Speaker 1: Today I'm broken Record. I'm joined by a true rock icon,
Speaker 1: the star child himself, Kiss co founder in frontman Paul Stanley.
Speaker 1: Paul grew up in New York City, where he fell
Speaker 1: in love with the music, attending shows at Manhattan venues
Speaker 1: like the legendary Fillmore East. Of course, he himself, as
Speaker 1: part of Kiss, over fifty years, built one of the
Speaker 1: most fervently devoted fan bases in music history by turning
Speaker 1: spectacle into art. Now that Kiss is officially retired from
Speaker 1: the road, Paul reflects on life after the makeup, what
Speaker 1: fuels his creativity these days, and what it means to
Speaker 1: have reached the fiftieth anniversary of the Kiss Army. He
Speaker 1: also shares his personal top five Kiss albums and gives
Speaker 1: us a preview of Kiss Storm Vegas, the upcoming event
Speaker 1: that proves the end of touring doesn't mean the end
Speaker 1: of the show. This is Broken record, real musicians, real conversations.
Speaker 1: Here's my conversation with Paul Stanley. Oh wow, how are you?
Speaker 1: The man?
Speaker 2: The myth, the legend is somebody else here?
Speaker 1: The guy behind you, I'll talk about the guy behind
Speaker 1: couldn't be you, No you of course? Wow. Great to
Speaker 1: meet you likewise, great to meet you. Where are you
Speaker 1: at in the thing?
Speaker 2: Actually in the Kiss warehouse.
Speaker 1: That has to be that has to be an incredible place.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: It's like Superman's Portress of Solitude.
Speaker 1: Oh man, how long have you guys had like a warehouse.
Speaker 2: Since pretty much the beginning of the band, although that's
Speaker 2: changed over the Year's location has changed over the years,
Speaker 2: but we've always needed a place not only for musical instruments,
Speaker 2: but for stage pieces and all the miscellaneous stuff that
Speaker 2: goes along with a tour.
Speaker 1: Wow, do you ever? I mean, you know, talking to
Speaker 1: you or anyone else from Kiss, it's in a weird way,
Speaker 1: like talking to anyone from you know, like Paula Ringo
Speaker 1: or Mike or Keith or even Ronnie. It's like you
Speaker 1: guys have had such long and storied careers and been
Speaker 1: asked everything. But I have to imagine every once in
Speaker 1: a while going through the whitouse, there's something you see
Speaker 1: that you're shocked by or just didn't remember, or you're
Speaker 1: surprised to see or find.
Speaker 2: Manyly, it's just I think I have a really good memory,
Speaker 2: and yet sometimes friends of mine will say, you remember
Speaker 2: in New York when we had dinner with so and
Speaker 2: so and so and so, and I'm like, for the
Speaker 2: life of me, I can't remember. So in terms of
Speaker 2: the band, my memory is really really pretty pretty strong.
Speaker 2: You know, we can talk about, you know, the show
Speaker 2: that we did at the Capitol Center in Largo, Maryland
Speaker 2: outside DCOR. Could talk about, you know, playing the Stanley
Speaker 2: Warner Theater in Pittsburgh or the Tower Theater. You know,
Speaker 2: my memory is at least with the band, very very
Speaker 2: very I'm quite lucid.
Speaker 1: Why why do you think the band is the is
Speaker 1: the one part that you're able to compartmentalize and remember
Speaker 1: every little bit of it?
Speaker 2: I guess, you know, I would think that if you
Speaker 2: visit Disneyland, you'll remember everything you did. And I've been
Speaker 2: living in Disneyland.
Speaker 1: That's That's a great way to a great way to
Speaker 1: put it. It's even even the early days of the band,
Speaker 1: pre pre alive, when you guys, you know, alive. Obviously,
Speaker 1: most people who are at least are fans will know
Speaker 1: that live is really when the band hits and you
Speaker 1: guys break. But it seems like even before that, like
Speaker 1: you guys were really i mean somehow living, you know,
Speaker 1: the rock star lifestyle like you guys were. In a sense,
Speaker 1: it almost appears if you guys had made it the
Speaker 1: way you know the stories.
Speaker 2: And I think certainly there was a all for one
Speaker 2: and one for all attitude, and we felt like we
Speaker 2: were on a crusade. We were we were going to
Speaker 2: make converts of everybody. And it had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with our musical prowess, certainly at that point, but it
Speaker 2: had to do with a commitment to the band, to
Speaker 2: what we were doing, and to the fans. I have
Speaker 2: to say that initially a lot of the earliest songs
Speaker 2: were almost almost us writing about things that we really
Speaker 2: had an experience. It was almost wishful thinking. By the
Speaker 2: third album, we were really living it, you know. Strutter
Speaker 2: was about the women that I would see in the
Speaker 2: streets in Greenwich Village. There was this huge musical band
Speaker 2: renaissance of what became known as glitter the glitter bands
Speaker 2: or kind of like that androgynous look, and the women,
Speaker 2: the girlfriends were you know, wearing silks and satins and
Speaker 2: fishnets stockings, and they didn't want anything to do with me.
Speaker 2: But I wrote about that. I wrote about Black Diamond.
Speaker 2: Literally by the time we were doing songs like room Service.
Speaker 2: That's what I was living. You know, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you know, you go from wishing for something to actually
Speaker 2: being immersed in it.
Speaker 1: Was it? At what point do you start to realize, like, God,
Speaker 1: this isn't this isn't everything. You know, this actually isn't
Speaker 1: all that you can want out of life. There's more
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, that's a tough question because when you're
Speaker 2: first exposed to something, how much cake can you eat?
Speaker 2: You know, you won't know untill you eat it all,
Speaker 2: you know. I I think, at least in my case,
Speaker 2: it took a bit of time before I went you know,
Speaker 2: although this is what I was on a quest to achieve,
Speaker 2: once you achieve it, I found myself going, is this everything?
