- Nov 27, 2003
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- Disclosures
- Rogue luthier employed at Knooren Handcrafted bass guitars
Okay, most of the time when a retired Rockstar resurfaces the Rock community welcomes them back with open arms.
This is Vincent Cusano, AKA Vinnie Vincent and as this picture shows he came to fame by being a member of one of the most famous metal bands of all time.
Kiss in the early eighties from left to right: Eric Carr, Paul Stanley, Vinnie Vincent and Gene Simmons.
Having Vinnie in the band meant a resurgence for Kiss because Vinnie was really good at doing THIS.
And with two very strong albums in "Creatures of the night" and "Lick it up" made that Kiss had firmly reestablished themselves in the eighties Metal landscape.
But when Kiss went on tour to support those albums they quickly found that they made a mistake having Vinnie in their fold. Because, look at the logistics which come with doing a tour:
- You have to hire truckers to move the entire thing from city to city during the tour
- You have to hire a crew to build the stage
- You have to hire sound crew to make sure the shows sound good every night
- You have to hire special effects people to make sure the pyrotechnics of a show will work as they should every single night. (Certainly for a band like Kiss, that's their bread and butter right there.)
- You have to hire promoters to make sure the venues can be booked.
AND
- You have to make sure that every single one of those people hired is insured, because should a calamity happen to that said person, medical bills would be taken care off by the insurance company.
So every single member of the tour crew (Which includes the band members themselves) has to sign a contract which in return means:
- That they will be insured during that said tour.
- Will receive proper payment for their services for the full duration of that tour.
- Will be properly taken care of, have a bed to sleep in and enough to eat during the tour.
Vinnie let his contract expire which meant that the band was basically touring with an uninsured employee and basically had to pay for hotel stays out of their own pockets but that wasn't the biggest issue. THIS was...
As I pointed out earlier, a Kiss show is a well planned out event, it HAS to be. But Vinnie's solos became longer and longer, screwing up the tightly rehearsed timeline of the show and after coming near blows with Paul Stanley one night, Vinnie was shown the door.
Paul Stanley recounting that tour.
Vinnie then had the gall to sue Kiss for unpaid royalties but when the Judge was shown the paperwork which clearly pointed out that when Vinnie was still under contract he was paid accordingly and after that said contract expired, the band had no legal objection to pay him.
So Vinnie was out but his tenure with Kiss wasn't for nothing, plenty of people wanted to work with this hot-shot guitarist, resulting in a multi million dollars deal with Chrystalis records and a band called the Vinnie Vincent Invasion but...
The band itself was just as big a train wreck as this video is. Eventually Vinnie was fired by his own bandmates.
Even so, you're something special if you make Gene Simmons look humble.
During the nineties Vinnie became a recluse, sometimes he popped up on Kiss conventions where he was pretty surprised by the fact that people actually were glad to see him.
Notice something off with his playing?
Anyway, he announced at those appearances that he was doing a Vinnie Vincent Boxset which would include rare demos, outtakes and unreleased material, there were plenty of people paying in advance to have that boxset, Vinnie was all too happy to take their money...and run.
Anyway, a few years ago, his name once again came up when he was evicted from his house when people complained about bad smell and he was arrested for domestic abuse. So there was little chance this fallen Rock star would ever be on his feet again. Right?
Wrong.
Earlier this year, Vinnie once again showed up at a Kiss convention, where he had a meet and greet with the fans, played some acoustic stuff (Showcasing that he hasn't had a guitar in his hands for YEARS!) and basically acted the hero, who had returned from the brink. But as questions about the Boxsets were brought up, it was quickly revealed that very little has changed...
And what do you know?
There was a convention in Nashville that wanted a Vinnie Vincent Invasion reunion concert. They didn't have much money, but they had volunteers, so the deal is, he gets 100% of the door, 100% of the merch and 100% of the VIP packages, but no money up front. He waited until he thought it was too late to cancel and then asked for a guarantee. They thought: 'okay, he hasn't changed, and if we say yes to this, there will be more nonsense', and then they cancelled.
