Growing up in Beaverton, Oregon, guitarist Tommy Thayer was a KISS fan like the rest of us. He saw their picture in a Circus magazine, and it pulled him in. The firecracking, blood-spitting, all-American rock sensation of KISS took hold, molding his rock-and-roll youth. In 1974, Santa Claus brought Thayer the first KISS album for Christmas. When he was 13, he dressed up as KISS guitarist Ace Frehley's Spaceman character for Halloween. KISS was Thayer's core. He put the makeup on, posed in front of the mirror, played air guitar to "Strutter," and dreamed of pointing to the crowd like thousands of other adolescents did. For Thayer, though, this would turn out to be more than a Halloween costume. This would be his future. These days, he puts the Spaceman makeup on for real, as the guitarist for KISS. He points to real KISS crowds and sees Gene Simmons's real tongue. We spoke. I was in full Gene Simmons Demon makeup.
Before you were in KISS, you were a huge KISS fan.
I was a huge KISS fan. Growing up, I was all about them from the minute they came out. It was pre-MTV, so you didn't get to see bands on TV except on The Midnight Special or Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. I discovered KISS in Circus magazine. I saw them and thought, "This is a band I like." You could just tell by looking at them. Then I got the album, and I was hooked. I would go see them at Portland's Paramount Theatre and the Memorial Coliseum when they came through. They were over the top and a big influence on me.
How did you become their guitar player?
I started a band out of high school in Beaverton called Black and Blue. We moved to Los Angeles in 1983 and signed with Geffen. From there, we got an opening slot for KISS on a tour. That's when I met Paul and Gene. Gene ended up producing a couple Black and Blue records. After a bit of time, I started writing some songs with him for KISS and became more and more involved in the KISS camp. I started working for them, behind the scenes, doing anything and everything: getting coffee, cleaning Gene's house. I didn't have a problem with that. My thought was that if I stuck to it, it would amount to something eventually. And, well, I ended up being in the band. [Laughs] One day I got a phone call from Paul and Gene, and they said, "Hey, we're making a change, and we want you to be the new guitar player."
Talk about your character in KISS as Spaceman.
It was originally created by Ace Frehley. He's obviously a huge part of KISS, one of the originals. So I'm Spaceman Two. He's number one. The characters are so iconic. Some people have asked, "How come you didn't make a new character when you came into the band?" And people have to realize that when I came into the band, they'd been going strong for 30 years. It wasn't time at that point to start over with a concept for a new identity.
How long does it take you to put on the makeup and the outfit?
It takes me about an hour and 15 minutes. I've been doing it for hundreds of shows now, but in the beginning it took a little more time. A lot of people don't realize that everybody in KISS does his own makeup. We don't have makeup artists who do it for us.
What? KISS put on their own makeup? I would think you sit there in elaborate chairs, with elaborate beverages, and have your makeup done for you. You're in frickin KISS.
Nope, we do it ourselves. Before each show, we go into the dressing room, just the four of usâno one else allowed inâand we undergo the transition into KISS.
Does the makeup come off easily?
It's only like two minutes to take off. People think it's terrible for our skin, but it's all professional cream-based stuff. I think it actually moisturizes our skin.
Like Palmolive dish soap, how it "softens hands while you do dishes."
Exactly, our makeup softens our skin while we do KISS.
While you rock the world.
Rock the universe.
Before KISS, did you wear makeup a lot? Were you a makeup wearer?
I was not a makeup wearer. But as a kid, I had put the KISS makeup on, so I felt like I had a head start.
Walk me back to the first time you put on KISS makeup to actually play in KISS. That was no Halloween costume, that was actual KISS. You must have had the biggest erection.
Well, not so much a full-on erection there in the spandex. But there was definitely a chubby. You can't go full-blown with something like that. I was very excited, and nervous. They were big shoes for me to fill. All of a sudden I was in KISS, you know?
Does KISS stand for Knights in Satan's Service? As far as you know?
Yes. Yes it does.
Yes. You heard it here. Confirmation. Knights in Satan's Service.
I'm announcing to everyone that's what it means. No, in all seriousness, all that was bullshit. When KISS first came out, there were a lot of people who were scared. Religious groups burned KISS albums. But that shit has been going on since Elvis and the Beatles. So it's an honor that they want to burn your album.
How often does Gene Simmons's tongue come out? Per week, if you had to say? He's getting older now, does that thing still come out?
It comes out every two or three seconds. Onstage, it's all over the place. It's not just a tongue, you got drool and blood and slime, and it gets all over you. It makes me gag.
What's your mentality on your guitar playing in KISS? Are you trying to strictly mimic Ace's playing on the older songs? Or do you give it your own take?
I need to play those songs the way they're supposed to be played. And that means staying true to the original parts and the way they were recorded. You can say mimicking, but I say I'm just playing the parts right. And doing them justice. I think it's important to be true to the original, classic, signature parts.
I'm going to say a KISS song, and you say the first thing off the top of your head: "Love Gun."
A signature Paul Stanley song.
"Dr. Love."
A signature Gene song. We play "Love Gun" and "Dr. Love" every show. They're showstoppers.
And they're about sex.
And songs about sex are kind of a rare thing these days, especially with new bands. No one writes songs about girls and chasing poontang, all the stuff that great bands used to write about. I think we need more of that these days [laughs].
We need more phallus.
Totally. Remember Ted Nugent? That was what it was all about: "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang."
But, really, it's all metaphor for something deeper. Phallus as "strength" or "potency."
Definitely. There's a hidden political message there that you just don't realize.
Speaking of phallus, next song: "Lick It Up." That's gotta be political.
Again, a KISS standard. But that's '80s KISSâ1983. And the video for that one was when they had just taken the makeup off.
"Dance All Over Your Face."
I don't even know that one. Which album is that on?
I don't know. I'll research.
That's my answer. I honestly couldn't tell you what album it's on. Shows you how good of a song that really must have been. Don't tell Paul and Gene.
"Cold Gin."
When I think of "Cold Gin," I think of Ace Frehley. One of his great songs. It has a great New York street vibe to it. A KISS classic.
But no phallus.
That's one of the deeper political ones. 