Speaker 2: You know? Some some people aspire to something and think
Speaker 2: it's going to be a cure all and or disappointed
Speaker 2: in a way when that's not the case, and neither
Speaker 2: wind up with a needle in their arm or a
Speaker 2: gun in their mouth. You know, I made it a challenge. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's see what else is out there? You know, what else?
Speaker 2: What else do I need to complet who I am?
Speaker 2: But it certainly it gave me the ability to do that,
Speaker 2: and along the way I was having a great time.
Speaker 2: You know, no, I have no complaints about any aspect
Speaker 2: or time period in my life.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you look back and wish you'd handle the different.
Speaker 2: Or I'd like to say that I always did the
Speaker 2: best I could. And nonetheless, I'd say when our second drummer,
Speaker 2: Eric Carr, when he had heart cancer, I wish that.
Speaker 2: I wish that I had realized that I couldn't fathom
Speaker 2: the idea of him dying, so I didn't deal with
Speaker 2: it the way I would today. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: there were certainly mistakes I think made in that period.
Speaker 2: And again I was you're limited by what by your limitations.
Speaker 2: You're limited by by what you know and and how
Speaker 2: you perceive things and where you are in your life.
Speaker 2: So everything that you do in life gets through to
Speaker 2: where you are today. That's right, good and bad. And
Speaker 2: you change one thing, you change everything. So even even
Speaker 2: whatever missteps or things that may have happened, they they're
Speaker 2: responsible for where I am today.
Speaker 1: When I when I'm thinking about the fact that for
Speaker 1: so many years you you you both view energy and
Speaker 1: really had dealt with aces, indulgences and Peter's indulgences and
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, thankfully there's they're still with us.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I could I can understand how you
Speaker 1: might feel like you guys were insulated from that kind
Speaker 1: of you know, there were a lot of tragedies in
Speaker 1: other bands. You guys really managed to avoid that for
Speaker 1: so long. And I guess until Eric and it, I
Speaker 1: guess this unusual thing. You know, it's a.
Speaker 2: Very different level when you're dealing with facing somebody's mortality. Yeah,
Speaker 2: when you're facing a diagnosis and a prognosis, and somehow
Speaker 2: maybe your defensive mechanism is to, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 2: it'll be the odds or he'll always be like this.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But that was the only thing that I really can
Speaker 2: think of. I wish, I wish I knew better how
Speaker 2: that was going to end and really understood it that,
Speaker 2: you know, the finality of death. That's uh, we don't
Speaker 2: get to deal with that that often at that age.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And like I said, you guys were real
Speaker 1: fortunate for a rock and roll group. You guys really
Speaker 1: managed to avoid a lot of the usual pitfalls more
Speaker 1: or less, you know, you guys.
Speaker 2: I really I think that part of what has gotten
Speaker 2: us to where we are at this point. I mean, Gina,
Speaker 2: I've been together fifty six years. Is the idea that
Speaker 2: we can we can, we can succeed, we can make
Speaker 2: things okay. I think that's really what it is. It's
Speaker 2: more more than we'll make it okay, we'll fix it.
Speaker 2: You know, at some point in life you start to
Speaker 2: realize you can't fix everything. It's kind of humbling. You know,
Speaker 2: the only person you can fix is you. So I
Speaker 2: think there's there's a sense of being more powerful than.
Speaker 1: Your Yeah, did that feeling of you and Jeans sort
Speaker 1: of being able to weather anything? Was there a defining
Speaker 1: moment of that where you realize, oh, when we got
Speaker 1: past this now it feels like or did it just
Speaker 1: sort of at some point occur like yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: I think that maybe maybe it's because we're both survivors.
Speaker 2: Innately it it's born into us. You know, our parents
Speaker 2: were impacted by the Holocaust. Jean's mom was in a
Speaker 2: concentration camp. My mom had to flee on hours notice
Speaker 2: as a child with her family and get on a
Speaker 2: train and leave everything behind and go to Amsterdam and
Speaker 2: then flee there. So I think that they're there. I
Speaker 2: don't know that it's the children of Holocaust survivors or
Speaker 2: I do think that that into it, that there's a
Speaker 2: sense of survival, a sense of not being victimized. You're
Speaker 2: the master of your own destiny, and when that is challenged,
Speaker 2: that usually gets my back up that further. If somebody
Speaker 2: tells me something's impossible, then I have.
Speaker 1: To do it.
Speaker 2: That's you know, that's not always a good quality. But
Speaker 2: I like to think that both Jane and I want
Speaker 2: to make our own decisions and live our own lives,
Speaker 2: and kiss has always been the same. Nobody decides for
Speaker 2: us who we are or what we are, and that's
Speaker 2: probably what's kept us around as long is we will
Speaker 2: stand by our victories and we'll brush ourselves off when
Speaker 2: we fall. And you know, there are times we fallen
Speaker 2: and we're not prone, either one of us, to stay
Speaker 2: it down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your final full stage show is a year and
Speaker 1: a half, like behind you guys now, although there's this
Speaker 1: Vegas event coming up and we'll talk about that storm.
Speaker 1: Does it feel weird to have the touring part of
Speaker 1: your life wrapped up? To have that done after all
Speaker 1: this time totally?
Speaker 2: Of course you can fill I can fill that time.
Speaker 2: But I can never replace what's lost. In a sense,
Speaker 2: it's a death. You miss something, you can't get it back,
Speaker 2: and you can fill that time, but there's absolutely a loss.
Speaker 2: Nothing can take the place of twenty fifty one hundred,
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty thousand people in front of you,
Speaker 2: and the energy and the love that they are giving,
Speaker 2: and the appreciation of what I'm doing. I think, ask
Speaker 2: Michael Jordan, ask any athlete. When you give up something
Speaker 2: like that, there's no replacing it. You find things to
Speaker 2: fill the time and fill the time. Well. But if
Speaker 2: to say I don't miss it, I can miss it,
Speaker 2: don't I don't. I don't live my life today thinking
Speaker 2: about yesterday. It's pointless and it doesn't take advantage of today.
