Never let it be said that there’s never time for some good Kiss beef. It’s like Jello, there’s always room for it.
In an interview with Billboard magazine, Peter Criss fired back at Gene Simmons over whether or not he wrote their hit single “Beth” back in the 70’s. Gene asserted that Peter "had nothing to do" with the writing of the song that was a smash hit for the band in 1976 reaching No. 7 on Billboard's Hot 100. Peter says that he co-wrote the song with the late Stan Penridge, when they both were in the band Chelsea, before Criss joined Kiss, as the song then was called "Beck" after Becky, their bandmate Mike Brand's wife, who would call during practices. The song was changed and re composed by producer Bob Ezrin for the "Destroyer" album.
This, however is contrary to what Gene Simmons has to say about the song. On the Professor Of Rock YouTube channel Gene said,
"Peter does not write songs. He doesn't play a musical instrument. Drums are not a musical instrument, by definition. They're called a percussive instrument. Really important — sometimes extremely important in a band. It was for us. But you cannot play a drum fill that can be copywritten, but you can come up with a riff that you can own and a melody and a lyric. Those can be copywritten, but nothing you do on drums will prevent anybody else from directly copying whatever you did and applying it to another song. Okay, that's number one. Number two, as far as I know, Peter plays no other instruments that I've ever seen. Not keyboards, six-instruments at all. Peter's got a great whiskey voice in the early days. The person who wrote 'Beth' and 'Baby Driver' and one or two more was a guy named Stan Penridge. Stan Penridge was with Peter in a group called Chelsea. They had a record out, actually, I think it was on the MCA. So, Peter did not write 'Beth'. And he did not write 'Baby Driver'. Stan Penridge wrote that. But through politics and — hint, hint, nudge, nudge — and I wasn't there when the conversation went down, Stan Penridge apparently agreed that Peter's name would go in the songwriting credit. It appears first — Peter Criss, Stan Penridge… Or Peter Criss, Bob Ezrin, Stan Penridge, or the other way around. But Peter's first. Peter had nothing to do with that song — nothing. He sang it. And to fix all the mythology and the gossip and the outright lies, it was Bob Ezrin who said, 'I wanna do this like 'Yesterday',' more like a string quartet and piano. So more acoustically, because the melody in the song demanded it. And we'd never done that. We never thought we'd be doing a song like that, but we all went, 'Sure. So, the mythology of 'Beth' is exactly that: mythology. The real story is Peter was lucky enough to be in the same place at the same time as a guy who wrote a song called 'Beth', and then Bob Ezrin, when he heard the song, went home before it was recorded, and then Bob added the middle section of the piano, which was taken legally, as it's public domain. I believe it was a Mozart piano concerto. And that is the story behind 'Beth'."
This would bring about a response from Peter, when contacted by Billboard to elaborate.
"Gene wouldn't know how the song was originally written because Gene wasn't there from the conception of the song in the late '60s and he wasn't there for the completion of the song with Bob Ezrin. Gene's statements are ridiculous and very uncalled for; he talks about things that he doesn't know about. What Gene's getting wrong is that as the singing songwriter, I wrote the melody and creating the phrasing for the song that's on the original demo 'Beck' with Stan Penridge. Out of Stan's little black book what remained on the reworked version of 'Beth' is Stan's original verse and chorus, and my core melody remains on the reworked composition. The core melody was expanded with Bob's orchestration symphony and musical genius. Bob and I sat at the piano at the Record Plant studio working out the song. Bob Ezrin changed the tempo and made it slower, and I worked on changing some of the second verse and the phrasing with the slower tempo. Bob Ezrin changed the title from 'Beck' to 'Beth' — not Gene or anybody else. It was Bob Ezrin; He asked me, 'Peter, do you mind if we change the title?' I said, 'Absolutely not. 'Beth' is much better.' Bob took the song home and fixed the rest of the lyrics and the structure of the song. He added piano, some time changes and the incredible orchestra composition which elevated the song beyond my wildest my dreams. It was mind-blowing."
Now you may ask yourself how did we get on starting a beef about a song from nearly 50 years ago? Well the Professor of Rock was getting clarification on the song after another interview of Paul Stanley’s back in 2014, when he told Rolling Stone magazine,
"Peter can't write a song, because Peter doesn't play an instrument. Penridge came up with 'Beth, I hear you calling...' Peter had nothing to do with it. Because if you write one hit song, you should be able to write two. That's the reality. Devastating? It's the truth. It was a lifeline that Peter hung on to validate himself, but it wasn't based on reality."
Peter commented back on Paul’s comments,
"Paul is so full of fucking shit, cause as a lead singer of the band he never got to write the hit. That's his problem. They hated the fact that I wrote a hit record and won a People's Choice."
So what’s the real truth in the saga of a song about a woman one of the players has anything to do with? Well, in an interview way back in 2000, Penridge himself said,
"'Beck' was written, almost word for word, from Mike Brand's responses to his wife's constant calls that interupted our rehearsals," Penridge explained. "It got to the point where I wrote down his remarks over a period of three or four days in what I called my 'wizard book.' It was merely a small notebook I carried to jot down silly sayings, sketch in, anything....to save ideas. If you look at the lyrics and view them as a hen-pecked hubby's remarks to his nagging wife, you'll see what I mean. Just pause after every sentence and pretend there's a bitch at the other end of the line. You'll catch it — I'm sure. He absolutely not responsible at all”, Penridge said of Criss. “Another poorman's copyright by me in '70."