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.

“My mother gave me a mechanical Swiss Glycine watch for Christmas when I was about 13 or 14,” he said. “And my grandmother gave me a Timex LCD with crystal display when I graduated from high school.”

He didn’t buy his own watches until he became established in the music business.

“I arrived in L.A.” — where he still lives — “in 1983 driving a Subaru hatchback with my clothes in a box,” he said. “I wasn’t making any money to buy watches. Any money I made went for my rent and car payments.”

But when the first gigs starting rolling in, so did the watches. ”I went to pawn shops in L.A. and bought old chronographs cheap, for like 50 bucks from brands you never heard of. People had no interest in mechanical watches then.

“You can’t do that any more,” he added. “Thanks to eBay and the Internet there are no more rare finds.”

He found himself drawn to chronographs, thanks to his father’s influence (“I get sentimental about his watches”), and is fond of dive watches. “I like the look of them,” he said. “They’re big, durable and adaptable. They can be worn with jeans, a suit or to go to the beach. They go with any style or setting.”

Mr. Singer has lots of watch trawling tales: “When I was in Japan touring with Brian May, one of my favorite guitar players — he used to play with Queen — I treated myself to a Jaeger-LeCoultre Duoface Reverso in stainless steel.”

During the 2008 Kiss tour, he snapped up a Blancpain 50 Fathoms and a 500 Fathoms to celebrate the tour’s end; last year bought another 50 Fathoms but this time in 18-karat rose gold.

“You don’t think of a dive watch being in rose gold,” he said, adding, “It’s a beautiful, well-made watch, with a great movement. There’s a simplicity to it as well, so people might not recognize the brand. I like that.”

However, Mr. Singer said, he is no match for some watch fans. “Alice Cooper is a big watch guy,” he said. “We would go out looking for watches when we were on tour. He would buy a watch every day. He would come on the bus and say, “Eric, watch of the day!”

The watch he was wearing while he spoke on the phone: an Omega Seamaster 300 Co-Axial in stainless steel.

Mr. Singer knows what he’s doing when he buys. “I’m not book smart. I never went to college,” he said. “But I have lots of life experience, and I have common sense.

“If I don’t know something I look it up. I read tons and tons of information — watch books, watch magazines, watch forums,” he continued. “I don’t participate but I look to see people’s different points of view.

“Exposing yourself to different points of view, that’s how you become worldly. I’ve been to Basel a number of times and I keep my eyes and ears open, and I ask questions. There’s no such thing as a dumb question.”

Asking questions and reading he was able to find out about what may be his most unusual piece: a Patek Philippe gold pocket watch from the 1920s inscribed: “From the Leper Colony of Molokai to Tandy MacKenzie.” It seems Mr. MacKenzie was an opera singer and the pocket watch was given to him by the Hawaiian compound in appreciation for his performance.

What’s next on Mr. Singer’s wish list? “Somebody stole my Glycine” — the watch his mother gave him — “when I was playing on stage. I still look for one online.”

If any fans come across one …