Songfacts®:

• Gene Simmons of Kiss explained: "'War Machine' started off, strangely enough, on a cheap miniature synthesizer. I had been recording demos at home on a small four-track recording facility and wanted to do some different kinds of things. I had bought the synthesizer just to add a layer of sound in the back of something, in back of a guitar. But while fiddling with it, I fell on the 'War Machine' riff. The original 'War Machine' was a song almost purely based around the riff. The riff never stopped and the vocals continued over the guitar figure.
  
  Michael James Jackson suggested bringing in a co-writer who would help with the lyrics. He suggested a brand new writer, who was an up-and-coming recording artist himself, named Bryan Adams, and his co-writing partner, Jim Vallance. Vallance, Adams and I would co-write 'War Machine' and 'Rock and Roll Hell,' both of which appeared on Creatures Of The Night. Adams and Vallance added some choral passages and the basic lyrical content, including the title, 'War Machine'." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Ken - LaSalle, Canada
• In 1982 Kiss invited Bryan Adams and his co-writing partner Jim Vallance to work with them while they put together Creatures of the Night. They'd decided to record a version of Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Rock and Roll Hell," which Vallance had penned, and asked Adams to meet with them and maybe help out on some other songs. At the time Adams had achieved some success in Canada, but was little known outside his native country. Though neither of the Canadians were fans of heavy metal, it was a tremendous opportunity to get exposure for their songs.
  
  "I went down to Los Angeles. Gene had a guitar riff, but he didn't have a song," Adams recalled to Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM. "I thought it was a pretty cool guitar riff. I didn't finish the idea when I was in LA, but I took it back to Vancouver."
  
  Back home, Adams began working on the concept with Vallance and came up with "War Machine."
• Lyrically, Adams uses warlike phraseology to describe an egotistical, forceful person. He explained his thought processes as the song came together, as "that you could make this a really exciting song based on the lyrical content."