But if that wasn't enough, guess what he pulled off today?
I can only roll my eyes at this. The guy should give it up, he's not a rock star anymore
This is Vincent Cusano, AKA Vinnie Vincent and as this picture shows he came to fame by being a member of one of the most famous metal bands of all time.
Kiss in the early eighties from left to right: Eric Carr, Paul Stanley, Vinnie Vincent and Gene Simmons.
Having Vinnie in the band meant a resurgence for Kiss because Vinnie was really good at doing THIS.
And with two very strong albums in "Creatures of the night" and "Lick it up" made that Kiss had firmly reestablished themselves in the eighties Metal landscape.
But when Kiss went on tour to support those albums they quickly found that they made a mistake having Vinnie in their fold. Because, look at the logistics which come with doing a tour:
- You have to hire truckers to move the entire thing from city to city during the tour
- You have to hire a crew to build the stage
- You have to hire sound crew to make sure the shows sound good every night
- You have to hire special effects people to make sure the pyrotechnics of a show will work as they should every single night. (Certainly for a band like Kiss, that's their bread and butter right there.)
- You have to hire promoters to make sure the venues can be booked.
AND
- You have to make sure that every single one of those people hired is insured, because should a calamity happen to that said person, medical bills would be taken care off by the insurance company.
So every single member of the tour crew (Which includes the band members themselves) has to sign a contract which in return means:
- That they will be insured during that said tour.
- Will receive proper payment for their services for the full duration of that tour.
- Will be properly taken care of, have a bed to sleep in and enough to eat during the tour.
Vinnie let his contract expire which meant that the band was basically touring with an uninsured employee and basically had to pay for hotel stays out of their own pockets but that wasn't the biggest issue. THIS was...
As I pointed out earlier, a Kiss show is a well planned out event, it HAS to be. But Vinnie's solos became longer and longer, screwing up the tightly rehearsed timeline of the show and after coming near blows with Paul Stanley one night, Vinnie was shown the door.
Paul Stanley recounting that tour.
Vinnie then had the gall to sue Kiss for unpaid royalties but when the Judge was shown the paperwork which clearly pointed out that when Vinnie was still under contract he was paid accordingly and after that said contract expired, the band had no legal objection to pay him.
So Vinnie was out but his tenure with Kiss wasn't for nothing, plenty of people wanted to work with this hot-shot guitarist, resulting in a multi million dollars deal with Chrystalis records and a band called the Vinnie Vincent Invasion but...
The band itself was just as big a train wreck as this video is. Eventually Vinnie was fired by his own bandmates.
Even so, you're something special if you make Gene Simmons look humble.
During the nineties Vinnie became a recluse, sometimes he popped up on Kiss conventions where he was pretty surprised by the fact that people actually were glad to see him.
Notice something off with his playing?
Anyway, he announced at those appearances that he was doing a Vinnie Vincent Boxset which would include rare demos, outtakes and unreleased material, there were plenty of people paying in advance to have that boxset, Vinnie was all too happy to take their money...and run.
Anyway, a few years ago, his name once again came up when he was evicted from his house when people complained about bad smell and he was arrested for domestic abuse. So there was little chance this fallen Rock star would ever be on his feet again. Right?
Wrong.
Earlier this year, Vinnie once again showed up at a Kiss convention, where he had a meet and greet with the fans, played some acoustic stuff (Showcasing that he hasn't had a guitar in his hands for YEARS!) and basically acted the hero, who had returned from the brink. But as questions about the Boxsets were brought up, it was quickly revealed that very little has changed...
And what do you know?
There was a convention in Nashville that wanted a Vinnie Vincent Invasion reunion concert. They didn't have much money, but they had volunteers, so the deal is, he gets 100% of the door, 100% of the merch and 100% of the VIP packages, but no money up front. He waited until he thought it was too late to cancel and then asked for a guarantee. They thought: 'okay, he hasn't changed, and if we say yes to this, there will be more nonsense', and then they cancelled.
But if that wasn't enough, guess what he pulled off today?
I can only roll my eyes at this. The guy should give it up, he's not a rock star anymore