Speaker 1: But is there any part of you that reflexively just
Speaker 1: feels like a tour must be right on the other
Speaker 1: side of next year? I mean, Becau's been doing. It's
Speaker 1: just like periods at home and then it's just almost
Speaker 1: at some point, must feel reflexive to just be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go somewhere soon to you know.
Speaker 2: I say to people, Look, I've been home before for
Speaker 2: stretches of time. The difference this time is I'm not
Speaker 2: leaving well, so yeah, I can do other things, and
Speaker 2: I can play, and I can do things with Gene
Speaker 2: or There's lots of things for Kiss to be doing
Speaker 2: and to move Kiss into the future. But the touring aspect,
Speaker 2: which has been a major part of my life is gone.
Speaker 1: Do you still play at home?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, nowhere near up to this point, nowhere near
Speaker 2: what I once did. But I was touring. I was
Speaker 2: playing five nights a week. There was a recording. So
Speaker 2: I think that, without even planning to, I just took
Speaker 2: a break. I just I just put down the guitar,
Speaker 2: and thank fully, when I pick it up, sounds like
Speaker 2: me playing, you know, muscle muscle memory. Although you know
Speaker 2: I could, I could sharpen the blade a little bit
Speaker 2: and I will. But yes, I still play, and music
Speaker 2: is so much a part of my life, and music.
Speaker 2: Music has been salvation for me, oxygen for me since
Speaker 2: I was a kid, since I was five six years
Speaker 2: old and I discovered music or was exposed to it.
Speaker 2: It's always been my sanctuary.
Speaker 1: What inspires you these days when you're around the house
Speaker 1: to pick up the guitars or something you'll hear, or
Speaker 1: feeling you'll get.
Speaker 2: Or Oh, it's more curiosity. Gee, can I still do it?
Speaker 2: It's different, It's really different because throughout my life there
Speaker 2: was always a reason I was playing. I was playing
Speaker 2: with different bands, or to get better, or to learn
Speaker 2: certain things. And right now it could change tomorrow. But
Speaker 2: right now, if I don't feel like it, I don't
Speaker 2: do it. But I'm fully aware that I will. I'm
Speaker 2: fully aware that like other things you take, you take breaks.
Speaker 2: I think it's important in a lot of senses to
Speaker 2: get away from things.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Paul Stanley. It's been
Speaker 1: as I mean, it's been a un a has since
Speaker 1: the last tour. It's been even much longer since the
Speaker 1: last original album. In all that time, or even since
Speaker 1: you've stopped touring, do melodies ever still come to you
Speaker 1: or a riff?
Speaker 2: Or yeah they do, And I don't feel the need
Speaker 2: right now to do anything with it. Now you'll hear
Speaker 2: from so many people in music business has changed enormously
Speaker 2: and what we once sold, or other major bands acts
Speaker 2: once sold, for the most part, that that doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: So you have to be creating for a different reason.
Speaker 2: And I've known some people recently who put out some
Speaker 2: fantastic music, and you know, after a week or so
Speaker 2: it's off the charts because there just isn't that sustainability anymore.
Speaker 2: So there definitely is is a sense of do I
Speaker 2: really want to put that much work into something, and
Speaker 2: even though I know what the outcome probably is going
Speaker 2: to be, do I want to build up for that
Speaker 2: kind of disappointment? And that's not I may say that
Speaker 2: and be honest about it, but I've known a lot
Speaker 2: of people who who feel that. And you know the
Speaker 2: other people who go, oh, you know, I just I
Speaker 2: create for me and this and that. That's true to
Speaker 2: a point. But you you did it to become successful,
Speaker 2: or you wouldn't never have played it for anybody. You
Speaker 2: wouldn't have left your room. So by design, you wanted acceptance,
Speaker 2: you wanted a mass appeal, whatever it was. Otherwise, if
Speaker 2: you really did it for yourself, you keep it to yourself.
Speaker 2: But once you start putting it out there, you know,
Speaker 2: if things don't go the way they once did, or
Speaker 2: you anticipate, I see a point where people just go,
Speaker 2: I'll tour, you know, and there are other you know,
Speaker 2: acts and people who have done that. Look, you know,
Speaker 2: when it comes down to it. If I wrote let
Speaker 2: It Be Tomorrow and we put it out as kiss,
Speaker 2: people will say that's great play love Gun. It's just
Speaker 2: it's it's just the nature of things. You go to
Speaker 2: see the Stones, you tolerate whatever they want to play
Speaker 2: until you hear Brown Sugar or Honky Tom Woman. So
Speaker 2: if McCartney does a show, if I see it on TV,
Speaker 2: if I turn off the volume, I'll let you know
Speaker 2: every time he's playing a new song because the audience
Speaker 2: sits down. So you know, if you want to keep writing,
Speaker 2: you know, God bless you. I am at a point
Speaker 2: now where I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean, this is one thing I'll say,
Speaker 1: this one thing I'll I I mean, there's many things
Speaker 1: to like about Case, but one of the things I
Speaker 1: especially love about you and Gene is you guys have
Speaker 1: never never shied away from the fact that you wanted
Speaker 1: to be successful. There's no pretense around it. And to
Speaker 1: the point that I mean, and I guess, let me
Speaker 1: ask you this, even you know it's amazing, But the
Speaker 1: self titled album Hotter than Hell addressed to Kill Like
Speaker 1: You're to this day, still remain disappointed in those albums,
Speaker 1: even as incredible as they are and beloved as.
Speaker 2: They are well because they don't sound the way I
Speaker 2: envisioned or hoped, and they don't sound the way we
Speaker 2: sounded live, and we didn't have the know how or
Speaker 2: wherewithal at that point to make albums that reflected what
Speaker 2: we sounded like. That's why it took Kiss Alive to
Speaker 2: break through, because people loved us and came to see us,
Speaker 2: but the albums didn't really reflect what they had experienced.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I would like to think that.
