JEFF RICH

Hi Jeff
thanks for sharing your time with the Italian KISS ARMY!
Some people know you as the guy from the "Lost Gene's Dynasty costume"!
Can you tell our friends here in Italy the story about that great costume you made? (I refer to the big "mistake" made by Gene years ago on Kissonline)
The time shared is my pleasure!
The story with the costume is really not as elaborate as people may think. It became what it is today simply by virtue of the fact that I had no idea how to accurately make any of Gene's costumes past '75, and I wanted mine to be at least '76 or later. However I did not want it to be all '77 Love Gun either, as at the time that was what most other bands wore and the tiles were very hard to find (and very expensive).

Gene's '76 dragon boots are about the coolest thing I've ever seen and I knew I wanted those, but I didn't know how to make the armour (and all the vaccuform moulds available today were not around in 1998 when I started my band). Then it occurred to me that I could make my own "new" costumes and combine as many aspects of the old eras as possible, thereby creating something fans hadn't even seen from Kiss themselves and also setting my band apart from other tributes. I started with the dragon boots, made a body shaped like Love Gun with the chains and full back, but covered it in scales instead of tiles and added the spikes from '75. I applied that same idea to the other costumes too, trying to incorporate the coolest things and also add some of my own ideas. The original version of mine wasn't as stage-worthy as I wanted so I added my own kind of armour that matched the rest of the suit, and over the years it evolved into an "Alive meets Destroyer meets Love Gun meets Dynasty" style. The thing with Gene on kissonline was a fan asking where that costume came from, and Gene either didn't look close enough at the picture or was really fooled and thought it was him. The most ironic aspect of that whole incident was that Gene said "it didn't work for the stage", yet the fact that it DID work was exactly why it came to be the way it looks now.

Really great story! I recently saw again some pictures of you and you looked really great!
Once you put in the closet your KISSTORY outfits  what you normally do?
For a while Kisstory was pretty much my only job, as we played quite often for a long time. But I have always been an artist and that will always be my "real" job. I do photo-realistic airbrushed paintings that usually combine many scenes into one huge painting, and also watercolour caricatures and cartoons. I have been lucky enough to do work for several NFL teams including my hometown Atlanta Falcons, and our NBA team, the Hawks. The Hawks even chose me to paint the portrait of Dominique Wilkins when they retired his jersey, and limited edition prints of that painting hang in the homes of many NBA legends like Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. Dominique is known as "The Human Highlight Film" and I believe he also played basketball for a few years in Barcelona. I also painted a memorial for the late "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott of Pantera and DamagePlan which will hang in either his brother's house or his girlfriend's house (I will let them fight over it haha).
And what about those great guitars you made recently?
I have painted guitars for about 20 years, but usually more like the way Eddie Van Halen painted his--which is to say, very crude and simple with no factory look at all. In fact I copied many of Eddie's famous guitars, including the red, white, and black "Frankenstrat" that hangs on my wall.

A couple of years ago I finally learned how to paint them to look professional like the factory finish ones do, so naturally I decided to include my photo-realistic airbrushing on them as well. Recently I painted a series of KISS solo guitars, one for every member with a large head shot and smaller live shot on each guitar (the Paul Stanley one is still available now). I can paint just about anything that someone can imagine on a guitar as long as the image fits on the body--flames, dragons, naked girls, band members, animals, monsters--anything you can think of, I can paint it.

New born as far now
KISS is a wonderful subject to paint because of all the images with the makeup and costumes, so I will be painting quite a few more of them. I just finished a Jackson with a full front pose of KISS from 1976 and you may even think you recognize the picture, but really it was three different pictures made into one. With a guitar body shaped the way it is, plus all the holes for hardware in the way, you have to work to make an image fit the body and still look nice. I am very proud of this particular guitar, but I will part with it as well--a nice home awaits it for some very lucky KISS fan!
Thanks Jeff for this fantastic talk and I seriously think I have to come down to you and grab one of your creatures for my KISS room!
 Thank you very much Fabio for having me here, and thanks to all the Italian Kiss Army!!! I hope to bring my band to Italy one day, until then keep Rockin' And Rollin' All Nite!!!