by Paul Stanley
Then there was the name KISS—talk about brand recognition. Companies spend decades and millions of dollars to build that kind of respect and awareness. Other companies buy names that have been established. We established KISS as a band, but it became as recognizable as a brand, and to give that up would have been stupid. Even if I couldn’t match the success we’d already had, it was a huge advantage to have that name.
But mostly, I liked the support of a band. I liked the security. I liked having other people to lean on rather than going it alone. That’s why I got together with Gene in the first place—because I didn’t feel I could do what I wanted to do on my own. I’d always wanted a band. I wanted team members. And that was as true ten years later as it was when I started out.
Often the best way to achieve goals is to assemble a great team; sometimes we just don’t have that luxury. By the 1980s, the team around me was a frequently shifting cast of characters, and Gene was mostly absent. But there was one constant: me. That was okay, because it meant I was steering the ship. There’s a sense of security in having faith in the captain, and I had faith and always have had faith in myself. As people came and went during those years, as other members’ commitment waxed and waned, it boiled down to this: How do I maximize what I have, and how do I make the most of the people who are here?
Certain things I could control, and others I couldn’t. Certainly, with the non-makeup period that balance shifted. I couldn’t make guitar players do what I necessarily wanted them to do, so they either were asked to leave or they quit. I couldn’t stop Gene from wanting to build a movie career, so I took up the slack. Ultimately, I learned not to depend on anyone else. And that has not changed since then, despite the later periods of stability within the band. It’s safer and it’s more effective. It’s always risky to empower somebody else. We have to have trust in somebody, and that trust has to come through experience. It’s not about a gut feeling. I don’t give that trust to anyone except over time, after I see how they deal with issues, how consistent they are, how they deal with crises.
As far as dealing with the band in the 1980s, I basically took on sole leadership of it, I made the most of what I had, and I didn’t dwell on what I didn’t have. I wanted to do what I was capable of doing rather than get hung up in thinking about things beyond my control.
When I look back at those years, I see it was a pivotal time for the band, but there have been many—and it’s always been about problem-solving. It’s all about maintaining the freedom to keep pursuing our dreams, in whatever form those dreams have taken at a given point in the trajectory of our lives.
The band will always be my baby, and for many people—as well as for me, for much of the history of the band—that means not giving it up. Of course, my view on that, too, has evolved over time—not necessarily the baby part, but my willingness to give up my role in it.
I sent out a tweet last year with a picture of the Eagles in their current incarnation, without cofounder Glenn Frey. I wrote, “The Eagles tour has already added more shows due to demand. Seeing a photo of the band now with one original member is a testament to the timeless power and endurance of great songs, created over decades by musicians united in pursuing a musical vision and standard.”
Then I started getting all these bitter responses along the lines of: “They’re not the Eagles. These guys should hang it up. They’re a cover band.”
I was reading all this stuff, and then came another line of thinking: “Oh, Paul, you’re saying that because of KISS. You’re a cover band too.”
I rarely respond to stuff like that, but this time I did.
To the whiners,
The hundreds of thousands who will love seeing the Eagles on this tour don’t care about you, and will have a great time while you whine about which and what band isn’t meeting your criteria. In a world where someone else is happy, your unhappiness doesn’t matter.
And if you don’t think I’m laying the groundwork for leaving the band, I have a bridge to sell you. I love the idea that the Eagles now is being led by a son of one of the founders (Deacon Frey), a founder (Don Henley), and a bunch of other guys. Or take the band Yes. There’s not an original member in Yes. Yet do I consider them a cover band? No, because a band that exists over decades evolves through personnel changes and health crises. So do I consider this to be Yes? Absolutely. It didn’t change overnight. Members have come and gone. The Eagles are the same way: Timothy Schmit is great, but he certainly wasn’t in the original band, nor was Joe Walsh. And Deacon Frey was baby batter. Do I like the idea that the endurance of a band isn’t limited to a particular set of members? You bet.
It’s all about seeing your role, and I know mine: to give people the support and license to serve as their own advocate. Self-empowerment is the key to everything that I won by fighting against those who told me how things had to be or what they expected.
Understandably, someone may want you to fight. All I want to do is take that off someone’s shoulders. You choose your fight. We all choose our fight. When we’re at the biggest moment of our life, at its end, we need to make that decision with a clear conscience, knowing the decision is ours and ours alone. It puts so much in perspective for me; I’ve seen people leave this Earth who wanted to connect with somebody they clearly do not regard as a stranger.
My life is on my terms. At times when KISS looked like it was going to implode, and critics or the people who didn’t like us were salivating, I would revive and resuscitate it in its death throes if for no other reason than the fact that nobody is going to tell me when it’s over. That’s not acceptable. I believe the band must continue, even if someone else might say the opposite.