Speaker 2: I would like to think you don't love everything you do,
Speaker 2: because that doesn't leave any room. You know, if everything
Speaker 2: is great, how great is great? I mean it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's got to be degrees of stuff. And out of
Speaker 2: all the albums we've done, we always gave it our best,
Speaker 2: and some of them might listen to and go, or
Speaker 2: I don't listen to and I go. You know, at
Speaker 2: that time there was this going on or that going on,
Speaker 2: and then there are other albums I think are really good,
Speaker 2: and then there's some albums I think are great. So
Speaker 2: I would hate to think everything that we do or
Speaker 2: I do is fantastic because it's not.
Speaker 1: If I had to ask you to rank your top
Speaker 1: five Kiss albums? What would you? What would you?
Speaker 2: For different reasons. The first has to be kiss Alive
Speaker 2: because Kiss Alive really captured the essence of the live experience. Now,
Speaker 2: that couldn't have happened without us going in the studio
Speaker 2: and enhancing it and surrounding you with people. Live albums
Speaker 2: were boring for four hours. You didn't even know they
Speaker 2: were live until the end of the song where you
Speaker 2: heard some clapping. But for Kiss, we wanted an album
Speaker 2: that immersed you. Immersion in the experience, which means being
Speaker 2: surrounded by people, which means bombs going off that are deafening,
Speaker 2: which means fixing any mistakes or a broken string. People
Speaker 2: may have snobs or purists may have looked down their
Speaker 2: nose at that idea, but the truth is that album
Speaker 2: still considers if not the greatest, one of the greatest,
Speaker 2: and then a lot of circles. Gray's live album ever,
Speaker 2: not because everything was live, but because it captured the
Speaker 2: live experience. So Kiss Alive destroyer, even though it didn't
Speaker 2: sound much like its predecessors. But working with Bob Ezrin
Speaker 2: was such a education, such a schooling discipline, and upping
Speaker 2: the writing and putting aside, at least temporarily, all the
Speaker 2: songs about you know, sleeping with this one or this group,
Speaker 2: your parties.
Speaker 1: And it.
Speaker 2: Raised the bar so destroyer. So many of those songs
Speaker 2: end up in our show up until the very end
Speaker 2: Detroit Rock City, God of thunder Beth shouted out loud,
Speaker 2: so destroyer, I would say Sonic Boom. Sonic Boom was
Speaker 2: a great album by a band that recognized its roots
Speaker 2: and recognized where it came from and picked up the
Speaker 2: slack and kept moving forward. I love that album, and
Speaker 2: I loved the spirit that went into it, where everybody
Speaker 2: knew what they wanted to do and at our best
Speaker 2: and most people's best I think comes from trying to
Speaker 2: make the team or the band or whatever you're involved
Speaker 2: in better, and that will make you look better than
Speaker 2: just trying to make you look better. And the team
Speaker 2: spirit on Sonic Boom was really really palpable and great album.
Speaker 2: Great album. And again, if modern day Delilah had been
Speaker 2: on Rock and Roll Over, it would be a classic.
Speaker 2: But songs take decades to gain that kind of patina
Speaker 2: or to have that life connection of when you heard
Speaker 2: that song at a certain time in your life. So
Speaker 2: as time went on, songs could be great, but they
Speaker 2: didn't have that the luster of being tied to the past.
Speaker 2: So whether it was modern day Delilah or Hell or Hallelujah.
Speaker 1: Is as good as any you know, both of those,
Speaker 1: as good as any leadoff Kiss songs on any you
Speaker 1: know come on.
Speaker 2: Totally ridiculous, and I just found myself going, you know,
Speaker 2: that's as good as it gets. And it's a different
Speaker 2: time now and people don't connect to songs as time
Speaker 2: pieces or a sonic photograph of a certain period. So
Speaker 2: but long story short, so not really, but so Sonic
Speaker 2: Boom would be in that top three, top three, and
Speaker 2: other than that, I would say I like rock and
Speaker 2: roll Over. I like that album. Again, it doesn't sound
Speaker 2: anywhere near what we sounded like. And that's after Kiss Alive.
Speaker 2: It was very elusive for us, perhaps because of some
Speaker 2: of the people we were working with. It just escaped
Speaker 2: escaped us. We did some thing with real focus and
Speaker 2: clarity of what we were doing. So that's really good.
Speaker 2: I love Kiss Unplugged, you know that album. I just
Speaker 2: listened to some of that couple of days ago. You know,
Speaker 2: the band at that point was just on fire, no effects,
Speaker 2: no amplifiers, no running around us with guitars and drums
Speaker 2: and singing our asses off. And also it gave a
Speaker 2: chance to showcase the songs because you know, I've always
Speaker 2: adhered to the idea that a good song can be
Speaker 2: played on one guitar if you have to go, well,
Speaker 2: wait till you hear the sound effects on this song. Now,
Speaker 2: a great song can be stripped away and it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: So to hear sure, no some then or I still
Speaker 2: love you. You hear those songs and there's a wow
Speaker 2: factor just because it's that good. So Kiss unplugged I
Speaker 2: would put in there. I think that's cool.
Speaker 1: That's that's it. No, that's six there, well hold on
Speaker 1: well a live Destroyer, Sonic Boom, Rock and roll over,
Speaker 1: Revenge and.
Speaker 2: Unplugged, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, it's unplugged and replace Revenge. You don't have
Speaker 1: to you can have six you're Paul Stanley.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would replace Revenge with unplugged. I just I
Speaker 2: love the simplicity and the fact that it's undeniable. It's
Speaker 2: just four guys with their instruments.
Speaker 1: It's cool too, it I mean, and it's really it's one.
Speaker 1: I mean revenge could be that two and and and
Speaker 1: and but you know, you guys, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: part of you eyes being able to have these really
Speaker 1: unique moments in any decade and all, you know, in
Speaker 1: every decade since you start of have these moments where
Speaker 1: you guys still show you know, well early on in matter,
Speaker 1: but you guys should work. We're still kissing. We're kissing,
Speaker 1: you know, like it, And it's that's a There are
Speaker 1: some but there's not a lot of groups that are
Speaker 1: able to every decade have some sort of touchstone where
Speaker 1: you can say, like that's yeah.
Speaker 2: And and for some people that's a flaw and to
Speaker 2: me not at all. I mean, I think that whether
Speaker 2: it's art or music, rock and roll, whatever, it's about exploring.
