Anthony Camponelli, Staff Reporter for Kissonline, recently caught up with drummer Anton Fig...

I see that you played on Ace’s Frehley’s solo album in 1978 where you also co-wrote “Wiped Out” with Ace how did you initially get involved with KISS?

Anton: When I was in New York I had a band called Spider and we were auditioning bass players and a friend of Ace’s named Larry Russell who auditioned for us said that Ace was doing a solo record and that Ace was looking for a drummer. So he got me in touch with Ace where I did two rounds of demo’s for him and it also turned out that Ace’s producer Eddie Kramer was also from South Africa originally as well and Ace’s liked the way I played the demos and wanted to use me and we have been great friends ever since.

You also played on Unmasked, Killers and Dynasty?

Well I guess it is public knowledge now and Gene mentioned in his new book that they called me in to play but I never said anything for a long time because I felt it was not my place to say it and a lot of people didn’t

Anton: At the time Peter if I remembered had injured his arm and they had a schedule and Ace recommended me because his solo record did really well so I got to play on those as well.

Now I also know you got to play on the Elder album and co-wrote “Dark Light”?

Anton: Well what happened there was I had a riff which Ace really liked and so he took my guitar riff and then he wrote some more stuff and the song kind of came out.

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