Kiss legend Paul Stanley recalls wild life of sex, drugs, rock and roll
HE WENT from being a “fat kid with one ear” to a rock star who bedded a bevy of Playboy Playmates. Kiss singer Paul Stanley looks back on his wild life.
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KISS frontman Paul Stanley wants to watch Kiss playing live without him.
Not due to illness (it’s only happened once in 40 years) or simply taking a breather.
Rather Stanley believes Kiss is immortal and will continue on once he’s hung up the feathers, codpiece, jumpsuit, platform boots, big hair and Starchild make-up for good.
“Kiss is immortal,” Stanley says.
“I look forward to a day when I’ll see Kiss play without me,” Stanley says. “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 US rock band formed in 1973 and have survived several line-up changes due to ego, death and drama and weathered everything from low sales to high guitarists.
Frontman Stanley, 63, and Gene Simmons, 65, are the last two original men standing, but the singer insists everyone in Kiss is replaceable, even them.
“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.
“If someone else can be a great frontman and reflect the philosophy of Kiss, it doesn’t have to be me. Is there someone else out there either in their teens or early 20s now who is going to pick up the torch? I’m sure there is.”
Stanley is the first to point out that an all-new rebooted Kiss would still be called Kiss.
“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. If I say that the band can have personnel changes and still be Kiss, why would I exclude myself from that? I feel very strongly about it.”
The last decade has changed Stanley’s mind on his life in Kiss. It’s no longer his entire life like it used to be, rather just a facet of it.
The healthier mindset began with his second marriage in 2005 and having three children in five years, in addition to his oldest son, Evan, now 20.
“My life is wonderful,” Stanley says.
“There are so many performers and actors who don’t want to go home because they have nothing. Their lifeblood and oxygen is adulation and recognition and without that they wilt and wither. I see guys in other bands who have to be out on tour because they’re miserable without it. Well, roll up your sleeves and get a life. It will only enhance what you’re doing. At the end of the day it’s great to have people fantasise about who you are but at the end of the day you always have to face who you really are.”
Stanley did that last year by writing his refreshingly honest autobiography Face the Music, a candid book that wiped away more than the make-up
He documented an unhappy childhood, anti-Semitism in his own band and being so lonely he’d be eating soup in a deli alone just hours after playing a sold-out Madison Square Garden.
Yes, there was a string of ladies — including on Kiss’ first tour of Australia in 1980, where the band were so popular they were prisoners in their five-star hotel rooms. Except unlike actual prisoners, they had a string of Penthouse Pets providing a special kind of room service.
“I’ve always had a soft spot and a not-so-soft spot for Australian women,” Stanley jokes.
That makes him sound like his bandmate Gene Simmons, who skipped the usual rock star addiction to drugs for bedding thousands of women instead.
“I love women,” Stanley says. “But the idea of having intimacy with a woman is totally contradicted by putting it out in the press. Publicity is an betrayal of intimacy.”
And while he’s no stranger to the perks of mammoth, global fame, he also remained aware of the aphrodisiac power of being a rock star.
“For a fat, unpopular kid with one ear to look up at the mirror on the ceiling and see the Playmate of the Month ... I mean, pinch me,” Stanley says.
The missing ear was due to a congenital deformity called microtia, which meant he only had a stump and was deaf on the right side, relying on a hearing aid and later reconstructive surgery, all covered in his book.
“If the goal had been to write one of those rock books I wouldn’t have bothered,” Stanley says. “Most of them are fantasy and self-congratulatory rather than trying to help anybody or connect with anybody. I wanted to break down the walls of the star system where you think the person you look up to is any better or any different or any more together than you are. You can look up to people and their imperfections and know their struggles are no different to yours.”
Stanley has had two hip replacements and may need another — directly linked to jumping around on stage in gravity-defying platform heels during Kiss’ heyday.
“With youth comes the sense of invincibility,” he says. “It’s not that different for athletes, you don’t realise the damage you’re doing until it’s too late. I have no reason for anybody to feel sorry for me, but do my knees hurt? Hell yeah! I’ve done my body in. But it’s been glorious doing it.”
It’s not just his rock-star hips that have taken a battering on the job; Stanley’s voice has notably changed over the last decade, due to good old fashioned age, not chemical abuse like some of his contemporaries.
“The fact is it really is about biomechanics,” Stanley says. “People don’t realise that singing involves a muscle, which is your vocal chords. As you age, they stiffen. It takes more air to make them move so they don’t vibrate the same. Singers undoubtably sooner or later wind up phrasing differently, singing differently.