Speaker 2: The band that did rock and roll all night also
Speaker 2: did Beth I was made for love in you. You know,
Speaker 2: it's it's all over the place, and and I like that.
Speaker 2: That's some people would want us to just be one thing,
Speaker 2: but I don't want to be and we've never been
Speaker 2: one thing because we have so many influences. And that
Speaker 2: was one of the things that I loved about concerts
Speaker 2: when I was in my teens is that it was
Speaker 2: like getting a three course meal. You'd go to see
Speaker 2: a show and there would be three bands who were
Speaker 2: completely unlike each other, and that that's healthy when you
Speaker 2: have an opening act that just sounds like the headliner
Speaker 2: but isn't as popular or whatever. You know, I saw,
Speaker 2: I saw so many bills where it was bands that
Speaker 2: were so divergent in what they were doing, and that
Speaker 2: was what made it so interesting. So I guess that's
Speaker 2: what I've always followed.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Policy Stanley after the
Speaker 1: break that era when you're growing up going to concerts too,
Speaker 1: that's really it's it's that that that that tiny little
Speaker 1: era and really only New York and San Francisco where
Speaker 1: that was happening, where it would be like, you know,
Speaker 1: Robbie Shankar and then you know Moby Grape and then
Speaker 1: Otis Redding, you know, and it's like, no, like what.
Speaker 2: I mean, most people won't even relate to this, but
Speaker 2: I saw. I mean, I saw a sliine of Family
Speaker 2: Stone open for Hendrix when their first album came out.
Speaker 2: But you know, seeing things like Traffic, Iron, Butterfly and
Speaker 2: Blue Cheer or Woody Hermann's Orchestra with led Zeppelin.
Speaker 1: Did you see that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I missed that one, but I saw you know,
Speaker 2: Buddy Guy in sixty nine opening for the Who Wow,
Speaker 2: you know I saw Otis Redding. I mean, you know
Speaker 2: Lauren Nero. I mean there was so much great music
Speaker 2: and the beauty of it was like getting a great
Speaker 2: dinner where there's you know, I mean, do you want
Speaker 2: to eat three hamburgers? I don't you know? Do you
Speaker 2: want three chicken dishes? I mean the whole idea was
Speaker 2: your palette. Your ear was experiencing different different things. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Maha Vishno Orchestra, you know, with
Speaker 2: Robbie Shankar and you know, pick a bombastic band, you know.
Speaker 2: But that's what made it so great. You you didn't
Speaker 2: just show up for the headliner. You wanted to hear
Speaker 2: all these bands might learn something, you might learn you
Speaker 2: liked something you didn't even know that you liked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were talking about modern day Delilah and Hella Hallelujah.
Speaker 1: When did when did a Kiss album opening up with
Speaker 1: with a Paul Stanley song? When did was that ever decided?
Speaker 1: Or did it just happen? Did it just occur that way?
Speaker 1: Because every Kiss album kicks off with like an incredible
Speaker 1: Paul Stanley song from Strutter to modern Day Delilah.
Speaker 2: I think I've always looked at that the first song
Speaker 2: on an album should kind of encapsulate what the album is.
Speaker 2: It should it should give you a sense of what
Speaker 2: you're going to get, as opposed to just a random
Speaker 2: up tempo song or whatever. So I very often I
Speaker 2: wrote with the idea that this is the first song
Speaker 2: on the album. You know, it's like a great preview,
Speaker 2: a great trailer to a movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Was there ever a competition within the band or
Speaker 1: with gene to I don't know, I want this this
Speaker 1: should actually go, you know.
Speaker 2: I think Gina, although we've had very brotherly ego competitions,
Speaker 2: I think Jane's been very pragmatic and in that case
Speaker 2: and and as always uh seen you know, I mean
Speaker 2: Psycho circus again, it was like, Okay, what's this album
Speaker 2: going to be? And you know, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: That's you know, the whole vibe of it, and and
Speaker 2: you know you're in the psycho circus. So yeah, for me,
Speaker 2: it's it's always been a conscious effort to write the
Speaker 2: opening track and also a big difference between Gene and
Speaker 2: I always had Gina and me. It's proper grammar. Big
Speaker 2: difference between Gene and me has always been that Gene
Speaker 2: will write songs that are really good and other songs
Speaker 2: that are not so good. He just writes and I
Speaker 2: self edit. If a song, a song takes work, it
Speaker 2: takes effort, and if it's not going great or if
Speaker 2: I don't think it's great or serving the purpose, I
Speaker 2: throw it away. I move on. So on most albums,
Speaker 2: I've written five or six songs. I didn't write ten songs.
Speaker 2: I certainly didn't write twenty songs. I write and go, okay,
Speaker 2: this is my contribution to the identity of the album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing too, because you'd even edit like Gene
Speaker 1: songs you think about like him bring in you Stanley
Speaker 1: the Parrot, you know, and you'd be like, well, this
Speaker 1: is a song, but it's got to go, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure Jane probably had moments of doing that
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, we've had a great relationship. I think
Speaker 2: at one point we really went off on our own
Speaker 2: and wanted to do it ourselves. And I don't think
Speaker 2: that that was necessarily beneficial, but certainly in the beginning,
Speaker 2: there was a tremendous amount of collaboration. Even if our
Speaker 2: names weren't side by side on a song, we always
Speaker 2: were involved with each other's songs. And later on, once again,
Speaker 2: even though our songs may not have had both our
Speaker 2: names on them, almost all the songs we did later
Speaker 2: again talking about Sonic Boom or Monster or any of
Speaker 2: the later stuff was a collaboration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is you guys are putting together something in
Speaker 1: Vegas in November, and it's the commemoration really of the
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of the Kiss Army.
Speaker 2: Right it off is something that honestly that Gina and
Speaker 2: I kind of took a back seat in, and honestly
Speaker 2: we reached a point not too far in the past
Speaker 2: where we both said, you know what, this isn't the
Speaker 2: way we want it, and it's going to go through
Speaker 2: some major changes to be what we think it should be.
