The 1990s were strange times for many bands. Fashion and tastes seemed to change almost overnight. The colourful, carefree, fun parties of the 1980s had been replaced by gloomy rainclouds, introspective contemplation, and shoegazing grunge music. Many bands of the late 1980s simply looked and sounded out of place as they got a bit into the next decade. For many of them, the party was over. At least for a while.
Bands from the 1970s had already been through an adjustment to the 1980s in the first place, and were yet again finding themselves trying to fit into a new decade where everything was different. Some did that by ignoring it completely, others threw themselves into the new real with bravado.
KISS did both.
They started the decade by hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin to create the no-nonsense hard rock album Revenge, released in 1992. It was seen as a return to form after several very 1980s-flavoured albums. The following tour had the same mindset and spawned the classic live album Alive III. But the band – and especially Gene Simmons – also kept an eye on what was going on elsewhere. Simmons started pushing for the next album to be more alternative and in line with newer musical styles and production values, albeit done the KISS way. This is what happened, and the band spent much of 1995 recording the darker, heavier, edgier album Carnival of Souls.
Some of the songs that ended up on Carnival of Souls were written as early as 1993, even before that year’s Alive III was released. On the KISS Otaku website, Bruce recalled, “We began writing for the record as long ago as April 1993. I have demos of I Walk Alone dating that far back.”
A song called Island of Lost Souls would be one of the first tracks Simmons demoed for the album even earlier, in March 1993. The song was, according to him in issue #17 of the KISS Crazy fanzine, about “how everybody gets up in the morning, gets dressed, made up, and when they’re going about their day everybody seems to be together. But if you were an alien coming down to watch people, you’d see everybody looks really lost. Everybody seems to be together, but they’re all lost in their own world. The glaze comes over the eyes and we don’t look at each other you know. That song’s very aggressive, it’s almost like Deuce or Unholy, real uptempo stuff.”
This certainly is an unusual subject matter for a KISS song, although Simmons has touched on the subject of individual alienation before (in Naked City, on 1980’s Unmasked). Hearing this type of subject matter described was the first indication that the coming album would be different than the previous one.
Island of Lost Souls would not end up on a KISS album, but a second demo that Simmons did around the same time would be. This song was the start of what became Childhood’s End, making it one of the very first songs written for the album. Thematically linked to Island of Lost Souls, it looked at a different and smaller scale type of alienation, telling the story of two close friends who growing apart, and how the loss of your friend later in life might still carry a huge impact.
The song would be untitled for a while, although there were ideas. Simmons talked about the song in KISS Crazy fanzine #17: “We haven’t decided on a title, maybe Childhood Ends. It’s sort of about the loss of innocence. We’re all born and we don’t think about killing or anything, and then once the innocence of virginity or the virginity of innocence is gone… That one’s very dark, sort of like a hymn but again as I started listening right away you hear a sort of kinship to Revenge, so we’re not straying at all.”
The title Childhood’s End will make many of us think of the classic Arthur C. Clarke novel, and Simmons readily admits that he nicked its title for the song. In the Q&A-section on GeneSimmons.com, he said “Despite what people read into it, the title is taken from an Arthur C. Clarke book I love. Nothing more.”
Later, in the official KISS biography Behind the Mask, Simmons added “Childhood’s End was an Arthur C. Clarke novel about the last stages of evolution when we become spirit entities. We leave the body and become energy sources and these elemental beings help us on our journey. Like birth and death, it’s a turbulent transition and human beings tend to fight any change. I always loved the notion of childhood’s end, now it’s time to be a grown-up.”
The song itself has nothing to do with the novel, though. It describes two people who were close friends growing up, life giving them different paths, and the reaction of one of them when he reads in the paper that the other one has died.
Simmons said: “Childhood’s End was not about an actual person. It was just a sort of rock’n’roll nihilism. Rock’n’roll guys killing themselves off was a very romantic notion. I wondered what it would be like to be the friend of a guy who you grew up with and becomes a rock star and [recites lyrics] “I read in the New York Times that you passed away, you blew your mind, but you were always my friend…”.”
