Try as they might, the members of Kix never received the kind of fan adulation, chart action and record sales of their '80s pop/metal fellows Ratt, Poison and Cinderella. The band's music was hard, fast and uncompromising, and lead singer Steve Whiteman had the shriek and the style that propelled lesser frontmen into household name status, but Kix—despite a handful of excellent songs and an electric stage show that kicked all sorts of ass along the Eastern Seaboard — was destined for no more than a footnote in the big book of hair band heavy rock.
The five–piece killer combo from Maryland spent more than a decade honing its act — the band had a work ethic (when they weren't on the road, they were writing, rehearsing or recording) that would strangle a less determined group of players. Kix scored exactly one hit single — the power ballad "Don't Close Your Eyes" — and just one of their albums, 1988's Blow My Fuse, scraped the Top 50.
Yet the strength of these songs, most of them written by the group's founder, bassist Donnie Purnell, is hard to argue with.
Purnell was playing covers in and around Baltimore in the late '70s, along with drummer Jimmy Chalfant and guitarist Ronnie Younkins. Ultimately, as musicians will, they yearned for something bigger — to play their original songs and make records.
With the addition of second guitarist Brian Forsythe, a good friend of Ronnie's, and Steve Whiteman (who had been a singing drummer in his cover group) on vocals and harmonica, the band became the Shooze. They started hitting the clubs, and hitting them hard.
Unfortunately, there was another band using footwear as a moniker, and they had a national record deal, so the Shooze became the Generators — and, just as quickly, Kix.
"We schlepped it through the dump clubs," Whiteman told British radio personality Chris Tetley. "We played a place where a guy came in with a baseball bat and just took it to our board. Just smashed our board. And then he was shot later on that night.
"We played this club where you'd play six nights a week, five sets a night. One night it was a little bit too crowded, and the cops came in and told the people they had to leave.
"Well, the people weren't going to put their drinks down and leave, in this little town in Southern Maryland. The people went nuts and started beating up the cops, and before you knew it there was tear gas and dogs and everything. We've had some wild, wild stories."
Of course, the generation of such hysteria couldn't go unnoticed by the record industry for long, and within a year of coming together, Kix was offered a contract with Atlantic Records.
Produced by Tom Allom, who'd handled the knobs for metal godheads Judas Priest, Kix was released in 1981. It featured many of the earliest tunes worked up for the band's stage show, pummelling and uncompromising with a good sense of melody. Critics called Kix a hybrid of Aerosmith and AC/DC.
Producer Pete Solley gave the band's next album, Cool Kids, a slicker, more new–wavey feel. Synthesizers were in, and guitarist Younkins was out, replaced for the sessions by Brad Divens (by the time Kix started the Cool Kids tour, however, Younkins was back in the ranks).
The single "Body Talk" (written by Nick Gilder of "Hot Child in the City" fame) was accompanied by a cheesy "workout" video, and Kix became an MTV darling.
Atlantic went Kix crazy for 1985's Midnight Dynamite, pairing the band with Beau Hill, who'd produced for Ratt and Twisted Sister (and would eventually do the honors for Warrant).
The album had all the raw, raucous fun and amps–on–eleven ragged glory that Cool Kids had all but abandoned.
"We were really proud of Midnight Dynamite," said Whitehead. "We thought, this is the one, we got one in the bag. Unfortunately, radio didn't pick up on it, so we just took it on the road for two years. Toured nonstop, and we built up a really big following in the U.S."
For all this time, Kix had never opened — or headlined — a big arena tour. They were a club band, and their blood, sweat and tears were hard–earned every night. Fans and industry admirers began to call Kix "The Best–Kept Secret in Rock 'n' Roll."
Hill was supposed to produce the followup, 1988's Blow My Fuse, but the band received an unexpected overture from Tom Werman, the legendary studio ace who'd produced Motley Crue, Ted Nugent and Cheap Trick, among others.
Werman turned out to be a huge Kix fan, and he wanted to produce the band — if they could wait until he finished a Poison project.
The wait turned into nine months, but Blow My Fuse proved to be the high–water mark for Kix. "Don't Close Your Eyes" made it to #11 in Billboard, and the album itself went gold and reached #46.
With this success, Kix graduated to arenas, opening for the likes of AC/DC, Ratt and David Lee Roth.
From the beginning, Whitehead had explained, Kix was best experienced live. "I go out there, and I really attempt to make people not only listen but watch," he told Tetley. "I want people to be entertained by what we look like as well as what we sound like."
As the '80s drew to a close, sadly, the audience for so–called hair bands was dwindling. Switched over to Atlantic's EastWest subsidiary, Kix recorded the excellent Hot Wire (produced by Taylor Rhodes) in 1991. "Girl Money" got some MTV attention, but the album stiffed and Kix went back to the clubs.
After a live album cut at the University of Maryland at College Park, Kix parted ways with Atlantic. They made one more go of it, on an independent label, and by 1995 the band was history.
So why wasn't Kix huge? Was it because, as some have suggested, they had the hair, the leather and the swagger but they just weren't cute enough for MTV? Or maybe they simply didn't grease the right record–biz palms.
One thing's for sure, evident in the tracks on this anthology CD: Kix had the songs, and Kix had the chops. This is righteous stuff.