Debbie Pantera-Saint / Dave Steele
demo ca. 1981 


Recorded : 1981
Produced by : ......
Time : 11:
15

 
01  Danger Zone (3:27) Jack Starr (1980)
02  Rock Is (4:19) David Bland / Pantera Saint (1981)
03  Love Is Hard (3:29) Jack Starr (1980)




musicians :

Debbie Pantera Saint (lead vocals)
Dave Steele (guitars)
Eric Carr (drums) -- unconfirmed !! --
Bobby Eccles (bass ?)
 -- unconfirmed !! --

NOTES :
On January 16, 2021 the son of guitar player Dave Steele mentioned on the
KISSfaq forum that he found a demo CDR which lists Eric Carr.
His father was a guitarist in the around 1974 - 1985 in NJ/NY scene. He had a few stage names one, of which was Dave Steele. Dave Steele past a decade ago and his son recently discovered his father had a storage room filled with old musical items. Amidst his stuff his son found a 3 song / 12 minute CDR with “Dave Steele, Eric Carr, Pantera’Saint written on it.
From there on the search began. So far I've contacted Rik Fox and Jack Starr.
Julian Gill, the forum, and I came with the following results.

Dave Steele was one of the 2 guitar players in an early version of Rik Fox' band SIN. Formed in 1976/1977, SIN was a New York area cover band, doing covers of David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Queen, Aerosmith a.o.

During the late 70's Dave Steele was in a band named HOOKER, which late 1979 line up was :
Debbie Pantera Saint - vocals
Dave Steele - guitars
Gerry Laufer - guitars
James LoMenzo - bass / vocals
Gael de Courtivron - drums

Debbie Pantera Saint was Eric Carr's girlfriend.
In 1984
James LoMenzo became the bass player in White Lion.

HOOKER October 1979

Track 01 : Danger Zone - Songwriter registration credits
Registration Number / Date: PAu000267459 / 1981-02-09
Application Title: Come with me into the danger zone.
Title: Danger zone / words and music by Jack Starr.
Description: 1 p.
Copyright Claimant: Jack Starr
Date of Creation: 1980
Names: Starr, Jack, 1951-


Track 02 : Rock Is - Songwriter registration credits
Registration Number / Date: PAu000270560 / 1981-02-19
Title: Rock is : 2/8/81 / music by David Bland ; words by Pantera Saint.
Description: 1 sound cassette.
Copyright Claimant: David Bland & Pantera Saint
Date of Creation: 1981
Authorship on Application: words: Pantera Saint, pseud.

Track 03 : Love Is Hard - Songwriter registration credits
Registration Number / Date: PAu000267460 / 1981-02-09
Title: Love is hard / by Jack Starr.
Description: 1 p.
Notes: Words, melody & chord symbols.
Copyright Claimant: Jack Starr
Date of Creation: 1979
Names: Starr, Jack, 1951-

Jack Starr's own version of "
Danger Zone" ended up on VIRGIN STEELE's self titled 1982 debut album, while Jack Starr's original demo version of "Love Is Hard" ended up on a 2001 compilation album with early demo tracks (1975-1980), mostly 4-track recordings, entitled "Before The Steele: Roots Of A Metal Master".

Because 2 of the demoed songs are written (as well as recorded) by Jack Starr, I (KRR) decided to contact Jack.


Jack Starr's reply to Kiss Related Recording :
"Hi Jelle, to be honest I am surprised that they (= Eric Carr and Debbie Pantera Saint) never mentioned to me that they were going to do some demos of my songs, they never told me and yes, I knew Eric Carr and they came to my house with Pantera. I even have some pictures of Pantera when she and Eric came to see my band Virgin Steele play at a club on Long Island called My Father's Place. She was very nice looking and everyone that ever saw the picture of me and her thought that she was Donna Summer.

