Fire, makeup, absurd tongues — it's KISS time, for the last time
By Allison Stewart / Chicago Tribune
It’s a fact of modern rock ’n’ roll life that almost no one truly goes away forever. Long-feuding bands reunite for seven-figure Coachella deals; rappers return from the dead as holograms.
Legendary rock band KISS is in the early dates of a farewell tour (the group’s second) that will hit United Center on Saturday and continue on for two years. No one seems sure what will happen after that, though it seems unthinkable that the quartet, one of history’s most successful bands and rock’s most successful brands, will cease to exist.
An affable Paul Stanley, 67, the group’s lead singer, co-founder, and, with Gene Simmons, its joint CEO, got on the phone to address the particulars: Is KISS really going away forever? Will ex-members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, whose controversial excommunication from the band bordered on biblical, return for the end? If it even is the end?
The following is an edited transcript of that conversation:
Q: How are you approaching every night? Are you going out there like, “This is the last time Kiss will ever play Dallas,” or, “This is the last time Kiss will ever play Chicago”?
A: It really feels more like a celebration than a funeral. I guess it’s how you look at it. ... We’ve all been in a position where something ends — a relationship, a life — and you have all these regrets about what you didn’t say, and if you’d only known. We’re in this amazing position where we get to do a tour and connect all the dots, and celebrate our relationships. It’s celebratory.
Q: And yet, you brought your 98 year-old dad to the show in L.A. a few weeks ago. Do you ever look at him and think, “I could keep going into my 90s”?
A: I didn’t bring him, he insisted on coming (laughs). ... If we were a band in tennis shoes and jeans and t-shirts, yeah, we could do this into our 90s. But we’re not, we’re KISS, and even though we make it look easy, we’re wearing between thirty and forty pounds of gear and running around for two-plus hours, so it’s important for everyone to realize that life is finite, and there is a expiration date for us. It’s better to stop now than to kind of fizzle out. Making a passive decision is still a decision. If we were to finish a tour and not tour next year, and then the year after that, you’ve basically done the same thing, but that’s not KISS. The band has never been better, we’ve never had more fun. Most bands do a final tour because they hate each other. For us, it’s the complete opposite.
Q: I’ve interviewed rock legends who’ve said the hardest thing about getting older in the spotlight was that fans expect you to stay the same age that you were the first time they saw you. They’re allowed to get older, but you’re not. Is the fact that you wear makeup a shield from that?
A: You can add a new layer of paint to a car, but that doesn’t change the year it was made. There’s a timelessness to us, and there is an immortal or omnipotent aura to what we do, because we stay virtually the same. KISS is the exception to the rules — we were never going to be encumbered or shackled by other bands’ limitations.
Q: Are you impervious to the trends that are sweeping the country now? Everyone’s more uptight than they were in the ‘70s. Or are you at a level where it doesn’t affect you?
