Eternally fabulous nightlife legend Kenny Kenny sat down with Michael Musto to talk about his various incarnations as club doorman, promoter, and photographer – from his early work with Susanne Bartsch at the ’80s club Savage to his current surrealist self-portrature.

From PAPER magazine:

Hi, Kenny. What was your first nightlife job in New York?

In 1987, I worked the door for Susanne Bartsch’s weekly party at Savage. It was really easy. It got worse later on. When I was working at Peter Gatien’s Club USA [which opened in 1992], I thought I was going to lose it. You’re trying to please an owner and trying to please people and then you have your own view of what nightlife should be. It’s such bullshit because the owner’s just trying to make money and wants a crowd that’s really clean and really white. I always want mixed up street queens and God knows what.

But you had already worked the door at his Limelight.

Anybody could get into Limelight. It’s when they have that delusion that they’re going to be the next Studio 54 and put so much money into it [meaning club USA]. I actually had a breakdown. I wanted to fucking mix it all up, and it’s trying to be an upscale place, and I’m back into a place where I never wanted to be.

Did you quit?

No, but my body did. I don’t quit — not when there’s a dollar involved. You’ll have to push me out.

What for you has been the most fun nightlife happening so far?

I always think that I had the most fun when I came to New York. I think the early days, getting to know Susanne when it wasn’t so much of a business — the Savage days. Also, Limelight was really fantastic. I wouldn’t say it was the most glamorous, but it had everything that added up to something that was non-conventional, breaking down rules, and creating something new. As much as Michael Alig gets on my nerves and is a narcissist, I think he actually did create something original. Very few people are doing that. Everyone’s copying a formula, and they’re fun parties, but he really created something off the wall and original. It was an idea in reconstructing what a society could like.

Do you plan to stay in nightlife?

Only if it’s right. I never want to stop dressing up, because that’s in my DNA — creating looks and experimenting and trying to make some beauty out of a costume. Nightlife was the way to do that. Now you can do it at home — and I do. But I do miss the community part of it, and I only want to be involved if it’s right. I’ve done so many shitty things in the last couple of years that I’ll never want to do a shitty night again or be involved with shitty people again. I actually would work with Susanne again. I really do like her. She’s a strong woman, but in the end I think we clicked the best and balanced each other. Somebody said, “You’re Irish and she’s Swiss and it sort of, in a strange way, works.”

Read the whole interview here.