Closing Act
Maryland-based KIX Played to National Fame
For Four Decades Before Taking Final Bow
By Lisa Gregory
Photography by Mary Ellen Jester
The music of KIX has been heard across the country and around the world. Even deep below. “When my husband was in the Navy and on a submarine, he had a Walkman and he took their cassettes with him,” says Cheryl Varkalis, a longtime fan. “So, KIX has been played at many leagues under the sea.”
But it all came to an end this past September when KIX, which began more than four decades ago, played their last show. “They are one of the all-time greatest rock bands,” says Kip Winger of the ’80s band Winger. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see the likes of them again. A band like KIX is a rare thing.”
The band, with guitarists Ronnie Younkins and Brian Forsythe both hailing from Frederick, came together in Hagerstown, although none of the band members are from the Hub City. “It was a good place for all of us to meet up,” says Younkins. Nonetheless, “They are our hometown heroes,” says Rik Parks, a longtime Hagerstown fan and friend of the band.
The classic lineup was Younkins and Forsythe with bassist/songwriter Donnie Purnell, drummer Jimmy Chalfant and Steve Whiteman on vocals. “We’d been hearing about this guy who played the drums and sang Led Zeppelin songs,” Forsythe says of Whiteman’s soaring vocals.
KIX landed a record deal in 1981 based on recordings of their dynamic live show, Forsythe says. The band’s first album was the self-titled KIX, followed by 1983’s Cool Kids and Midnite Dynamite in 1985. But it would be the 1988 album Blow My Fuse with the power ballad Don’t Close Your Eyes that would solidify them 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.
With the success of Blow My Fuse, hopes were high for the band’s fourth album, Hot Wire, released in 1991. However, “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.’”
Grunge had arrived and KIX said goodbye.
Despite breaking up, band members continued to make music with their own projects, sometimes sharing the same stage. That gave Parks an idea. “I approached Steve [Whiteman] and said, ‘What if we bring Brian [Forsythe] in from California and you guys get up and do some KIX songs at the end of the night?”
Whiteman agreed. The band reunited in 2003 minus Purnell, who was replaced by Mark Schenker. They were greeted enthusiastically by fans. “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.’”
KIX even went on to release a new album Rock Your Face Off in 2014. But as the years went on Whiteman spoke in interviews of struggling to reach the high notes and was plagued with neuropathy in his feet. During a performance in 2022, Chalant suffered a cardiac event and collapsed on stage.
Last year, the band announced its final show at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia. Longtime fan Jackie Koontz was there, as she had been from the very beginning for the band. “It was probably the best concert I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a good many,” she says.