hired hand. Period. Think everybody got a piece of the pie? I got maybe some crumbs off a piece! That's all bull. My work is all over that album, but I don't get credit or paid for it. No type of royalties at all."

Animalize is of course the only Kiss album Mark played on, and the most succesfull. So maybe the succes of this album did have something to do with Mark writing some songs.

[metatron]

[poserboy71]

Mark always seemed like a clueless dipshit.
Any interview I've seen has helped my opinion grow stronger.

[VVInvasion]

Yeah, could be. The more recent pictures there are from he looks like a redneck, maybe he was right but he could also be just some stupid guy.

[Genebaby]

Well, he proved to me he wasn't the best song writer with White Tiger, but yes he could play.

So unfortunately he could not turn his stint with Kiss into a career, considering the exposure he got.

[shramiac]

Yeah, could be. The more recent pictures there are from he looks like a redneck, maybe he was right but he could also be just some stupid guy.

Meth is bad stuff!

[metatron]

From Bruce's interview, there is no shadow of a doubt that both Paul & Gene did not know what they wanted as a Guitar Player.
They got VV, not good. Get MSJ, no good.
What the fuck did they want?
Seems like anyone who would pull the lime light away from them, especially Paul, you get the almighty boot.
(So on one hand, Yer, they wanted a shred guitar player and on the other hand don't play anything that Paul or Gene can't)
I meant, it's not like either Paul or Gene really spoke well of Bruce either till Revenge. (their last album together)

[ankh]

i strongly suggest to read Mark interview on guitar for the practising musician and the one with Hard Force(french magazine),it will explain a lot about the inner workings of the band and what happened both in studio and live.In the interview what he says shows how articulate he was.

Live, there were three major problems: first, there were almost no reharsals and no monitors and mark wasn't used to play on such a big stage with sound dispersion.
Second, mark was used to play on the top of the beat,while Kiss play behind the beat.
Third, when mark pulled some stunts,like playng with his guitar behind his back, Paul got really pissed off and told him to stop tryng to upstage him.Also,,oredered to his roadies to pull away mark volume pedal.

Basically, they chose a musician's musician, and tried to transform him into a " support" rock guitarist.Sort of what Tommy is doing now.Hired to play the guitar hero, he was told in no uncertain terms to stick to what he was told to, and play more slow and stick to pentatonic stuff , like Ace,if possible.Yet some many pro musicianswere complimentary of his command of the fretboard and his abilty to play many different instruments.

And, as much as Mark had his own problems, i've Always found a bit crass to speak ill about somebody who is not longer here,like G&P did so many times.

It would have been nice to hear more of his solo stuff,maybe with better production.I think some of the solo pieces were also showoffs to continue his image.

Shame that, after so many years, he wasn't able to overcome his problems and have a payoff for all the time he spent learrin his craft