I certainly know people who have said, “My band had to end because I’m not going to be in it anymore.” Well, I disagree. Our band should continue because what we’ve created and what I’ve worked so hard for is still valid, and as corny as it might seem, KISS may function as a beacon of light for some people—it’s so much more than the best goddamn show out there. It’s the rising up of the underdog to win. Success has never taken that away from us. For that reason alone, I’d like to think it should endure. If all it means is If I can do it, you can do it, that is a message that will never grow old. I want to champion every person out there facing adversity.
The power and meaning of KISS can also transcend the individuals in it.
Some friends and people I’m close to have said to me that I must continue. They make it very clear that they don’t want to lose their emotional connection to the band, its stabilizing effect on their lives. And I say, “I understand, but I did this in the first place to write my own rules—and that includes being able to say when it ends for me.”
It’s interesting, though, because the other side of the coin is people saying that some star athlete or other should hang it up because they’re not as good as they were in their heyday. To that, I say, “It’s your right to stop seeing them, but they owe you nothing. They’ve given you everything.”
Nobody has to apologize for doing what they love. They get to decide if and when it’s over for them.
And if it’s over for you, you have the right to stop going to the games or listening to the music—whatever it is. You have the right to stop buying tickets. It’s an odd idea that the people who have made you happy now need to go away because they’re not living up to your expectations.
This has never been about anybody else’s expectations but mine.
14
When You Find the True Meaning in What You’ve Accomplished, You’ll Fall in Love All Over Again
I would say without hesitation that the most fucked-up people are entertainers. They crave attention. They crave approval and validation of their worth that they don’t inherently feel, and they don’t look to fill that void just through relationships; they seek it from a crowd.
For most people, the larger a crowd, the more intimidated they feel. For plenty of folks, being forced to stand in front of 20,000
people would be their worst nightmare. But I happen to know a lot of people who consider that their Disneyland. Because the people who are most insecure, if they have the wherewithal and the tools, use that platform to put themselves in front of mass adulation.
It’s so apparent to me.
Why do bands want to be on tour all of the time? Because that’s where they feel most omnipotent. That’s where they feel most important.
Do they feel important when they go to the grocery store? I guess not. Do they feel important when they take their kids to school? Apparently the answer is no. The people who seek attention are the ones who are the most . . . I don’t want to say maladjusted, but they have issues with self-confidence and self-worth, and they look for validation externally that they don’t get either from the people around them or internally.
When KISS started out, people like Bill Aucoin (our manager) and Sean Delaney (a jack-of-all-trades who did everything from helping refine our stage moves and collaborating on songs to driving our van in the early days) had an amazing ability to make each person in the band feel he was the favorite. Which is terrific, because the bickering and the attention and the approval that four very needy babies needed would not allow anyone to be an actual favorite. Both Bill and Sean could make each band member feel that he was the best and most important, like he was the driving force or the most talented or the special one. If not for them, I don’t think KISS would’ve survived. Bill in particular was excellent at playing parent to a bunch of guys who weren’t much younger than him.
In earlier times, performing was my oxygen. It was my blood. Today, I love performing for different reasons. I still covet and cherish the attention and validation, but I don’t depend on it anymore. I love it because I don’t need it.
Somebody asked me recently, “Why do you still do it?”
“You know,” I said, “being away from home is horrible. Going to sleep by myself in a hotel is horrible. But having that curtain go up and knowing that people have been waiting for the legend of KISS and what we embody to be with them for a night is so exhilarating—that’s why I do it.”
I do it because there’s nothing to compare to being KISS, and I love it. I love what we are, I love what we create, and most of all I love the connection to the audience. When I started, I did it for myself. Now I do it for them. And it’s made all the difference.
Early on, I didn’t ever want to go home. Whereas now, I tolerate everything that goes along with being on tour—and being away from Erin and our kids—because being onstage is part of who I am, and my family has to understand it’s a part of me. I don’t have to do it, but I want to.
Maybe as the puzzle’s gotten larger, the piece that KISS represents has gotten smaller. But it’s still an essential piece of the puzzle. Nothing can measure up to being KISS onstage. Nothing can measure up to that outfit and being up there singing those songs or being there for the audience. At this point there really is a legend of KISS, and I’m grateful to be part of it.
I always say, “Show me a band that tells you they want to play clubs, and I’ll show you a band that can’t play an arena.” They’re both fun, but nobody’s going to tell me they’d rather play multiple clubs or multiple auditoriums than play a stadium, an arena, or an outdoor festival ground. The energy is that much larger. I guess when people talk about electricity in the air, it has some real basis in physiology, because the energy that comes from an audience of 100,000 people can almost knock you off your feet. It’s like a tidal wave. And to know that it’s all there for you is incredibly empowering and exhilarating.
When the original four members of KISS reunited, there was, in my mind, a great sense of perhaps being able to fix things and come back smarter, with all of us appreciating who we are and where we’d been and picking up the flag and running. KISS without makeup was still making very, very good money, but nothing could compare to what we had done in our heyday.
