KISS’ PAUL STANLEY DISCUSSES ACE AND PETER, THEIR AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AND THE DAY HE WILL NO LONGER BE IN THE BAND
News.com.au has a feature article on KISS’ Paul Stanley. Select quotes from the story appear below.
Discussing the day when there will be a version of KISS without him:
“I look forward to a day when I’ll see Kiss play without me. Don’t want to do it next week, haven’t pencilled anything in, but it would be the culmination of what we’ve built and a consistent progression…The people who said it had to be all the original members to be Kiss are already 50 per cent wrong. Do I cast a big shadow? Sure. But am I crazy enough to think I’m the only person who can do this? That would be ridiculous. Do you go to a Yankees ballgame and hold up a sign “Where’s Babe Ruth?’ The team continues because the ideal is met. The standard is met….There’s no need to call it anything except Kiss. The idea that every time we change members we’re going to be Kiss 2.0, Kiss 2.1 is ridiculous. It’s Kiss. Kiss is a philosophy and a way of presenting music and presenting ourselves.”
On refusing to perform with original band members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss when KISS was inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame:
“I enjoyed the Hall Of Fame in a twisted way. It was a terrific night but there was no way I was going to play with them. Frankly, I have too much pride in what I do than to create a moment of nostalgia for someone else. To get on stage with Ace and Peter was an interesting, surreal moment but nothing I wanted to prolong. It’s like if you ever went back to an old girlfriend because you doubted your choice to leave, it only takes five minutes before you want to get back in your car and leave. Someone asked me before the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame ‘Couldn’t you just play with the original line-up again for one night?’ And I said ‘How about spending a night with your ex wife? What’s the point?’”
Talking about how he never read Ace or Peter’s books:
“On tour some people showed me a few pages. People will think I keep taking potshots, but I keep getting asked about this and I give honest answers. In Ace’s case, how can somebody who can barely remember what happened last week write a book? I’m not talking about today, hopefully according to Ace he’s clean and sober. But there were certainly decades that he was anything but. When you have to call your friends to tell you what happened is that really an autobiography? Or creative fiction. No, that was pointless. I think Peter’s book began with him in an earthquake where the ground opened up and he had a gun in his mouth. Well, I know where he was living. The ground didn’t open up. You gotta consider the source. A book can be a great opportunity to have an alibi or an excuse. If you choose to be a victim then you will never accomplish anything you’re capable of because your defeats and your lack of success will always be due to somebody else.”
Read the News.com.au‘s entire piece on Paul Stanley, here.
source: news.com.au
Paul was great at one time, I’m mean REALLY great. But his voice is shot. On turning Kiss into the rock and roll version of the Yankees, all I have to say is I don’t believe that there’s no way in hell any long time self respecting Kiss fan would support that. But, if we’ve learned anything, Paul and Gene (especially Paul) are going to do what they want no matter how much it hurts the people who put them where they are and gave them the wonderful life they have. They either don’t understand how we feel or simply don’t care. But I don’t let stuff like he said bother me any more. I don’t have to see a Kiss tribute band to relive the good times I’ve had as a fan and listening to the music the real band made. I’ll just continuing listening to all those great, classic albums. At least we all still have that.
The concept of Kiss is to find your true alter ego and create a character. That was the Kiss vision, so the sports team analogy doesn’t apply. In fact, this is the concept that they sold to the fans, that the fans should be who they are, find their own alter ego. Eric Singer should’ve found his true alter ego, I see the Hawk, but then he would’ve had to wear some kind of helmet with a beak, he could have had wings attached to his back..in other words, it could have worked, he didn’t have to look like big bird…Tommy, uhhh maybe the space man, but with his own makeup…I could’ve really dug that….or maybe Tommy could’ve been some kind of mad scientist who electrocuted himself and then came back as some kind of mutant…
Lol..Tommy even has a signature spaceman guitar which just doesn’t seem right…so maybe not the spaceman for Tommy after all, no I like the mutant idea.
Giant ego without the voice to match.
That was the Northridge quake Paul refers to. It was pretty bad, so, no, the ground didn’t open up, but it felt like it did….I know of this couple who got so freaked out by the Northridge quake that they moved to Nashville, and, no kidding, like a month after they moved to Nashville they were both killed in an auto accident (please, no dumb posts quoting Detroit Rock City)…Me, I experienced the Loma Prieta of ’89 in the Bay Area, which was some ridiculously severe earthquake. And the funny thing is, I was in this basement rehearsal studio with my speed metal band at the time, and right when our drummer went into his double bass part the floor started shaking, so, at first, I didn’t notice it, but then the whole floor bowed up like it was a baloon, and we just ran out of there, I tried to grab my Boogie Head, but Tyber, our bassist, God Bless him, grabbed the scruff of my neck and pulled me out the door…