Talking Metal has posted a 2008 interview with legendary rock manager Bill Aucoin, who discovered KISS and helped build them into a musical and merchandising juggernaut.

Aucoin died on Monday, June 28th at the age of 66 due to surgical complications from prostate cancer. The following is an excerpt from the Talking Metal interview:

Q: I was going to ask what attracted you to KISS, but that’s got to be the answer, the fact that they were always looking ahead to success, and they were also willing to try anything. From breathing fire to all of the other show ideas that you guys came up with.

A: "There’s lots of good stories, it wasn’t always quite as simple, but almost. I had a fire breather come into my office and he setup his little can of kerosene or whatever it was, and he blew flames, he darkened one of my walls actually. And the four guys were sitting there, and their eyes were as wide as could be, and I said, well who wants to try it? I don’t think they believed that I was really thinking about it, and finally Gene raised his hand, and that’s why it finally went to Gene. I’ll tell you one other story, Gene was always like that, you know he if he thinks it can work he’ll be out there and do it. I had really developed something for Paul Stanley because Gene was getting so much attention with the fire and the spitting of the blood, that I wanted Paul to fly to the top of the lighting rig and sing a song. I’m describing this, and Paul said, 'I don’t know if I really want to fly', and of course the minute he said that Gene said 'oh I’ll do it'. So again, that’s why Gene flew! My main concern was many areas, and all of that was fun, and creating and making it work, and we were involved with the first radio guitars, and the first air guns for confetti, and all of that other stuff that no one had ever done before, and lasers as well, which didn’t work out. There was an issue when we first tried it, but all of that we went through, and doing those shows especially with a group that would do it, although Gene would do all of these spectacular things, Paul would do all of these spectacular jumps and all of these other things that would be unbelievable. And Ace would do the guitars with all of the lights, and shoot, and Peter would go up on the drum riser. So everyone really had their thing, everyone went along with it, and it worked, it was great.

Read the complete interview at this location.