Speaker 2: We spent twelve years nurturing a Kiss Cruise and what
Speaker 2: that means and what goes into it and what you
Speaker 2: get to participate in and the social aspects between fans
Speaker 2: from thirty three countries. So this virtually will become a
Speaker 2: Kiss Cruise in Vegas, doesn't need a ship. It will
Speaker 2: have all the familiar touchstones that people love about a
Speaker 2: kiss cruise, whether it's bands playing q and as, contests,
Speaker 2: food available, good drinks, social aspects to it. So it
Speaker 2: started in a way that we kind of took a
Speaker 2: step back to see what some other people might do,
Speaker 2: and then we recently found ourselves going, no, this, this,
Speaker 2: this isn't what we want to do or the way
Speaker 2: we want to do it. So there'll be some announcements
Speaker 2: forthcoming and a lot of stuff where people are going
Speaker 2: to be very happy as I am that, you know,
Speaker 2: a kiss cruise there was there's no ships available, but
Speaker 2: a kiss cruise can take place anyway, and to do
Speaker 2: it in Vegas at the Virgin Hotel, it's going to
Speaker 2: be everything that people want and have been hoping for.
Speaker 1: A kiss event in Vegas sounds just as good to
Speaker 1: me or better than a cruise.
Speaker 2: I mean, it will be great, you know, and it
Speaker 2: will be a great, you know, fantastic weekend of all
Speaker 2: the things that we've loved and that people loved. So
Speaker 2: whether you're kiss, Army, Navy, you know, cruise or whatever
Speaker 2: you are, this is this is about to to uh
Speaker 2: become much more I mean, we're really excited. So I
Speaker 2: think people should just stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Are you and are you and Gene gonna do any
Speaker 1: perform at all? Is that we are?
Speaker 2: Well, we're going to do a and no makeup set.
Speaker 2: We'll play you know, fifteen songs whatever. And you know, Tommy,
Speaker 2: you know, we're all we're all geared up to do it.
Speaker 1: We are.
Speaker 2: We really look.
Speaker 1: Forward to it. And that'll be acoustic. Yeah that that.
Speaker 2: Oh, that'll be an electric You're going to do a
Speaker 2: full oh oh yeah, amazing, amazing. Yeah, So it's gonna
Speaker 2: it's going to be great. And uh, the other bands
Speaker 2: that are going to be announced, it's going to be
Speaker 2: everything that everybody loves on the Kiss Cruises. I think
Speaker 2: that was missing from what was being planned. And and
Speaker 2: uh we needed to put our big, our big hands
Speaker 2: into this and and and we needed to steer the ship.
Speaker 1: Mhm. Speaking of of of steering the ship, I want
Speaker 1: to circle back to you mentioned Bob Bob Ezrin, who
Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned when you brought him up that
Speaker 1: he really helped up the writing and you know, he
Speaker 1: he did end up getting you know, like writing credits.
Speaker 1: I was always curious what how how was Bob Ezmen
Speaker 1: as a producer, helping craft songs in such a way
Speaker 1: that he you know, I imagine his fingerprint must have
Speaker 1: been pretty strong on on some of those you know,
Speaker 1: well hed it again from arrangement or or totally was
Speaker 1: he once.
Speaker 2: Once we started working with him, the Alice Cooper songs
Speaker 2: all sounded different to me because I went, ah, there's Bob.
Speaker 2: He has a terrific point of view. And also, well,
Speaker 2: we were kids. We we suddenly found ourselves selling millions
Speaker 2: and millions of albums with a live album, and now
Speaker 2: what do we do. We don't want to go back
Speaker 2: to doing what we were doing earlier because it wasn't working.
Speaker 2: So having Bob come in, you know, he he in
Speaker 2: the nicest way. He talked down to us. You know,
Speaker 2: he called us campers. All right, campers, you know, let's
Speaker 2: let's uh, let's you know, reconvene. And for a while
Speaker 2: he had a whistle around his neck. That's prey humbling
Speaker 2: for a band that's selling all those albums. But he
Speaker 2: was also teaching us discipline and raising the bar as writers.
Speaker 2: It was all really really helpful to this day. So
Speaker 2: much of what Bob brought to the band still goes
Speaker 2: lives with me.
Speaker 1: Have you have you? Have you? When's the last time
Speaker 1: you went back, if ever and listened to music from
Speaker 1: the Elder.
Speaker 2: I'd rather not, you know, I think that was that
Speaker 2: was the ship that hit the rocks, you know, it was.
Speaker 2: It was just all wrong. The band was in a
Speaker 2: very fractured place. Peter was no longer in the band.
Speaker 2: Ace was regardless of why, and that's another discussion, but
Speaker 2: I mean he was just inebriated all the time, and
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't like what we were doing. But
Speaker 2: guess what, when we did Destroyer or Love Gun, we
Speaker 2: had to get solos out of him quickly enough before
Speaker 2: he was incapacitated. So you know, we can say, well,
Speaker 2: he didn't like the music, but look, all of us
Speaker 2: were developing in whatever positive and negative ways we were,
Speaker 2: so the Elder Ace wasn't around, we were lost. I
Speaker 2: think it was a progression to a point where both
Speaker 2: Gene and I forgot why we made music and why
Speaker 2: we loved music. It wasn't for the approval of peers,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't to try to get the approval of critics.
Speaker 2: It was because we had a passion for the music
Speaker 2: we made. And incrementally over a series of albums, it
Speaker 2: led us to the Elder and.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It was delusional, and you know, we were just we
Speaker 2: were lost and Bob was lost. We were all lost.
Speaker 2: I could sit for an hour and talk about what
Speaker 2: was wrong with it, but it's just it's contrived. And
Speaker 2: you know, me singing that song the Odyssey sounds like
Speaker 2: Alfalfa trying to sing the you know, I'm the Barber
Speaker 2: of Seville and the and the little Rascals. You know,
Speaker 2: it was just it was it was just not it
Speaker 2: wasn't kiss, But honestly, who was kiss at that point,
Speaker 2: I don't We didn't even know we we had. We
Speaker 2: were clueless. I mean again, Eric was in the band,
Speaker 2: Peter had left, Ace was a wall, I mean, and
Speaker 2: you know, both Gene and I were living kind of
Speaker 2: lives of affluence and and flatulence. I mean it was
Speaker 2: just like, uh, it just it had all gone astray.
