ERIC SINGER - Liking the Look of Watches
Emily Berl for The New York Times
You might not expect a heavy metal hard rocker like Eric Singer to be a serious student of watches. But the drummer of KISS, and before that Lita Ford, Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper, is extremely knowledgeable about the watches he collects.
And he has collected a lot, more than 200. �I don�t know exactly how many,� he said. �I never sat down and counted.�
He collects them as he travels all over the world, often while on tour. Sometimes it�s a reward after completing a tour or maybe just finishing a good performance or maybe because he sees or hears of a special one and just can�t resist. �I like the look of watches,� he said. �I also collect guitars, and I don�t play, but I love the way they look.�
Mr. Singer said he also loves the engineering: �There�s this little machine on my wrist, made by hand, that�s counting time with such precision. It�s fascinating. It�s micro mechanics on your wrist.�
A love of watches � and music � is in his blood. �My dad had some nice watches,� he said. �I would take them out and play with them, before I knew I shouldn�t.
�He had a Jaeger-LeCoultre Day Date Triple Month Calendar Moonphase. It was so cool � I could see the man in the moon. He owned a Gallet mini chronograph, the world�s smallest chronograph. I thought it was just a cool stopwatch.�
Mr. Singer recalled that his father, who was band leader for the Meyer Davis band and his own Johnny Singer Orchestra, gave him his first watch, a mechanical timepiece from Germany, when he was just 5 or 6 years old.
