Quarantining and self-isolation have given musicians new and old an opportunity to practice their instruments; naturally, that leads to covers and covers lead to collaboration, which leads to Kids in Satan’s Service, or K.I.S.S. The collective, which is a “studio project” featuring members of Rwake, Deadbird, Dangerous Toys, Howling Sycamore, Necrot, Saviours, Darsombra, Meatjack and Burnout & the Horde.
Of course, there’s only one band that can be covered with a name like that, so Decibel is happy to share Kids in Satan’s Service’s quarantine cover of KISS’ “All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose” off of 1983’s Lick It Up.
“Claustrophobia,” explains Jeff Morgan, drummer for Rwake and bassist/vocalist for Deadbird. “Brain racing with a thousand ideas, but the body is frozen with an anxiety that stems from a never before seen full stop on normal life. Free in the world, to trapped at home. A fucking pandemic. What do you do? You cling to what you know and love.
“We love playing music, and we fucking love Kiss.
“We had just done a silly Rwake cover of Grim Reaper’s ‘See you in Hell’ on a crappy iPhone app. We were sharing it with friends, and our tour brother, John Hopkins (FOH/TM powerhouse for Sleep, Melvins, COC and countless other great bands) suggested we collaborate on a version of ‘All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose’ by Kiss to give us something to do to ease the madness of quarantine. I immediately jumped on the idea and tracked the drums and scratch guitar, and sent it to my right hand man, Reid Raley (Rwake, Deadbird, ex-The Obsessed). No Kiss cover would be complete without the human Kiss encyclopedia, Chris Terry (Rwake, Deadbird) on vocals, so that was a no-brainer. From there we joined forces with our old friend Sonny “Hot Lix” Reinhardt (Necrot, Saviours) to rip that Vinnie Vincent shit. We really wanted our old cohorts from Meatjack to be involved because of our countless nights singing Kiss songs together, so we invited our friends Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton (aka Darsombra) to the party. Then the project took a turn for the ‘holy shit, this just got real’ when CT recruited one of our rock heroes, Jason Mcmaster (Dangerous Toys, Watchtower, Howling Sycamore, Broken Teeth). We’ve been buds with Jason since the last Milwaukee Metalfest crumbled around us as Rwake and Broken Teeth shared the bill. (RIP Milwaukee Metalfest!)
“With that, the lineup was complete. We all tracked our parts from all over the country, and sent them here to my home studio (Megalithic Sounds) in North Little Rock. Once it sounded great, we sent all of our videos out to our longtime NY friend, Frank Huang, who did a STELLAR job putting it all together.
“As we were finishing it, the streets filled with years of rage for justice and equality. The country is really reaching a boiling point. What do you do? You cling to what you love. We love people of every color and creed from all walks of life. We love family, friends, individual freedoms, and the true power of ROCK N ROLL. We are proud to stand up together and demand equality and justice for all.”
