Vinnie Vincent

Vincent was the last member to wear a unique makeup/costume configuration, as the character of The Ankh Warrior (a design created by Paul Stanley), until he and the band were first shown without the makeup during an interview on MTV in September 1983.

Many of the series songs were written on Vincent's acoustic guitar while sitting at the Cunninghams' kitchen table on the Happy Days set, during off-time from the show's rehearsal schedule.

[9] According to the site "Kiss Related Recordings", Vincent has played with Dan Hartman as well as the bands Hunter, Warrior, Hitchhikers and Heat going as far back as 1970.

[citation needed] After being introduced to the band by songwriter Adam Mitchell,[10] Vincent was brought in as the replacement for guitarist Ace Frehley.

Vincent's personality meshed well with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, thus enabling him to play lead guitar on six of the nine tracks on the Creatures of the Night album as well as co-writing three.

His work was productive, yielding eight co-writes out of the ten songs on the album (a record for any member until Bruce Kulick's nine out of 12 on Carnival of Souls and Stanley's 10 out of 13 on Monster).

Though contributing to Creatures of the Night as a session player before being named as Frehley's replacement in December 1982, Vincent, for all the public knew, was the official guitarist in Kiss and played all the lead guitar tracks on Lick it Up.

In what was a frequent occurrence for former guitarist Frehley, a "ghost player" was asked to play on the album, with Rick Derringer recording the solo on the opening track.

[12] Despite parting on bad terms, Vincent reconnected with Kiss years later as a songwriter on the 1992 album Revenge, contributing to the songs "Unholy", "Heart Of Chrome" and "I Just Wanna".

Featured artists include Steve Brown of Trixter, Troy Patrick Farrell of White Lion, T.J. Racer of Nitro, Mike Weeks of Robert Fleischman's band, Sheldon Tarsha of Adler's Appetite, Chris Caffery of Savatage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Ryan Roxie from the Alice Cooper band and rock and roll comic C.C.

[23] He also gave an exclusive interview to Eddie Trunk for Sirius XM, which was his first in over two decades, and held multiple question-and-answer sessions with fans.

Vincent was married to AnnMarie Peters (who went missing at age 43 on January 2nd,[32] 1998,[33] and was discovered murdered two years later), and has twin daughters with her,[34] born 1982.

The Ankh Warrior
"Exciter" by Kiss with Vinnie Vincent solo.