Interestingly, though, the song reuses some lyrics similar to Simmons’ 1982 song When the Legends Dies that was later recorded by Wendy O. Williams as Legends Never Die on her album W.O.W. (1984). The 1982 song goes, “Tuesday morning, New York Times / You passed away, you lost your mind.” In Childhood’s End, we have “Sunday morning in the New York Times / I read you died last night / It said you were smilin’ when you blew your mind.”
It’s hard not to think of Kurt Cobain when you see those lyrics; especially as they can’t have been written too far after Cobain ended his own life similarly to how it’s described in the song. His death also became a newspaper headline around the world. However, on a completely different note, those lyrics could have been inspired by The Beatles, whose song A Day In the Life goes “I read the newspaper, oh boy,” and shortly after “he blew his mind out in a car.” Similar words, similar build. Simmons is on record as a gigantic Beatles fan, and those lyrical similarities are just as strong coincidences as the Cobain reference. In the end, maybe it all just ends up playing well together.
It has been a common miscomprehension that the song is autobiographical or about a specific person in Simmons’ past. With lyrics such as “You were always my friend from childhood’s end / Seems like forever and ever / Yeah, you won’t have to pretend / It’s near the end / You won’t ever be a rock and roller” some have believed that the song was about Simmons’ childhood friend Stephen Coronel, whom he had been forced to fire from the pre-KISS band Wicked Lester. This is definitely not the case, nor is it about anyone else from Simmons’ personal life. According to the liner notes in the KISS Box Set, the subject matter was simply about “two friends, one of whom died before his time, and the other one who lived and reminisced about his missing friend”.
I lived a life of illusion and you had your kicks
So what, there’s nothing left to do
And you and your obsessions and your crucifix
As if what I thought mattered much to you
And you were always my friend from childhood’s end
It was forever and ever
Did you understand it’s childhood’s end
But never, the dream is over
Two former members of the band Black ‘N Blue co-wrote songs on Carnival of Souls. Vocalist Jaime St. James co-wrote In My Head, and guitarist Tommy Thayer provided some material that would end up being used on Childhood’s End. Thayer would eventually join Kiss as the band’s permanent lead guitarist in 2003.
In Behind the Mask, Thayer said “The chorus changes and melody was something that I brought in to Gene two or three years prior. Then they were working on Carnival of Souls and Gene pulled that out. For the rest of the song, the verses and stuff, he worked with Bruce Kulick.”
In other words, Thayer was not present in the studio as a contributing musician during the CoS sessions. Kulick has also indicated this, as he later said “If he was in the studio, it was only to film us for documentary purposes”.
Thayer was indeed present with a movie camera. “I was around for those sessions,” he confirmed in Behind the Mask. “It’s a little known fact, but we videotaped the recording of the whole record too, from start to finish. There’s hours of footage. That’s something that’s never been done [with KISS]. Maybe someday people will see that.” He also confirmed that some footage exists from 1998’s Psycho Circus sessions.
In the end, Thayer’s basic chord signature and melody were used in the song, but it took some crucial input from current KISS guitar player Bruce Kulick to make it into the song we know. In Behind the Mask, Kulick recalled: “One of the reasons I had nine co-writes on the album was I would not let go of a thing. I was in their face all the time and they were glad for it. I was contributing a lot and I had ideas. I remember Gene going to a demo studio and he wanted to review all the tapes of the stuff that he’d written. I said, “I wanna be there.” And he said, “No problem.” So I show up and he’s playing the idea for the chorus to Childhood’s End. And I go, “That’s really good.” Later on he plays me the verses of that song. It hit me that the two fit together. So in essence I didn’t write the chorus, but I was involved in a bit on some of the things that we did in the verses but the point was these things worked together. And all of a sudden we had this very strong song.”
The song itself starts with a slow, almost droning intro, before it stops short in time for the verse to start with a clean guitar sound. Gene provides a tough, hard vocal over it, which I’ve always found a lovely contrast. It fits better with the full band which comes in again shortly after.
