Kissobit: Mark St John

Guitar teacher turned Kiss guitarist Mark St John has died, apparently from a brain hemorrhage.

St John was an affectation - he was actually born Mark Norton. He stepped up to the Kiss guitar role after Gene Simmons had canned Vinnie Vincent, but would only spend eight months in the role before arthritis forced him out again. During that time, he worked in the studio on Animalize, the peak of the brief period when Kiss tried to be something other than face-painted panto rock. St John played just three gigs with the band before Bruce Kulick moved in to replace him.

As with so many other musicians born in the 50s, it was the Beatles who lured St John to a life of rock:

I remember watching television and seeing the Beatles and the Rolling Stones on The Ed Sullivan Show," St. John once told KISS Force in an interview. "They didn't have tubas, they had guitars and everyone was going crazy and that put a spark in my mind. The guitar is rock 'n' roll. That's what it's all about...the guitar is what's happening."

Before Kiss, St John's main income came from giving music lessons, but it was his work with the band Front Page which had brought him to Kiss' attention. Although a covers outfit, St John's talent built Front Page a following beyond the usual local crowd they could have expected. After Kiss, it didn't take long for St John to get back into performing, but on a lower level: the odd benefit here, the odd radio station jam there. These sessions, and some time in the studio, led to the foundation of White Tiger with David Donato. A debut album sold well enough to lead to plans for a second, but not so well as to see those plans carried through. White Tiger split in 1988.

St John filled in with session work - even turning up on some of David Hasselhoff's music (popular, as we all know, in Germany) - before forming The Keep. Again working with Donato, and Peter Criss (another Kiss evacuee), The Keep managed a single gig before falling apart. Actually, playing at a drum clinic barely even counts as a single gig, does it?

In 1999, the Mark St. John Project issued one EP before again sinking without trace; there would be one last record, an instrumental affair, before Mark left the studio and returned to teaching others to play.

He leaves a brother and a sister. Mark St John was 51.