KISS bassist/singer GENE SIMMONS chats up the new book, Nothin' To Lose: The Making of KISS (1972-1975), in a new interview with RollingStone.com.

Q: ACE FREHLEY and PETER CRISS recently published memoirs, and they both made you out to be the bad guy. Do you feel like the bad guy?

A: "I am the bad guy. I won't stand for drunks and alcoholics, who get up on stage and consider it their birthright. I consider it a privilege to get up there and arrive on time and be sober, and I'll be an asshole to anybody who thinks otherwise. You know who else is an asshole? Your teacher was an asshole. Your parents are assholes. Your drill sergeant was an asshole. Because they wouldn't let you get away with shit. Ace and Peter have had a lifetime of being losers. And not just with drugs and alcohol. They're losers because of wrong decisions. You sleep in the bed you make. How many chances in life do you get? They were in and out of the band three different times. Why should they get another chance?"

Read the full interview at RollingStone.com

Nothin' to Lose: The Making of KISS (1972-1975) chronicles, for the first time, the crucial formative years of the legendary rock band KISS, culminating with the groundbreaking success of their classic 1975 album Alive! and the smash single 'Rock And Roll All Nite', a song that nearly four decades later remains one of rock's most enduring anthems. Drawing on more than two hundred interviews, the book offers a captivating and intimate fly-on-the-wall account of their launch, charting the struggles and ultimate victories that led them to the threshold of superstardom.

Constructed as an oral history, the book includes original interviews with Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss, as well as with producers; engineers; management; record company personnel; roadies; club owners; booking agents; concert promoters; costume, stage, and art designers; rock photographers; publicists; and key music journalists.

Many of KISS' musical contemporaries from the time, most of whom shared concert bills with the band on their early tours, also lend their perspective via new interviews; these include: BOB SEGER, ALICE COOPER, and TED NUGENT, as well as members of AEROSMITH, BLACK SABBATH, RUSH, SLADE, BLUE ÖYSTER CULT, MOTT THE HOOPLE, JOURNEY, REO SPEEDWAGON, STYX, THE NEW YORK DOLLS, IGGY & THE STOOGES, THE RAMONES, and URIAH HEEP, among others.

The result is an indelible and irresistible portrait of a band on the rise and of the music scene they changed forever.