The song has a very nice, melodic and emotional guitar solo. Simmons pays tribute to it in the Box Set liner notes when discussing this song: “Bruce came up with the verse chord patterns and played one of my favourite solos on the Carnival Of Souls record.”
Bruce Kulick is pleased with it as well: “I love my guitar solo on that song. That’s the first solo on my DK signature model from ESP that came out – I only had the prototype – that came out after I was in KISS.”
The end of the song is probably as epic as songs got in the grunge era, adding a children’s choir to add to the feeling of childhoods lost. Kulick said, “Production-wise, the idea about the kids coming in at the end, that’s a throwback to Ezrin and what he likes to do.”
In Behind the Mask, Simmons recalls having to fight for the idea: ”Everybody in the band hated the idea of having kids sing on it. They said it was hokey. It’s funny, when Ezrin wanted to do it, it wasn’t hokey. But I loved to hear kids singing along, especially if it’s got that kind of innocence.”
The section with the kids has an Easter egg as well. During that section, Gene sings different lines over the regular chorus lyrics sung by the choir, one which is “You’ve got something about you, You got something I need.” These are well-known lines from the KISS classic God of Thunder (on 1976’s Destroyer).
A longer version of the song exists, depending on how you choose to look at it. An untitled instrumental track had been planned for inclusion on the album as a teaser, some 30 seconds after the end of track 12 (the final track). Unfortunately it was cut and only appears on some copies of the advance tape. It was given the moniker Outromental by the KISS Catalog consultant Robert E. Conte, and ended up finding its home on the 2001 KISS Box Set version of Childhood’s End.
Toby Wright is credited as co-producer alongside Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, who took more of a natural ownership for their respective songs. According to Bruce Kulick, Toby wasn’t there from the beginning, though. “Nobody was there in the sense of a producer,” Kulick said on the Alex’ Room Service podcast. “Toby got involved later on, and he was just there because he understood that kind of music – but was a KISS fan, because he’d worked with them before, years ago, I believe just as an engineer.”
In the KISS book Behind the Mask, Toby Wright said: “We went ‘round and ‘round about concepts. I usually speak to my artists about, “What’s your concept on your record?” When we got to Gene’s concept on that song [Childhood’s End], he couldn’t really explain it to me. But then we got into the studio and it became this whole involved story. HE wanted kids on it, and playgrounds, just taking you back, just a kind of a vibey song with a good beat and a lot of aural scenery in it.”
Bruce was asked about the dynamics between Toby and Stanley/Simmons on the Swedish podcast Alex Room Service, and had plenty to offer: “I think Toby is a terrific guy, and he obviously had a deal with those guys. I think he dealt a little better with Paul than Gene. Gene and him kind of started to butt heads a little bit, especially towards the mixing. But in general… you know, we were all pretty talented in the studio, we knew what to do. I actually wasn’t always fond of some of the extremities that Toby chose regarding the mixing – putting the drums all on one side, or doing some other odd things… I have rough mixes that I find at least were purer, and closer to a Revenge sound than what he produced. Now, Gene and Paul did not ask for a new Revenge, so I don’t know. I’m just saying that in retrospect, I think it could have been mixed better. But Toby’s vibe, and then him fighting with Gene, and by then it was out there that they were doing the reunion.”
As Kulick refers to, the album was put together just prior to the reunion of the original KISS line-up. The fact that this was being put together in the background, and eventually the foreground, did end up impacting the album negatively.
Kulick remembers: “Once we got the studio, yeah, their focus got a little distracted with all these meetings. And then, all of a sudden, of course, we went in late November, and then by January, they had to tell Eric Singer and me that they were going to do the Reunion Tour but that we’re going to finish the album. It was kind of weird when that was going on. I knew something was up when I couldn’t get Gene to commit. I was asking him, “When are we going to record?” And then, all of a sudden, he would say, “You’re right, I’ll get back to you.” You know, I mean, since when do I have to remind them to go record? And we were already committed because the record company got the songs, but looking back, I get the overall picture. They’re were going to move into this big thing.”
