Birth of an Army: A revolution had humble beginnings 30 years ago in a Terre Haute basement

Survived KISS period: Bill Starkey, who founded the KISS Army in Terre Haute back in 1975, is now 49 years old and a third-grade teacher in the Indianapolis Public Schools system. (Photo courtesy Bill Starkey)

Valley native Bill Starkey began KISS fan club 30 years ago

Mark Bennett/Tribune-Star

Two things are certain about the birth of the KISS Army -- Bill Starkey founded that fan club as a Terre Haute teen-ager in 1975, and "it's a very bizarre story" as he puts it.

So let's start at the end.

Starkey is now a 49-year-old elementary teacher at Indianapolis Public School 109. His third-graders aren't too familiar with KISS -- that quartet of face-painted, platform-heeled rockers who hit it big with 1970s anthem tunes such as "Rock and Roll All Night." Some of those kids' parents remember KISS. But not like Starkey does.

KISS hailed from New York. But their most persistent fan worked from a basement in Terre Haute.

It was 1975. The primary rock 'n' roll radio station in town, WVTS, would play anything from obscure album cuts by Robin Trower to FM staples by The Beatles and The Who. But WVTS absolutely would not play any songs by KISS, a new band Starkey had seen in concert elsewhere around the Midwest. The programming director, Rich Dickerson, wouldn't budge, Starkey says.

When Starkey and his friends called the WVTS request line, "They'd laugh and say, we don't play KISS."

What happened next is part of rock music folklore, and it comes in two versions -- the well-known mythical tale, or the less widely understood truth.

The myth, favored by KISS star Gene Simmons and the band's official publicity, claims Starkey and his KISS Army -- totaling nearly a thousand fans -- surrounded the WVTS studios in the woods near West Terre Haute and refused to leave until the disc jockeys finally relented and played KISS.

Carrying the banner: KISS Army members carry a banner touting the band's scheduled concert 30 years ago this month in Hulman Center. (Photo courtesy Bill Starkey)

Dramatic as that sounds, it never happened. As one of Starkey's KISS Army rank-and-file members Mike Leslie explains, "The myth is kind of good for their reputation, but we weren't that diabolical back then."

In reality, the process was more like water torture. Six months' worth of phoned-in KISS requests by Starkey and his friends slowly chipped away the station's resistance. Starkey's Terre Haute North classmate Rob Smith, using the cover of one of Leslie's albums, produced the first-ever KISS T-shirts in the print shop at the high school, where they became a hit. And then came a letter-writing campaign, threatening WVTS's demise and trashing the station's mainstays, such as Aerosmith.

But the real icebreaker turned something far less sexy and outrageous -- the free-market system. A new station, WPFR, hit the airwaves and, of course, immediately seized the neglected KISS market share. "Rock and Roll All Night" is exactly what WPFR did. And when word came that KISS had been booked for a concert in Hulman Center that November, Dickerson realized his teen-age nemesis could give WVTS the upper hand in the battle for listeners.

So Dickerson asked Starkey to send him more of those pro-KISS letters, vowing to read one each night at 5 o'clock.

The concert turned into a sellout. And when the band's PR people found out, they excitedly begged WVTS to tell them how it happened.
Look-alikes: Terre Haute fans Robin Pinson, John Starkey, Tommy Rusin and Scott Roman wear KISS costumes at the band's arrival at Hulman International Airport on Nov. 21, 1975. at top left, KISS performs the first of eight Hulman Center concerts before 11,026 fans on Nov. 21, 1975. At right, surrounded by military service men, KISS band members (from left) Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss strike poses around a jeep at Terre Haute International Airport-Hulman Field just before the rock group performed in Hulman Center. Right, this ticket stub came from the concert by the rock group KISS in Hulman Center. (Photos courtesy Bill Starkey)

"They told them, 'There's this 18-year-old idiot in his basement who calls himself the KISS Army,'" Starkey says.

The concert on Nov. 21, 1975, drew 11,026 fans -- nearly a thousand more than Elvis Presley attracted here four months earlier. "It was crazy," Starkey recalls. "KISS could not have done anything wrong." KISS even was greeted by his grassroots KISS Army (which included four buddies wearing KISS-like face paint known as the Unknown Soldiers) when the band members arrived on a plane at Hulman International Airport. The State High band performed. (North and South wanted free tickets, Starkey remembers, and they'd all been sold.) The real Army -- the U.S. kind -- also came, and gave the wild musicians a motorcade escort into town, where they visited the WVTS studios and then rocked Hulman Center.

Later, Starkey feuded with KISS when its Army spread nationwide and the band chose to base it in larger markets. But over the years, he's made peace with longtime band members Paul Stanley and Simmons, considers current KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer friends, and even received a thank-you plaque from the band at one of their Hulman Center concerts. (They've played here eight times.)

"They had to finally give credit where credit is due," says Pat Kelly, another former Terre Haute KISS Army member. "It was Bill."

Kelly sees Starkey at an annual KISS expo in Indianapolis each year. Leslie spins his old KISS LPs "when I get, as my kids call it, in my hippie moods," and his 4-year-old grandson's favorite song is "Rock and Roll All Night." They're 49, like Starkey, and many of the other KISS fans who helped make Terre Haute "a part of history" -- at least, rock history.

As for Starkey, he saw KISS at Verizon Music Center in Noblesville last July. And he's still recognized in rock circles as the founder of the KISS Army. "Anytime VH1 has done a KISS special, they interview me," Starkey says. The KISS Army even got mentioned recently by Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" and in a "Simpsons" episode.

"Anytime pop culture gets a hold of something I did in my basement, it just blows my mind," Starkey says.

With the 30th anniversary of the KISS Army's public birth in Terre Haute coming this Monday, Starkey just wishes his hometown would just recognize that.

"It's still a part of history," he says.

more like 9 years...1973-1982

Stax said:

very cute!

my 11th grade math teacher was a member of the kiss army when he was younger.

i'm a member since '77. My very first concert. I was 11 and it was festival seating then. (means they opened the doors and everyone ran for the best seats) I lost a shoe, my friend lost his camera, and another friend was smooshed up against the chain link fence. It was mayhem but we had a blast. My mom and dad had no idea what there son was doing. I stopped in the early 80's

My first concert was KISS in 1979 and we made a sign to hold up at the show and I sware at one point Paul pointed to the sign and yelled something. Everyone was smoking pot and a lot of people had their faces made up as one of the band members. I couldn't hear for two days after that. There will never be another band like them.