Electric Angels guitarist Ryan Roxie recently opened up about a past industry conflict involving the legendary rock band Kiss. During a recent appearance on “The Hair Metal Guru“, the musician detailed an incident where Kiss allegedly stole a song title from his band’s demo recordings without offering any formal credit or financial compensation.
The situation traces back to the early days of Electric Angels, when the group was trying to secure a record deal. According to Ryan, their efforts were initially guided by Bruce Kulick, who was highly active in the music scene and looking to transition into production work.
Detailing the initial studio sessions, Ryan Roxie stated:
“Bruce Kulick, who’s hanging around the whole scene at that point, says, ‘Look, I’m in getting into producing. I know how what’s going on. I can hear the songs that are there. Let’s record three songs.”
Despite their efforts, the resulting tracks failed to generate interest from West Coast labels.
“And then, we go in the studio. And again, those were songs that we would shop to record labels. And ultimately not get the thumbs up from any of them on the west coast.”
The band eventually relocated to the East Coast, a move that proved successful. Using the very same recordings, they managed to secure a contract with Atlantic Records.
“When we move to the east coast, same demos, same sort of may maybe a remix here or there, but that’s what closed the deal over on the east coast,” Roxie explained.
He then highlighted the specific tracks that helped land the deal, noting:
“But the three songs in particular were ‘Rattlesnake Kisses.’ That was number one that uh ended up actually becoming the single on Atlantic Records. another song called ‘Tiger Tiger‘ and didn’t make the album or anything like that, but still a really great song. You can I think you can actually even find it on the Music Machine.”
However, the controversy centered around the final song from that initial demo session. As the guitarist revealed, the title of their third track eventually found its way onto a major Kiss release.
“And the third song that we recorded uh was called ‘Put the ‘EX’ in S*x’. And you know what’s coming because it just so happened about 6 months later or you know a year later Kiss comes out with a song and their newest single called ‘Let’s Put the X in Sex,’” he recalled.
The striking similarity led Electric Angels to suspect that their unreleased track had been shared directly with the Kiss camp.
“And we were like up in arms. We’re like how could you do this Bruce? Because obviously Bruce had played it for Gene and Paul and they’re like, ‘Ah good, we like this title. Let’s take it.’”
Assuming the borrowing of the title would result in royalties, the band initially believed the situation would work out in their financial favor.
“So we’re thinking, ‘Well, you we’re going to be able to be rest easy now cuz Kiss has now taken our song and we’ll be able to get some sort of credit and publishing off of it,’” he explained.
Their hopes for compensation were swiftly shut down by Kiss bassist and co-founder Gene Simmons, who clarified the legal realities of music copyright law regarding song titles. Recounting the final conversation that put the matter to rest, Ryan shared:
“And then Gene simply goes to us one time, he goes, ‘Uh, you cannot uh copyright a song title, just so you know.’ And it was like, ‘What? Wait a second.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, yeah. Think of how many songs have the word love in it, you know, or blue eyes. Think about it.’ And then we were like, oh, Gene’s done it again.”
