Matt Cameron once received a cease-and-desist letter from Kiss

Pearl Jam drummer recently guested on Howard Stern's show Matt Cameron he told about that time received a cease-and-desist letter from Kiss.

During his participation in the “Howard Stern Show” together with his bandmates to promote the new album “Dark Matter” (here is our review), Cameron recalled the episode explaining that as a teenager he was part of a cover band of the group “I was made for lovin' you”.

“When I was between 13 and 14 I was in a cover band neighborhood of Kiss”, narrated Matt Cameron: “We played in schools in the area, at parties and so on. My father was friends with the head of the San Diego toolmakers union and when Kiss played there during the 'Alive' tour in 1975 we went to see them do the soundcheck at the San Diego Sports Arena.” He continued: “I then went there with two guys I was in the Kiss cover band with, Tim and Dave Mahoney. We brought with us the photo album of our little cover band. We met Paul Stanley and took a photo with him. And we said something like, 'Hey man, we play in a Kiss cover band, here's our stupid photo album.'

Continuing the story, Cameron later recalled: “About four or six months later, we received a formal notice from Aucoin (Kiss' management company, ed.). We were big Kiss fans and, since they put the Aucoin Management logo on their albums, we recognized the sender. Initially we were all excited thinking, 'Wow, Aucoin Management sent us a letter, we did it!'. AND instead it was a warning letter from Kiss.”

Eddie Vedder's friend, as well as drummer for Soundgarden and other projects, then explained how the letter was due to a mistake made by his tribute band of calling themselves inappropriately: “Is that we had called our band simply Kiss. We hadn't thought much about the consequences. So then we started to call us Kiss adding 'Imitation' in brackets ('Imitation')”.