Few people have taken such a central role in the development of rock music over the last 50 years than Eddie Kramer. As engineer or producer, he has worked with The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Johnny Winter, Humble Pie, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and KISS amongst many others, and has been integral to the creation of some of the greatest and most groundbreaking moments in rock history. Metal Express Radio's Mick Burgess caught up with him to talk about Kramer's life in the studio, and the book and documentary on his life that is currently in the works.

MER: By 1973 you’d worked with The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Johnny Winter and Humble Pie to name just a few. What made such an experienced engineer and producer work on the demo by the then previously unknown KISS?

Kramer: "That was done at Electric Lady. They had done an album as Wicked Lester and it wasn’t very good unfortunately and it went straight down the toilet.  Gene and Paul were trying to figure out what to do next and they thought they’d be a heavy rock band. It was Gene and Paul’s concept.  Their producer asked me if I’d do a demo as my scene was the Heavy Rock stuff so I said yes.  I put them in Studio B and recorded a four-track demo with them and that ended up getting them their record deal. I thought it was brilliant. They were wonderful."

MER: When did you first go and see them live?

Kramer: "I went to see them for the first time live at the Hotel Diplomat with their manager Bill Aucoin and they were so impressive. Their make-up, boots and everything was primitive back then but their energy levels were incredible.  Technically speaking they weren’t quite together yet but you could not believe the excitement from the crowd.  They were loving it. It was absolute genius combining Kabuki theatre with Glam, fireworks and bombs. It was wonderful. It was entertainment on a wide scale."

MER: Why didn’t you end up producing the first album?

Kramer: "I don’t know. I guess it was the record company in their infinite wisdom. They did a couple of albums with other producers but they went out on the road and just toured like crazy. They built up a huge following."

MER: How did you end up doing Alive?

Kramer: "I got a call from Neil Bogart from the label, he was great and he called me and asked if I wanted to do a live KISS album. I said that I’d call him back in a minute. On my desk was a tape that I was about to make a commitment to record by a band called Boston. I called up Tom Scholz and I told him to put the record out the way that it was because it was bloody marvellous. The demo was incredible. I loved the challenge of recording KISS.  I thought, here was a band that was fairly primitive and they were still working on their stuff but I thought they were really exciting and thought we could make a great record so I called them up and said let’s do it."

Read the complete intererview here.