The Right to Rock

Gold Mountain Records, the label founded by Danny Goldberg, signed Keel in August 1984, as Marc Ferrari tells it. Ron Keel has recalled that the company wanted an album out by January and put a list of producers in front of him, and the name he picked was Gene Simmons of Kiss. When they met at the Beverly Hills Hotel, all the band had was a vocal-less demo of "The Right to Rock" made as a studio warm-up, so Keel played the tape and sang the song to Simmons in the room. Simmons agreed to produce on the spot, and the sessions were fitted around Kiss's touring. The album was recorded at the Record Plant in Los Angeles and Media Sound in New York; Mikey Davis recorded and mixed it, and Greg Fulginiti mastered it at Artisan Sound in Hollywood. The sleeve shows Ron Keel, Ferrari, Bryan Jay, Kenny Chaisson and drummer Dwain Miller as the band and credits Stephen Riley with additional drums and vocals: this is Steve Riley, who drummed with W.A.S.P. from 1983 to 1987 and played on The Right to Rock during that time. Simmons co-wrote three of the nine songs, "Easier Said Than Done", "So Many Girls, So Little Time" and "Get Down", while "Speed Demon" and the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together" return from Lay Down the Law. The album came out in January 1985 on LP and BASF chrome cassette, the LP at an introductory price of $6.98. Francis Delia directed the video for the title song, shot at the Soundstage and on location in San Gabriel, California. The record entered Billboard's chart at No. 180 on 9 March 1985, reached No. 99 on 25 May and stayed for 21 weeks; in 1986 Goldberg told Billboard it had sold 250,000 copies in the United States. Frontiers Records reissued it in 2010 as a 25th anniversary edition with a remix of "Easier Said Than Done" and a reunion version of the title song.