Speaker 2: Once upon a time the music had teeth. Now we
Speaker 2: were gumming it. It was just we were lost. So
Speaker 2: would you say it was made in good faith?
Speaker 1: Though? Like was was the intent to was a passion
Speaker 1: at least in the sessions and in the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. You know, we can all we can
Speaker 2: all find ourselves diluting ourselves. We can all find ourselves
Speaker 2: caught up in something that later on you go, like,
Speaker 2: doctor Phil, what were you thinking?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean we did it with the best
Speaker 2: of intentions, but looking back on it, I think we
Speaker 2: all just go, you know, what the hell were we thinking?
Speaker 2: You know, I still remember, you know, both G and
Speaker 2: I were the same. We would play it for people
Speaker 2: and you can't talk. You know, we have to listen
Speaker 2: to you have to listen to this. I remember the
Speaker 2: record company, PolyGram I think at that time, came to
Speaker 2: the studio and god knows what they were expecting. I'm
Speaker 2: sure they were expecting a Kiss album and they sat
Speaker 2: down and Bob gave them some you know, pep talk
Speaker 2: about this amazing thing they were about to hear, and
Speaker 2: when it was over, it was kind of like that
Speaker 2: scene from the producer Springtime for Hitler. They're just sitting
Speaker 2: there not saying anything. I mean, their their mouths were open,
Speaker 2: and you know it was we were lost. I remember
Speaker 2: being on eighth Street in the village and I'm walking
Speaker 2: down the street and it was a poster up for
Speaker 2: the Elder and it was my hand. That's my hand
Speaker 2: on the cover. The poster was just the door with
Speaker 2: my hand on it. And I had like a panic attack.
Speaker 2: It was like, what have we done? So, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, you sometimes you you just bet on the
Speaker 2: wrong horse or just believe believe something that's turns out
Speaker 2: to be not true. We did, we did the best
Speaker 2: we could. Well, we were lost, and that's it we
Speaker 2: could do.
Speaker 1: And then again, there are a percentage of a fair
Speaker 1: percentage of Kiss fans who like that album and and
Speaker 1: and think it's an underrated album and the Kiss Quiver,
Speaker 1: you know, and and so there's something for everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all fifty of those people. The album isn't more.
Speaker 1: Than that you mentioned, you mentioned playing it for PolyGram
Speaker 1: and earlier through through Casablanca, you guys were on Warner
Speaker 1: or or you know, Casablanca was under Warner and and
Speaker 1: you know Warner. The stories of Warner in the day
Speaker 1: being this this sort of you know, bird Bank, California
Speaker 1: hippie kind of vibe. Do you remember going to to
Speaker 1: to Warner brother in the early day, Warner Brothers in
Speaker 1: the early days, and how were you guys received by
Speaker 1: that group?
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers had quite a prestigious roster of artists. And
Speaker 2: when we signed to Casta Blanca, to Neil Bogart's new label,
Speaker 2: I'm not even sure that we were aware or knew
Speaker 2: what it meant to be, you know, a subsidiary of
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers. We did find out rather quickly that they
Speaker 2: hated us, and there was a memo sent basically to
Speaker 2: all of Warner Brothers saying, you know, shit, can you
Speaker 2: know the album? You know? And Neil got off Warner Brothers.
Speaker 2: He took Casta Blanca from Warner Brothers. But yeah, they
Speaker 2: they they were not fond of us.
Speaker 1: Did and did you ever make it out to the
Speaker 1: to the offices or did you ever meet anyone high
Speaker 1: up at Warner in those days?
Speaker 2: No? I again I think that I, you know, for
Speaker 2: all of his attributes and plus is, Neil Bogart was
Speaker 2: almost like a P. T. Barnum. He wasn't He wasn't
Speaker 2: the old school record company president. He wasn't amed Urt again,
Speaker 2: he wasn't Moostin. He wasn't he you know he was
Speaker 2: He wasn't John Hammond. He was he was a different school.
Speaker 2: And whereas they thought of music as an art or
Speaker 2: thought of the musicians as artists. I think he was,
Speaker 2: you know, pretty much saw it as a product. And
Speaker 2: certainly whether it was us or then Donna Summer or
Speaker 2: the Village people, there was a certain heir to the
Speaker 2: company that was promoted differently and was looked upon not
Speaker 2: only differently perhaps by the public, but by Neil. Most
Speaker 2: record companies signed somebody because they believed in them and
Speaker 2: then would nurture them for three albums. Well nowadays, you know, nowadays,
Speaker 2: if you if your first song doesn't do it, you're
Speaker 2: back to the gas station. But so no, Neil, Neil
Speaker 2: was different than what was considered, you know, the the
Speaker 2: hierarchy or that that kind of elite at at record companies.
Speaker 2: So no, I never met I never met anybody at
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers. Uh. That was over so quickly that we
Speaker 2: just had this very insular, insular group of Casablanca promotion
Speaker 2: people and executives.
Speaker 1: How was Neil, Neil Bogart and Bill A. Coin's relationship,
Speaker 1: because they're both very unique characters in your Guys story.
Speaker 2: If there ever was, and I believe there was a
Speaker 2: fifth member to kiss, it was Bill o'coin. Bill was
Speaker 2: Bill was brilliant and much like other things that we
Speaker 2: had done. Bill didn't fit the stereotype. He hadn't been
Speaker 2: a manager, but it felt right with Gene and I
Speaker 2: met him. He innately knew what we needed to do
Speaker 2: and was he was so tuned in, and as time
Speaker 2: went on as a manager, we all looked to him
Speaker 2: almost like a father figure, although he was basically right
Speaker 2: around our age. And he also had a great gift
Speaker 2: for making each one of us feel that we were
Speaker 2: his favorite. So you know, he was dealing with four babies,
Speaker 2: you know, and he was terrific. And whether it was
Speaker 2: Bill's idea was to never be seen without makeup, that
Speaker 2: was Bill, and I was like, oh gee.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was like I want to be famous on the street,
Speaker 2: you know, And Bill said, you know, and you're you're
Speaker 2: never going to be. Nobody's ever going to see you
Speaker 2: without makeup, And I was like what? But he was right.
