Overview
- Gene Simmons recently told the Professor of Rock podcast that Peter Criss had nothing to do with writing KISS’s 1976 hit Beth and suggested Criss’s credit was politics.
- Peter Criss told Billboard the claim is not correct, saying he co-wrote the melody and phrasing with Stan Penridge on an earlier demo titled Beck and later refined the song with producer Bob Ezrin.
- Bob Ezrin said his memory does not align with Simmons’s version, recalling that the original was by Criss and Penridge and noting he slowed the tempo, crafted the piano part, and reshaped the arrangement.
- Criss also said Ezrin, not Simmons, proposed changing the title from Beck to Beth during the Destroyer sessions at Record Plant.
- Beth remains KISS’s highest-charting U.S. single at No. 7 in 1976, and the official writing credits still list Criss, Penridge, and Ezrin despite past public denials from Penridge and earlier criticisms from Paul Stanley.