The last word in the above headline is especially important here, because Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne hasn’t pissed off KISS, but by arguably defending the band, he’s pissed off a great deal of their fans. In a recent interview with the Missoula Independent, Osborne was asked to offer his opinion, as a massive KISS fan, on current members Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer wearing the same iconic makeup that people associate with founding ex-members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Osborne responded in defense of the new members with the following quote, which made rounds and made fans angry:

As far as I can tell, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss are fucked-up alcoholic junkie guys. So I don’t think Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley should let those two fuck-ups ruin them. Why should they? OK, they chose to be alcoholics and fuck-ups, now in doing that they have to face the consequences. Gene Simmons didn’t do it, why should he face the consequences?

Osborne addressed it again in a recent tour diary for Noisey, where he diffused the situation by saying he’d never thought about the issue before and wouldn’t have had he not been asked to take a stance in the interview. Later he expands on what he said and why he said it:

It took me awhile to even figure out exactly what I’d said that pissed off all the Kiss trolls and as far as I can tell they’re mad because I called Ace and Peter alcoholic junkies, like that’s not common knowledge. Are Kiss fans really stupid enough believe those two never got loaded? As it turns out these Kiss fanatics seem to have an enormous power of rationalization, but people all throughout human history have believed in totally absurd bullshit so I guess it’s not surprising. I mean, in two seconds of an internet search I’d found Gene on YouTube talking all about the two of them getting fucked up all through the Kiss golden years and in fact he even talks about those guys not even playing on tracks of albums like Destroyer because of their fucked up behavior. In order to get the job done the sober members of Kiss were FORCED to hire studio hacks… In the 70’s.

Haven’t any of you asshole Kiss know-it-alls looked into this or do you just not believe Gene? Who knows?

So, for the record, you Kiss fan fuckheads who are giving ME shit for saying as it turns out, the exact same thing as Gene can KISS my ass!

It’s worth noting during this feud that Osborne’s band has opened for KISS, and he’s always been a very vocal fan (to the extent that Melvins did a solo-album trilogy back in the ’90s in the same style as KISS’ tetralogy). This isn’t even the first time he’s brought this up; if you look at an interview in 2010 with MetalSucks he says, “We did some shows with KISS when they first put their makeup back on, for the reunion tour and they were super nice to us. They were totally cool. Really nice, really nice guys… The other two guys are pretty much drug casualties. That’s well known. I don’t think anyone is trying to hide that, that’s for sure.”

In other news Osborne hopes his boss doesn’t see this article because he’s supposed to be at work.