Speaker 2: Bill was brilliant not to say anything bad about Neil,
Speaker 2: because Neil understood the commercial potential of the band, although
Speaker 2: I didn't, and I don't believe he saw it as
Speaker 2: anything more than a frisbee, you know, just something to
Speaker 2: to to make hopefully be successful for a admitted amount
Speaker 2: of time. He came from a background of Buddha Records
Speaker 2: and some others where they were singles labels with hit singles,
Speaker 2: So there wasn't a real sense of grooming or long
Speaker 2: term potential. But Neil was was you know, Neil was
Speaker 2: part of part of it. I mean, the drums going
Speaker 2: up in the air, Neil's idea. So we were fortunate
Speaker 2: to have people around us or surround us with, surround
Speaker 2: ourselves with people who had contributions to make to us.
Speaker 2: Jean breathing fire, that was Bill's idea. Bill brought in
Speaker 2: a magician one day to the office. What's this guy
Speaker 2: doing here? He breathed fire and scorched the ceiling, and
Speaker 2: Bill said, who wants to do this? And I sure
Speaker 2: as hell wasn't going to do it. And Jeane God
Speaker 2: loved him one like that, and so but again I
Speaker 2: think Bill was thinking much more long term and worldwide.
Speaker 2: From the day we met Bill, he said to Gene
Speaker 2: and I, if you guys aren't interested in being the
Speaker 2: biggest band in the world, I'm not interested. You know,
Speaker 2: he thought, really really big. But he also he thought
Speaker 2: very often quality. That being said, we had kissed me
Speaker 2: the phantom and some other other glorious missteps. But I
Speaker 2: think Bill was very, very very important to the band,
Speaker 2: and I don't think we ever would have succeeded or
Speaker 2: survived as long as we did because the there was
Speaker 2: always a combus stability between the four members of the band,
Speaker 2: and you know, certain although we were united in what
Speaker 2: we were doing, there was also you know, resentments and
Speaker 2: cut and hostilities, all kinds of stuff, and Bill was
Speaker 2: the one who could quell and contain that. So Bill
Speaker 2: was brilliant, he was he was one of us.
Speaker 1: There's that great there's a great anecdote in your book
Speaker 1: about you know, you guys being out on tour early
Speaker 1: on and you come home and you're you know, you're
Speaker 1: making make up a number here, forty dollars a week,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, gosh, maybe you should make it
Speaker 1: about twenty bucks more a week. Let me go ask,
Speaker 1: let me go ask Bill to up this bit. And
Speaker 1: you can go to the office and you show up
Speaker 1: and he's got like a hole in his shoes. You're
Speaker 1: just like, uh, oh, let me not Bill.
Speaker 2: Bill put two hundreds and I remember this is early seventies.
Speaker 2: Bill had two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I believe
Speaker 2: one is an American Express card funding US. I don't
Speaker 2: know how he pulled that off, but thankfully when kiss
Speaker 2: Alive took off, that got taken care. But Bill for
Speaker 2: being a really dapper, great dresser, and very fastidious in
Speaker 2: the way he looked, and very upscale. He had his
Speaker 2: shoes up on the cross on the on the desk,
Speaker 2: and he had a hole in the bottom of his shoe.
Speaker 2: And I remember too him having a hole in his
Speaker 2: sweater that was held together with scotch tape from the back.
Speaker 2: So you don't go in there and say, hey, how
Speaker 2: about another twenty bucks. So but yeah, I think that
Speaker 2: if you experience those things in your life properly, you
Speaker 2: think of them as things that you'll look back on
Speaker 2: at some point fondly. And there were a lot of
Speaker 2: things that went on in our life where I said,
Speaker 2: one day, I'll look back on this as the good time.
Speaker 2: So the magical times.
Speaker 1: That was wonderful, man, it's amazing. It also goes to
Speaker 1: show again just the luck of kiss Man that you
Speaker 1: guys avoided the trap of the manager who's gonna you know,
Speaker 1: and I get you guys eventually parted, but in those
Speaker 1: crucial early days. You know, you could have had a
Speaker 1: manager that really screwing you over. But here's this guy
Speaker 1: walking around the hole in issues. We can finance you know,
Speaker 1: the dream, you know, and keep you. That's just it
Speaker 1: just was like such a beautiful little anecdote that showed
Speaker 1: how dedicated this person was, and that wasn't always the
Speaker 1: case for a lot of people. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think though as far as getting ripped off
Speaker 2: or robbed, and nothing to do with bill a coin,
Speaker 2: But I say to people, show me a band that
Speaker 2: hasn't been ripped off, and I'll show your band that
Speaker 2: doesn't know.
Speaker 1: It yet, you know.
Speaker 2: So that's it's not whether or not that happens, it's
Speaker 2: how you bounce back from it.
Speaker 1: Well, I have a million more questions, but you know
Speaker 1: I want to I want to just say thank you
Speaker 1: for thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: You know. I'll try to maybe make it out to
Speaker 1: Vegas because that sounds exciting.
Speaker 2: It's kind amazing great. I mean, the best is yet
Speaker 2: to come. I mean, once we really unfurl the flag
Speaker 2: and let everybody see what this event's going to be,
Speaker 2: they'll be celebrating and so will.
Speaker 1: I beautiful, so great to meet you. Likewise, in the
Speaker 1: episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of
Speaker 1: some of our favorite Paul Stanley tracks. Be sure to
Speaker 1: check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to
Speaker 1: see all of our video interviews, and be sure to
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Speaker 1: is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help
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Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmon