We’ve Had Our KIX
KIX circa 1983. By Ted Van Pelt
Hagerstown’s glam rockers take a final bow, ending a 40-plus year rock ‘n roll career
By Lisa Gregory
KIX guitarist Brian Forsythe was sitting in a jail cell thinking about how it could all go so wrong. “I had visions of being on an arena stage, and here I was,” says Forsythe, who had been arrested on drug charges. “I couldn’t believe that my life had changed so much.”
As a member of the 1980s rock band KIX, he had played arenas as the opening acts for such bands as AC/DC and Aerosmith. Forsythe left the band in 1993 and Kix broke up not too long after that. “You talk about the high moments but then you have the low moments,” says Forsythe. “Spending two weeks in jail was my low.”
But both he and KIX would make a comeback. Forsythe would get sober, and the band would reunite before stepping away for good four decades after it all began. Through the ups and downs, the squabbles, the breakups, and the comebacks, one thing always remained constant—the music and the people who loved it.
“KIX has always been one of my favorite bands,” says Kip Winger of the ‘80s band Winger. “They are one of the all-time greatest rock bands.”
“Their music was the soundtrack to our lives,” says longtime fan Cheryl Varkalis.
Adds another longtime fan, Steve Foehlinger, “KIX makes you want to put on your shiny jacket and put on your bowling shoes and dance or take the top off and let your feathered hair blow in the wind as your ripping down the road listening to your favorite tracks.”
KIX burns the stage at Merriweather Post Pavillion for its final show on Sept. 17 last year. Steve Whiteman and Bryan Forsythe under the KIX umbrella. Photos by Mary Ellen Jester
KIX, which formed in the late ‘70s, calls Hagerstown home although none of the members were from Hagerstown. “It was a good place for all of us to meet up,” says guitarist Ronnie Younkins of the band members who lived in the surrounding area. “Sort of in the middle.” The classic lineup of KIX was Younkins and Forsythe, Donnie Purnell, bassist and songwriter, Jimmy Chalfant on drums, and Steven Whiteman on vocals.
“We had been hearing about this guy who played the drums and sang Led Zeppelin songs,” says Forsythe of Whiteman. “So, we went to see him play.” They were duly impressed by Whiteman’s soaring vocals. And according to Forsythe, Whiteman, who lived in the tiny town of Piedmont, West Virginia, was excited to come to Hagerstown. “He thought he was coming to the big city,” says Forsythe, chuckling.
Hagerstown embraces the band. “They are our hometown heroes,” says Rik Parks, a longtime fan and friend who played a pivotal role in reuniting the band. In fact, several members of KIX, including Whiteman, have taught music at Parks’ Maryland Institute of Music in Hagerstown. “To be able to have vocal lessons with Steve Whiteman, that was amazing,” says student and KIX fan Shannon Smith.
Parks first heard the band on a 45 rpm record as a 10-year-old. By the time he was a teenager he marveled that “these rock gods were from Hagerstown,” he says. Baltimore and Maryland, too. “We could proclaim them as our own,” says Kirk McEwen, a longtime radio personality for 98 Rock in Baltimore. “You would watch Headbanger’s Ball and see KIX and know they were ours.”
KIX worked hard during the early days. “We would play six nights a week,” says Forsythe. On long hauls to shows, Forsythe did double band duty as the driver. “I stayed awake by drinking lots of coffee and eating M&Ms,” he says.
KIX landed a record deal in 1981 based on recordings, says Forsythe, of their dynamic live show. The band’s first album was the self-titled “KIX.” The record deal would be less than stellar. Unbeknownst to the band the cost of, say, making videos to support songs “got charged back to us,” says Forsythe. As for royalties, “I think we got three cents or something a record,” he says. “Maybe five cents.”
For their second album, “Cool Kids,” which was released in 1983, KIX was encouraged to take a different more pop-like approach. It didn’t fit the band’s style and band members such as Forsythe knew it. “We were doing final mixes, and our A&R guy came in and says, ‘I want to play something for you guys,’” says Forsythe. “He pulls out this cassette and its Def Leppard’s ‘Pyromania.’ We hear this big rock record, and we just did this little wimpy commercial poppy record. We knew that record was going to be huge.”
The band got back to rock and roll business with the 1985 release of “Midnite Dynamite.” But it would be the next album, 1988’s “Blow My Fuse” with the power ballad “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” that gave them solid footing on the hair metal map.
While on tour in Japan, “They were treated like the Beatles,” says Don “Rhino” Rhines, a guitar tech for the band at the time. “When we landed at the airport there were hundreds and hundreds of people screaming. I asked someone who they were there for. He laughed and said, ‘You guys.’”
It was the glory days of ‘80s rock with all its excesses. One night, according to Rhines, “a messed up” Duff McKagan, bassist for Guns ‘N Roses, “came in and just trashed our dressing room,” he says. “The guys just stood there and looked at him. What are you going to do? It’s Guns ‘N Roses.”
Guns ‘N Roses and trashed dressing rooms aside, you don’t mess with KIX. Rocky Marr of Mid-Atlantic Rock Reviews and the Marr Army Radio Rock Show, remembers seeing the band open for David Lee Roth of Van Halen in Baltimore.
“It was in the middle of a KIX song, and it just went dark,” says Marr. There was a consensus at the time that maybe KIX was putting on a show that was a little too good for an opener. Or maybe they had just run over on their allotted time. Regardless, these were the hometown boys and fans were not having it. “People started booing,” says Marr.
Despite stories like these the band was and is highly regarded by their peers. “All musicians love KIX,” says Winger, “because they are a true rock band. They’re the real deal all the way up and down.”
Winger co-wrote the song “Bang Bang (Ball of Fire)” for KIX’s album “Midnite Dynamite” before his own band, Winger, took off. “I was just blown away by them,” he says. “And that album is amazing. Steve is such a great rock singer and Donnie was just an incredible songwriter. I was very thankful that they wanted to use my track.”
The band, however, was not left unscathed by the era. Younkins and Forsythe developed substance abuse issues. “I don’t think we were completely over the top like some bands,” says Forsythe. “But we drank and did coke. It was the ‘80s.”
Both sought help. Younkins first. He entered rehab in Minnesota in January 1989. “I was like a wild animal that first week,” he says. But he soon took to the program. With Younkins leading the way, “I decided I was going to give it a break,” says Forsythe.
The band, says Younkins, was supportive. “The tour bus came to Minnesota, and those guys came and got me at the rehab and met with my counselor,” says Younkins. “Donnie was like, ‘If I ask you to do a pee test, will you?’ I went ‘Yeah, of course.’ I got on the bus and played the next night.”
Life on the road would be different now. “Every time we would stay at a hotel I’d get up in the morning and get a cab and go to an AA meeting,” says Younkins. Adds Forsythe, “Ronnie and I would room together on the road. We sort of kept each other sober.”
Younkins would fall victim to his demons once again in 2010 when he was being treated for Hepatitis C, the result of sharing needles, he says. The treatment process caused him sleeping difficulties and he was prescribed Ambien, opening the door to active addiction. He got sober again. Then came Covid and the shutdown.
Younkins says he made it through but, “right when shows started to get booked and everybody’s getting the vaccine, what do I do? I go and get loaded,” he says. After he was arrested, he began to work on his sobriety again. He is over two years sober and continues to make music although he took a hiatus from Kix and was replaced by Bob Pare. Today he describes himself as “humbled and grateful.”
Forsythe too revisited his demons. After several years of sobriety, he began using again. By that time, he was no longer a member of the band and was living in Los Angeles.
“I made a conscious choice to start drinking,” he says. “I told myself as long as I don’t do coke I’ll be fine. Within a few months somebody offered me some coke and it spiraled from there.” He landed in jail.
“It was a good thing,” he says. “It gave me time to get away from the drugs and have a moment of clarity.” Forsythe has been sober for 25 years.
With Younkins and Forsythe getting healthy, there were high hopes for the band’s fourth album, “Hot Wire,” which was released in 1991. “We thought it was going to be bigger than ‘Blow My Fuse,’” says Forsythe.
But there was a new sound as the 90s dawned.
“We finished the record and went up to Atlantic [Records] in New York to meet with one of their people,” says Forsythe. “We were in his office and this guy opens his desk drawer and pulls out Nirvana. He shows it to us and says, ‘This is the next big thing.’”
Forsythe had had enough. “I thought it was going to get easier as we went,” he says. “But it wasn’t. It was going to get harder. So, I made the choice to leave the band.”
KIX would go on to break up and the band members went their separate ways and made their own music, including Forsythe with Rhino Bucket, Whiteman with Funny Money with Chalfant on drums and Younkins with the Blues Vultures.
In the end, KIX took its final bow after a performance Sept. 17 last year at Merriweather Post Pavillion. Photos by Mary Ellen Jester
For some band members their paths would continue to cross. For example, Blues Vultures would open for Funny Money. This gave Parks an idea. “We already had three members of KIX,” he says. “So, I approached Steve and said, ‘What if we bring Brian in from California and you guys get up and do some KIX songs at the end of the night?’ He said, ‘I’m totally in.’”
The seed had been planted and the band agreed to reunite in 2003. However, Purnell would not be joining them. He had become disgruntled with Whiteman and accused him of continuing to play KIX songs with his band Funny Money. Mark Schenker was brought in to replace Purnell.
Together again, the band did not disappoint, bringing the same energy and enthusiasm to live shows. “I can remember coming home and my feet hurt and my legs hurt,” says Varkalis. “Then I thought, ‘Well I’ve been to a KIX show dancing for the last three hours.’”
The band played on the Monsters of Rock boat cruises, at their annual KIX-Mas shows during the holiday season, and at festivals such as Maryland’s M3 Rock Festival, among other tours and shows. In 2014 the band released a new album “Rock Your Face Off.”
All was going well until Covid hit. Shows were cancelled. KIX couldn’t perform in the usual way but played at a drive-in in Frederick with the audience in their automobiles. Mischell Ryder knew she needed to be there. As the Covid shutdown began, Ryder lost her 29-year-old son, Brice, unexpectedly to a heart condition. “I was struggling to find my way,” she says.
She heard about the drive-in show. “Without hesitation, I got tickets,” she says. Ryder and her daughter drove 10 hours to see the band. Once at the show, “I could breathe for the first time,” she says. “That night saved me.”
Ties to the band run deep. When Whiteman recently decided to sell his KIX items at auction, a T-shirt he wore during a performance sold for $450. When it was all said and done the auction made $50,000.
Once the world slowly opened up again, the band returned to doing live shows. But time was taking its toll. During a performance in 2022 Chalfant suffered a cardiac event and collapsed on stage. Whiteman spoke in interviews of struggling to reach the high notes and was plagued with neuropathy in his feet.
So, the band announced its end with a final show at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, last September. Fans came from far and wide to bid the boys farewell. Music journalist Sue Hodges drove from Seattle for that last show.
“I cut my journalistic teeth on KIX,” says Hodges, who has written for such publications as ROX Magazine, Maryland Musician
Magazine and Shockwave Magazine. “I watched, listened, and learned what a true rock band—that happened to be local—could bring to the rock buffet.” The last article she would write before retiring after a nearly 40-year career writing about bands was on KIX’s final show.
Younkins even came back to play a few songs. “It was bittersweet,” he says.
For fans, too. Angie Zepp was a teenager in the ‘90s when she became a KIX fan. She and her father bonded over the band. Sadly, her father committed suicide in 2017. “’Don’t Close Your Eyes’ had more meaning than ever to me,” says Zepp of such lyrics as “wake up, don’t go to sleep.”
Zepp was at that last show for herself and her dad. When the band played ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes,’ I sobbed,” she says. “I am just thankful for those memories with him at KIX shows.”
For longtime KIX fan, Jackie Koontz, it was a fitting end to a wonderful musical journey. She has followed the band since the very beginning. “Everybody was standing and singing the songs,” she says. “It was probably the best concert I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a good many.”
KIX leaves behind lots of good music, moments, and memories. They will be missed. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see the likes of them again,” says Winger. “A band like KIX is a rare thing.”
KIX Credentials
Rolling Stone listed KIX fourth album, 1988’s ‘Blow My Fuse,’ at No. 8 on its 50 Greatest Hair Metal Albums of All Time. It said, the “Hagerstown, Maryland, hicks obsessed with blowing things up and dirty metaphors thereof, Kix made six joyfully rocking and frequently hilarious pop-metal albums between 1981 and 1994. Thanks largely to the shivery suicide-prevention P.S.A. “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” an atypical-in-Kix-land power ballad that just missed Billboard’s pop Top 10, this is easily the one the most people bought…and it’s probably their most solid.”
Entertainment news website Yardbarker ranked KIX No. 14 on its list of the 20 greatest hair metal bands of all time, saying: “Hailing from Hagerstown, Maryland, Kix was making music and garnering a following in the early 1980s, but it was not until 1988 when its release “Blow My Fuse” generated some mainstream love thanks to MTV favorites “Cold Blood” and “Don’t Close Your Eyes.”