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LEWISTOWN – Music is a powerful thing. It’s used in plays and films to create the mood of a scene. It’s played at celebrations and festivals to raise the spirits of those involved. Formal ceremonies and events use music to set a serious tone of respect or honor. Music also has a way of transforming one’s mood. Sometimes even one’s life.
As a young boy in 1975, Scott Hasson would have his life forever changed by music. By one band. KISS.
Hasson recalls his mother took him to his aunt and uncle’s house in Harrisburg one night. While his mother and aunt went out, Scott was left in the care of his uncle, Jim Weyant, for the evening.
Hasson said he could remember the moment his uncle introduced him to KISS’s music like it was yesterday.
“He sat me down in a chair in front of an old stereo system. Typical system of the 70s,” Hasson said. “He pulled this 8-track out and put it in the stereo.”
Hasson, who was wearing the big headphones of the time over his ears, couldn’t hear the music at first. The knob on the stereo was broken so his uncle had to adjust the volume with a butter knife he had acquired from the kitchen.
“He turned that thing up as far as it would go,” Hasson said. “Then I heard the song ‘Firehouse’ come on, which was on their album ‘KISS Alive.'”
Scott’s father, John Hasson, was a firefighter at the Henderson Fire Company on Third Street in Lewistown.
“He was an officer, so he spent a lot of time at the firehouse and I would too, as a kid,” Scott said. “So when I heard the song ‘Firehouse,’ it really sparked my interest.”
The song was accompanied by fire truck sirens and other noises.
“My thoughts back then as a 6-year-old was, hey, this band is singing about a fire department.” he recalled. “So I equated the fire department, the coolness of my uncle and hearing this music for the first time to be something really great.”
Hasson wasn’t completely hooked until he had a chance to see the band live in1977 when he was 8 years old. Hasson snuck out of the house and went to the concert with his friend.
“They never knew. My parents never knew,” Hasson said.
He had lied to his friend’s uncle that he had permission to go to the concert, which took place in Harrisburg.
“My younger years, I looked up to them like uncles, man,” he said. “I felt like when they were singing they were singing a lot to me.”
Hasson said whenever he was upset he would put the headphones on and listen to the band.
“All through the years they’ve always helped me many times get through the hard times,” he said.
Hasson’s son, Atom Hasson, was born in 1996 with a congenital heart defect that forced him to spend the first six months of his life in the hospital, followed by years of hospital visits and operations. Uncertain of his son’s fate, Hasson turned to the band’s music once again.
“Through ’96 to probably 2001 I couldn’t stay away from a record player or tape player,” Hasson said. “KISS helped me get through all the operations my son had and all the times the doctors just weren’t sure if he’d make it.”
Like his father, Atom is also a huge KISS fan. Hasson says his vast collection of KISS albums, CDs, posters and memorabilia is going to Atom when he passes away.
“I’m gonna be buried in the outfit with my makeup on in a KISS casket and that will be it,” Hasson said. “All that other stuff goes to him when I pass.”
The outfit that Hasson is referring to is his replica of bassist Gene Simmons “The Demon” stage persona costume from KISS’s “Love Gun” era.
It’s the same outfit he plans to wear to the KISS concert at Bryce Jordan Center in State College on Tuesday. The concert will be the 32nd KISS show that Hasson has attended.
Joining him at the concert will be his fiance, Kim Yeater, who Hasson has been dating for 13 years. When they can afford it, Scott and Kim plan to get married at a KISS wedding chapel in Las Vegas.
“I don’t know life without KISS,” Hasson said. “The music always filled me with joy, excitement and fright all at one time.”