Per Ivar Stubberud posted these e-mails in june 2005 in the Kiss Army Norway forums. He had seen Fritz post in Anton Figs forums and thought; “why not just send a e-mail and see if he is willing to answer some questions. So here you have the posts collected. Really cool stuff for us fans of “vintage-kisstory”.

Fritz. I happened to spot you at Anton Fig`s message board. I`m a kiss-crazy from Norway and since you`ve been an important part of kisstory I just could`nt stop myself from writing. It must have been an amasing journey while working for them. I love the stories that the crew has shared with the fans, and you know what, those are the most important ones. Paul and Gene has a way of twisting those old stories in a way that the credit often goes their way, you may have scratched your head once or twice over it yourself…..
I can only say that I believe things more from a crew-point of view than any other in the kiss-camp, thank you. I wish you guys could have written a book `bout that the life as roadies, crewmembers, managers. To read about the details, big challenges and responsibilities are truly a goldmine for many. I`m a tour manager myself and I love my work, you would kill for getting the show on stage. (www.smallbang.net)

What are your occupations these days? Are you in the music business? Continue reading →

An interview with ‘Mr. Kiss-collectibles’ himself, Ingo Floren

There has been released several books about Kiss collectibles during the years. Some have been good and some have been not quite so good. But the definitive Kiss collectible book had still to be written. Until Ingo Floren’s ‘Official Price Guide To KISS collectibles’ was released in July last year. This was the book all us collectors had been waiting for. The first collectibles book that did much more than scratch the surface. Kiss Army Norway had a little ‘chat’ with Ingo about his book and himself.

First of all tell us a little about yourself.
I’m 32 years old and live in Berlin, Germany where I work as a project leader in a marketing agency. As a dedicated KISS fanatic and collector since 1979/80 I enjoy looking around on the net for some vintage KISS stuff to see my collection growing. I’m focussed on original paper stuff fom the 70s like magazines and promo stuff. I also started to collect radio shows and interviews from the classic era. Just check out www.flaming-youth.com to see what I’ve up for trade.

A project of this magnitude must have taken ages to put together. How did it start out and how long did it take you to gather all the information and write the book? Was it difficult to get a publishing deal for the book?
Everything started in summer of 2003. I got a mail from a guy of the Random House publishing group looking for someone crazy enough to write a book about KISS collectibles. Random House scanned the internet for some fan-related sites and came across my site www.flaming-youth.com. So we did some correspondence and I was finally asked to write a proposal. As I did some researches for my own collection for many years I was able to fall back on some info already on hand. So after a few weeks I sent over my ideas for the book’s structure and one chapter to New York in August 2003. I’ve nearly forgotten about the project as I was contacted by an editor from Random House in October. He said that they liked my ideas and invited me over to New York to discuss further steps and come to a contractual agreement.
Everything was very exciting and it was like a dream come true to me… first, I got the chance to do a book with one of the biggest publishers in the world and most importantly, it was about my favourite band! Finally, I got one year for the whole project including researches, writing, doing pictures, interviews and stuff. This was kinda hard as I did everything besides my proper job at the agency… Continue reading →