This would also impact working relationships between Stanley/Simmons and their co-producer Toby Wright. Kulick recalls on Alex Room Service: “I think dynamics… it’s really interesting, to be explained three quarters through a record that the direction of the band, and what is going to happen with the record, is unclear. And that the direction of the band is going to a completely different place. I think that’s part of why the album suffers sonically, in the end. I mean, it’s all there. I doubt that they’d revisit it and remix it the way it should be. And that’s why I don’t fault Toby entirely, because that was an uncomfortable circumstance around the project and the album and the band. It certainly took the wind out of of Eric and I, and Gene and Paul were distracted as by then it was getting really close to them launching and announcing and committing with agents, taking huge advances… you know what I mean. That was not fun. I showed up every day to try to help, but I couldn’t get in between Gene and Toby when Gene’s saying, “Throw the faders up!” And a song like Childhood’s End is kind of a bit bass heavy, and a bit crazy mix wise. It’s not terrible, but I could see on that day that things weren’t done with a calm, rational approach. Things were done a bit emotionally, shall we say, and Toby was very frustrated.”
Toby Wright reflects on those times in Behind the Mask: “In hindsight, I think artistically the record is a little unfocused. Sonically, it’s excellent; musically, it is what it is. If you like it, you like it and if you don’t, you don’t. I wish I had taken more time to work on some songs, but I do remember it being kind of quick. “Okay, these are our songs, go!” We didn’t have a lot of time to stand there and look at the songs and go, “Are these our best songs?” Gene always has deadlines. So he was like, “Get these songs done and then we’re going on tour.” [laughs] But I’m very proud of the record. It’s definitely a different record for KISS. I’m proud that the one that I did is different in a lot of ways. It was kind of underground. It’s not a standard KISS record.”
Kulick is however on record as saying that the rough mixes of the record had “sounded closer” to the successful 1992 album Revenge. “Toby Wright, who co-produced that record, he had both his feet in that [grunge] world, working with Alice in Chains, and he had big success with that. Even though he knew Kiss because he helped engineer some other work previously, he did take it very far that way, and Gene and Paul’s attention by the time the record was being mixed was the reunion tour.”
The album was finished in time for the KISS reunion… and was put on the shelf. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley would reunite with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss for several worldwide tours and a studio album. The success of the reunion tour effectively put the release of Carnival of Souls on hold, as it was felt to have been confusing to have an album out by a line-up that was no longer active, with songs that would not be part of any live show. As a result the album ended up being heavily bootlegged, which helped push the label into releasing it as soon as the reunion tour was over, on 28 October 1997.
Bruce Kulick had been heavily invested in the album and it was hard to accept the album’s initial fate. Today he has a philosophical view of that time. “The album was never seen as unimportant, but at the end of the day, it took second place to something much bigger. The intent of the album and the music and the performances… none of that I feel were ever compromised. The only thing that I felt was compromised by the realities of what was to come about KISS’ reunion was maybe the mix. And the horror of having to wait so long for it to be released.”
The fact that the album was circulating amongst fans was especially hard for Kulick to grin and bear. “All those versions that were out there were terrible, going cassette to cassette,” he recalled. “I remember this one guy that I used to work with, he thought that I leaked it! Why would I do that? I had nine co-writes! What would be in it for me to have people bootleg my music? They’d be ripping me off! I wanted to kill him when he said it to me.”
Sadly, the album’s problematic placement in the band’s chronology means that none of the songs have ever been (or will be) played live by KISS. This puts the album in the unique category of being the only one that fans never got the chance to bond with live as they have every other release. This, along with it not being typical KISS music, easily explains why it’s the band’s least successful release commercially.
Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer will however usually include several of these songs whenever they have performed with their solo bands, and for some reason it always brings down the house – it’s very unexpected, after all, and very fresh in a live setting. Everybody knows it’s a rare treat. In 2022, the Bruce Kulick Band played a long medley of Carnival of Souls songs on the KISS Kruise. This was a highlight that is still being talked about.
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