Toronto rocker DANKO JONES has posted a new column at Canada's Huffington Post. Following is an excerpt from his latest article:

I met Beth. As in the Beth in that song, 'Beth' by the rock band KISS off their album Destroyer.

Sung by drummer Peter Criss, the song became the band's biggest hit, achieved gold status and opened them up to a new level of respect and reverence despite it being directly obverse to the band's known hard rock sound.

Piano, flute and a symphony of strings were delicately utilized by producer Bob Ezrin for this sweet romantic ballad about a musician wistfully singing to his girlfriend/wife, desperately wanting to come home but unable to do so. And even though the song might've been sung to/for Peter's real life wife at the time, it may surprise people to know that her name wasn't Beth at all. It was Lydia -- Lydia Criss -- and I met her.

When you become a fan of anything, be it a rock band, a sports team or whatever else, after you've exhausted your fandom on the object/person in question, you either lose interest in said obsession and move on to something new or you graduate from novice fan to diehard fan. Your obsession mutates into a fascination for the minutiae surrounding said object d'amour.

I met Lydia in Manhattan on a day off from tour this past April '13. We agreed to meet at my hotel room to record a conversation for my podcast and to say I was nervous would've been the understatement of the year. Here was a woman who had in-turn inspired a thousand first/last dances, accompanied many a lonely heart and represented the longing for what countless others were going through. Truthfully, I only grew to love the song when I was far from home on tour and caught myself saying over the phone that I "can't come home right now" too.

All my fears and nervousness quickly dissipated within the first five minutes of meeting Lydia. She was disarming, charming and apologetic for being only two minutes late. I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief and nervousness turned to excitement -- I was about to have a one-on-one with "Beth."

Click here for the complete article. Check out the podcast featuring Lydia Criss below:

Sealed With A Kiss—the elegantly-bound coffee-table book by Lydia Criss, wife (1970-1979) of longtime KISS drummer Peter Criss, goes behind the make-up, blood and hype for an uncompromising look at the band’s glory years and its storybook rise to unprecedented rock’n’roll fame. Transcending the dictates of a rock bio, it is a fascinating and beautiful piece of literary and visual art that distills the essence of this great band as each of its 368 pages are turned.

Told from her unique perspective, the epic endeavor weighs almost five pounds, measures 10x12 and contains over 1,500 unpublished-until-now photos. “Because I have always been a pack-rat and saved everything, I wanted to share it with all the fans, which meant putting in everything but the kitchen sink, although I think that is in there too!” says Criss, “I never would have thought when I first met Peter that my life would end up being documented in a book, which turned out to be the hardest project I have ever undertaken.”

The book covers three distinct eras: Peter and Lydia’s life prior to Kiss, from their initial meeting to their marriage and Peter’s early struggles through over 500 grueling club gigs; Peter’s entry into KISS and their skyrocket into superstardom; and finally, Lydia’s separation and eventual divorce from Peter, and her life in the decades that followed as a successful entertainment photographer (VAN HALEN, CHEAP TRICK, ROD STEWART and THE WHO are among the main acts she has lensed). Accompanying the 125,000-word manuscript, Sealed With A Kiss is permeated with live photos from the band’s early club days to sold-out Madison Square Garden shows, not to mention hundreds of exclusive behind-the-scenes shots and obscure mementos which Lydia has assiduously collected along the way.