Tommy did a great job on Psycho Circus and also on KISS Symphony
Peter seemed to just have creative differences with them, or that is what seems to be the case with everything I have heard and read. I guess by now, Eric Singer had been with KISS almost as long as Peter was with them. Eric Carr passed away in 1991 and Singer took over for him that year I believe.
I did some searching and there are some tickets for the B'ham show already available. Since there has not been a pre-sale yet, they must be some promotional tickets that somebody is selling, but there seems to be a lot of them if that is the case. I found several here:
http://tickets.mycityrocks.com/ResultsTicket.aspx?evtid=1173155&event=Kiss
Ace was still "with the band" when Psycho Circus was cut. He toured in support of the album, as did Peter.
Ace played on some of the tracks on the album. Bruce Kulick, who'd been booted out in favor of Ace for the Reunion Tour did some as did Thayer.
Criss was the drummer on only one of the Psycho Circus album cuts -- the one he also did lead vocals for -- despite being given liner credit. Kevin Valentine, a guy I don't know at all, laid down the drum tracks for all the songs but one.
After that, they split again with the same basic difference separating them. Ace and Peter brought their songs in to demo for the album, Gene and Paul said "oh, nice. do these instead." Ace and Peter thought they were "part of the band" while Gene and Paul viewed them as hired help with no more say than Thayer, Kulick, Carr, Singer or Vincent. The band survived without Pete and Ace and would go on regardless.
Pete came back after quitting once, but started (predictably) squawking over money he wanted above the contract he signed. Gene told him to screw off, basically. He quit again. Somewhere on this web page is his sour version of the events. I've read it, but don't want to look for it again.
http://www.petercriss.net/homepage/ What Gene wants VERY badly right now is to have an album debut at or reach number one. That's never happened before despite the numerous platinum albums the band's had. That's the rationale behind the Wal Mart agreement and why you'll see them pimp the absolute hell out of that in the coming weeks.
Gene wants that validation.
Doesn't matter if the album drops to 453rd in week two. He wants that number one to hang on his wall.
Wal Mart got it for AC/DC. He believes they can do it for KISS.
I hope he's right. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame can suck my ass.