Group

Wicked Lester

From: New York, United States
Active: 1970–1973
Releases: 3

About

Wicked Lester was a rock band based in New York City, formed in 1970 and active through 1972. They signed to Epic Records but found little success, and are known as the predecessor of Kiss who became one of the best-selling musical acts in history. In contrast to the hard rock sound of Kiss, Wicked Lester's music featured elements of rock and roll, folk rock and pop.

Wicked Lester originally used the name Rainbow but soon changed to Wicked Lester to avoid confusion with another band. The core members were bassist Chaim Witz (as "Gene Klein") and rhythm guitarist Stanley Eisen. Witz and Eisen, feeling that the band's failure was a result of its lack of vision and direction, decided to found a new band. They changed their stage names to Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, respectively, auditioned a new drummer and lead guitarist, and formed Kiss band by early January 1973.
Although Kiss achieved massive international success, Wicked Lester's album recorded for Epic has never been officially released in its entirety. The sessions have been released in bootleg form as The Original Wicked Lester Sessions. Kiss officially released three tracks from these sessions on their 2001 Box Set release.

From Wicked Lester on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.