Gene Simmons’ box set ‘The Vault’ to reportedly include three KISS demos featuring Van Halen brothers

Gene Simmons’ box set ‘The Vault’ to reportedly include three KISS demos featuring Van Halen brothers

The Van Halen News Desk website has announced that Gene Simmons‘ upcoming box set The Vault will contain three KISS demos that he recorded with the Van Halen brothers — guitarist Eddie and drummer Alex.

The following is an excerpt from the article on the Van Halen News Desk website:

“…This past week, KISS bassist Gene Simmons announced that he will soon release a massive, limited-edition box set called The Vault. Among its one hundred and fifth tracks are three long-lost KISS demo recordings that feature Edward and Alex Van Halen playing alongside Gene, who sings and plays bass on the material.

To understand how those three tracks came into being, we need to revisit Van Halen‘s history with Simmons.

Back in October 1976, Simmons saw an unsigned Van Halen performing at the Starwood Club in Hollywood. Knocked out by the band’s potential, Simmons took the four musicians into the studio to record a demo of Van Halen material and attempted, unsuccessfully, to get them a record deal.

In the months that followed, Simmons went on the road with KISS. In April 1977, he returned to Los Angeles to find that Van Halen had signed a deal with Warner Bros. Records. Simmons, of course, had his band’s own recording career to worry about, and toward that end, called Edward and Alex and asked them to go into the studio with him to lay down demos for KISS‘s upcoming Love Gun album.

The brothers agreed, and entered Village Recorders studio in Los Angeles alongside Simmons. With an irked David Lee Roth (who believed Simmons had designs to persuade the brothers to abandon Van Halen in favour of some sort of KISS-related endeavour) looking on, Edward and Alex cut “Tunnel of Love,” “Got Love For Sale” and “Christine Sixteen” with Simmons. Perhaps most notably, Edward composed the melodic solo that became the centrepiece of the latter tune; reportedly, KISS guitarist Ace Frehley replicated Edward‘s solo note-for-note on Love Gun.”

You can read the rest of the article at Van Halen News Desk.