2005 - Kiss Expo III Nottingham Interview: Adam Bomb

Adam Bomb is one hell of a musician who auditioned for Kiss twenty some years ago when he was under eighteen. He is a freak but a very nice one. I enjoyed interviewing him as well as seeing him perform a “three Kiss song” live set.

TJ:
When it didn’t happen with Kiss …

Adam: What do you mean “It didn’t happen”?

TJ:
When you didn’t get the gig

Adam:
How would I get the gig. They’re not gonna hire a fucking boy, a little boy. They were grown men, I mean, I lied to them on my part. I just wanted to meet them and play with them and I got that chance.

TJ:
Lets just imagine you would have been accepted as a member of Kiss and they would make you wear make up. What do you think they would have chosen for you?

Adam:
Oh, I don’t know, I would have been worse shaped than Ace. I would have never been able to handle that, you know, I am my own animal. I don’t know, probably, what animal would I be? I don’t know, they haven’t made up yet a monster from garden Eden. I think they’d make me into a little girl, a little pretty girl. You know, I am a cartoon without makeup, I don’t need makeup, you know.

TJ:
Apart from doing radio I also work with kids. If a little boy now starts playing guitar what advise can you give him apart from not listening to people?

Adam:
Listen to Van Halen, try to humble yourself and learn how to eat shit and do it on a daily basis. It all depends on what you want to do with your life. I mean, I couldn’t recommend what I do to anybody but I don’t think anybody could do what I do. I do 200 to 250 shows in the space of a year but that’s what it is about. It is about playing music. My advice is to play in front of people, play loud, get an old guitar, don’t use effects, listen to Van Halen or Led Zeppelin, Michael Schenker from UFO or the Scorpions, you know, the real guitarists. Angus Young,ehm, try to sound like them, work on your vibrato, try not to sound like a dodgy flat singer, when you play guitar try to sound in key and in tune and rock like fuck. I kinda play guitar like Mike Tyson. Yeah, maybe there is a lot of guys that are better than me but I bite your fucking ear off, I don’t care. It is all about beating the shit out of it and loving it at the same time. It’s the same like treating a woman.

TJ:
Beating the shit out of her and loving it?

(Adam turns around to my girlfriend and tries to sell her a CD than he realises that she is there with me. We have some problems with our new camera …)

TJ:
There is something wrong with this bleeding camera

Adam:
That’s because you bought a Japanese one. If you would have bought a German one it would have been more efficient.

TJ:
Maybe, the camera is operated by a German. Does that not make up for it?

Adam:
(laughs) I don’t know.

Thanks Adam for your time and insight.

See also:

KISS 1984, KISS 1996, KISS 1999, Scorpions 1996