I am sure that Eric Carr played drums on these demos because number 1, it sounds just like him and no 2 at the time when I was seeing him and Pantera they told me that they were making demos for the band with Pantera and hoping to get a record deal with them ...... But they never told me that they liked my music which would have made me proud at that time because Eric Carr had just become a member of Kiss and that would have been good publicity for me so even though it's forty years later I am happy and proud that Eric Carr and Pantera liked my songs.

At that time I made recordings of a few other songs including one called "
Seventeen" which was recorded (in 1978) by the French metal band TRUST.

Gari Saint Hillaire who was a good friend of mine and who helped me record most of my songs in the seventies. He also played back up guitar and sang harmony, he later got a record deal with his band
TANGIER. Gari Saint lived in the same little town on Long Island that I am from (Huntington).

One other thing that's funny my son Julian was 1 year old at that time and I bought him a Kiss doll of Gene and the next morning when he woke up I was trying to tell him that the night before one of the Kiss guys came to our house.

I thought it was it was cool almost like Santa Claus coming to your house .
When Bill Aucoin called me to audition he said he liked my playing and if I had a gig coming up they would come and see me and so Gene and Eric came out to a show we were doing and I have included the
link, it was a hundred years ago and it all turned out for the good as far as I am concerned. All the Best, Jack ".


When Jack Starr auditioned for Kiss in 1982
From : metaltalk.net (2016)
Back in the 1980s Mike Varney ran the Shrapnel record label that was responsible for unleashing a whole generation of guitar heroes onto the scene including Yngwie J Malmsteen, Vinnie Moore and Tony MacAlpine.

KISS called Mike for advice about a possible new guitarist and one of the guitarists that Mike recommended (along with Yngwie and Michael Angelo) was Jack Starr from the band Virgin Steele that had appeared on a compilation album on Shrapnel Records called ‘U.S. Metal Volume 2’.

So I rang Jack to get the full story. He told me that KISS had called and asked him if he was interested in auditioning but first they’d like to see him play live if he had any upcoming shows in the area. As it happened he had a show coming up at a club called Cheers in Long Island, New York. So Gene Simmons and Eric Carr arrived in Eric’s Porsche to see him play.

JACK STARR : I knew Eric previously, before he was in KISS which was kind of cool. I thought I played well that night, I had a Dean Flying V, a Marshall 100 watt head. I was getting a killer sound.

Jack told me that after the show Gene said to him:
"You played great but KISS is more than a band, we’re an extravaganza. You don’t fit the part.”

JACK STARR :
He towered over me, I felt like one of the little people. “You played great but you don’t fit the image.” I was overweight at the time which did not help. We spent a long time talking about music, about bands like Blue Cheer and so on.

JACK STARR : I asked Gene what he thought of this band the Music Machine and Gene said he thought they were great and seemed to agree with my assertion that they may have been the very first heavy metal band I told Gene that what I thought was amazing about this band was that thought they came out in the hippy flower power days, they wore all black and even dyed their hair black and sang about non hippie subjects like alienation and the dark side of life.

JACK STARR : Gene seemed to agree but I did not push the subject because I suspect that this band the Music Machine which was only a footnote in the history of rock had a profound effect on the making of KISS at least from Gene’s perspective.
I’d never heard of the Music Machine before but when I had a look online I kind of saw what Jack meant. All us old school KISS fans know that KISS were influenced in their music and image by other bands of the era but this was one that I’d personally not heard at the time.
Then Gene said an interesting thing to me. “To be a great metal musician you have to be a fan as well. I’m just a regular guy who got lucky. Gene told me, “Next week we’re seeing Steve Mironovich from the band Cities”.
I knew Steve and said “If you don’t take me you gotta take Steve!” I think I would have added a neo-classical side to KISS, a little progressive. I think we could have gone a little more like Dio or Queensr˙che. But I guess when you have a formula that works like KISS…
My experience was a good one, who knows what would have happened if I had been in KISS but I’m happy where I am in life these days still making better and better music.

D  I  S  C  O  G  R  A  P  H  Y

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