When we put the makeup back on, I found that I was yearning for that level of success again. Not beforehand, oddly enough, but once I committed to doing it, I thought, I’m going to savor this a lot differently than I did the first time.
I was determined to appreciate it as an adult and take it in on all levels, which I hadn’t done the first time around. That was palpable and emotional. Many nights, I choked up onstage.
Being able to revisit something with a deeper appreciation of it was a gift. Who gets the chance to do that? The first time, I hadn’t lived enough or gone through enough to really see the success as part of a bigger picture. And then to see it again with a more mature eye was wondrous.
Now we’ve sustained it for decades again.
I still remember being backstage at the American Music Awards, with Tupac, when we were unannounced surprise guests, appearing with makeup for the first time in well over a decade. And I was back there thinking, Is the audience going to laugh at us? Are they going to boo? Are they going to see it as a joke?
Then we walked out, and every adult musician in the audience was reduced to being a kid again. The wonder on their faces was unbelievable. I mean, I can remember looking at some very famous faces that all of a sudden were transported. That was an incredible feeling—that we actually could go back, put on those outfits, put on the boots, put on the makeup, and be KISS. I didn’t realize the magnitude, the importance to people, the impact we had had on people.
That first blush of returning and getting up early in the morning in Los Angeles to listen on the phone as Ticketmaster put tickets on sale and we sold out a show in a few minutes and rolled into a second show and a third show? That was a gift, and it was a gift to all of us.
When we sold out Tiger Stadium to kick off the tour, I was stunned. I hadn’t realized how much we meant to people and how much they wanted us back. I guess no one really talked about it because maybe no one thought it was possible. And when it happened, it really was the second coming.
I only wish that everybody had realized that it could’ve been a new beginning. But that would’ve meant work.
I was prepared to appreciate it and savor it and feel blessed. And feeling that way obligates me to do something as well as I can—to be worthy of it.
Over time, unfortunately, not everyone saw it that way. Once we weren’t firing on all cylinders, then we were KISS in name only. We weren’t living up to our obligations to our fans and to ourselves. That was disappointing and demoralizing to a point where we really felt we needed to pull the plug.
But I love this band so much that it quickly became clear to me that I didn’t want it to end. I just wanted the pain and the embarrassment to end.
It’s been nice to reconnect with Ace in recent years, to sing on his album and have him on a KISS Kruise. It was terrific, but it doesn’t mean any more than what it was. It wasn’t a mating dance or anything. It was about enjoying the good part of our shared history, and maybe my being able to help him out. It was not going to lead anywhere except to our having a good time and my embracing somebody who has been very important in my life. Without Ace, there wouldn’t have been a KISS. So isn’t that worth celebrating and embracing?
Around the time of our induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a reporter asked me, “For old time’s sake, one more time, you wouldn’t want to do that [perform together again]?”
I said, “How many times have you been married?”
“Twice,” the reporter said.
“How about for old time’s sake you go back and spend the night with your ex-wife?”
I think we came to an understanding at that moment.
To have Ace back in a larger capacity in my life is nice. The idea of having him on a KISS Kruise ten years ago would have been preposterous. There had been too many acrimonious feelings and unresolved issues—and just a lack of comfort. But life’s too short. If Ace were a dick now, I wouldn’t want him around. But if we can enjoy each other, we have too much shared magic not to.
Peter unfortunately is a different s
tory. I don’t think Peter has any life. He seems consumed by some kind of reality that his wife tells him. He’s always been negative and always maintained an us-against-them mentality. I don’t want that in my life. It’s not about having differences, because I’m sure Ace and I have differences. It’s Peter’s overall sense of anger and resentment and feeling like a victim. He needs to acknowledge his participation and then change things. I think Peter’s life is probably very one-dimensional, uninteresting, unstimulating—which is a result of seeing the world negatively and seeing everyone from the band members to the hotel service people as disrespectful.
That’s not a world anyone should live in, and I don’t want to be a part of it.
In the past few years, I began to realize that life is like dodge ball. In one form or another, we’re just trying to make sure the ball doesn’t hit us. And in the course of that, we watch people around us get knocked out. In our own way, we’re all trying to duck the ball.
Sometimes the total picture of somebody is frozen in time when they die. They become talented and beautiful forever. Look at the difference between the living James Dean and Marlon Brando and the James Dean and Marlon Brando we think of now that they are gone. Kurt Cobain was clearly tortured from within, by mental illness and the manifestations of drug addiction. But who’s to say that two albums later he wouldn’t have been panned by every critic, and the people who loved him would have scratched their heads at the music he was making? Youth walks the high wire, and the lucky ones make it across. Some are predisposed to more risks, but I don’t know that Kurt Cobain was anywhere near a point of being able to embrace himself, to love himself.
Fortunately, I’m more than content. I’m thrilled with life. My life has exceeded anything I ever could have hoped for. Only when we live and set goals and learn things along the way do we have any idea of what is possible. We have to experience life to know its potential.