“If there’s any consolation, it’s in looking at all my contemporaries and we’re all in the same boat. Any of the singers I know, when we see each other, we invariably all talk about the task of singing things that decades ago you understandably never thought you’d still be singing. But that’s the reality.”
Considering many of Kiss’ 70s hits have sky-high vocals, that can be problematic.
“It’s a challenge,” Stanley admits. “Some people handle it quite differently. Some people decide (to go beyond) lowering keys to change melodies. Being as politically correct as possible, the truth of the matter is that some people elect to forgo singing the songs they once did and instead find something else perhaps they’d rather do, but in fact rather don’t have that much choice. There’s enough people out there singing songs with a melody that certainly wasn’t the original.”
For many years Stanley was adamant the world didn’t need new Kiss material and that people certainly didn’t want to pay money to hear new songs at Kiss concerts.
A solo album in 2006, lit a creative fire and since then there’s been two new Kiss albums, 2009’s Sonic Boom and then Monster three years later.
A handful of songs from each are now in Kiss’ setlists but Stanley is the first to admit that nothing they do now will ever match the popularity of their classic hits.
“The new songs can never be Love Gun or I Was Made For Lovin’ You,” he says. “Songs in some ways are like wine. They either age well or they don’t. The ultimate test of music is how it ages. It’s interesting to hear something that 20 or 30 years ago sounded mighty and you hear it now and it sounds dated. Or things the critics once saw as juvenile or simplistic ironically sound timeless now. Time tells all.
“Do I think that some of the new songs are as good as the old? Absolutely. Some of the new songs will age and become classics. (1983’s make-up removal soundtrack) Lick It Up is a Kiss classic at this point. At one point it was just a new song. (1998’s) Psycho Circus is turning out to be one of those songs the whole audience sings. But you’re battling against people’s memories and people’s connection to songs. They’re a sonic snapshot of a time in their lives. It’s hard to beat that. What makes a classic? Time. Today it’s a good song, tomorrow it’s either forgot or it’s a gem.”
Stanley’s book also provided closure to any romantic notion fans may have for a reunion with original members Peter Criss and Ace Frehley.
Stanley and Simmons put aside years of bitterness to invite the two ex-members back into the lucrative fold for a reunion tour in 1996, that followed years of dwindling interest in Kiss HQ.
However Stanley admits their lack of musical skill meant the original Kiss swapped their trademark quality for nostalgia. By 2004, after both members had missed various tours and reverted to old habits, both were out of the band, this time for good.
Tommy Thayer, who joined Kiss by osmosis as a super-fan and tour manager, resumed duties as guitarist with drummer Eric Singer.
“It was a sin to be given this amazing opportunity to pick up where we left off and go forward,” Stanley says. “Instead we picked up and just dropped it again. People can point fingers all they want, but in the end what you accomplish is the only thing that can be your alibi. I’m here today, and someone else isn’t. It’s funny when a former member says ‘Can you imagine the former tour manager is in the band’. And I’d say ‘Can you imagine a guy who made millions of dollars twice and lost it all?’ You pick the story you prefer.”
Last year Kiss were finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, after years of being bypassed for less famous but supposedly cooler acts.
“The one that always speaks volumes is Patti Smith,” Stanley says of the artist inducted in 2011. “Patti Smith to this day is horrible and has nothing to do with rock and roll. Her big hit song (Because the Night) was a co-write with Bruce Springsteen. Who loves her? Seymour Stein. Who probably signed her. (Rolling Stone publisher) Jann Wenner. People who are clueless and only choose to validate themselves.”
They may now be (belated) members, but Stanley and Simmons are no fans of the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.
“It has the potential to be something to terrific and instead it’s something so distorted. You have a committee of music executives and magazine executives who are deciding who they want in their club and ignoring the general public. The average person on the street probably knows 40 per cent of the people in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. That says volumes. I know the past few years they were scrambling to find out who was left from their private club they hadn’t gotten in. The roster speaks for itself.”
Kiss were inducted by Rage Against the Machine guitarist and lifelong Kiss fan Tom Morello; which Stanley believes was key in their induction.
“Tom went to bat like a crusader. That was his mission, to get Kiss in the Hall Of Fame. Because they respect Tom they kind of went along with it. He plays with Bruce (Springsteen), he’s in Rage Against the Machine and he’s political so he must know something. The more Tom Morellos and Dave Grohls the better.”
While Kiss accepted being inducted last year, Simmons and Stanley refused to perform with Frehley and Criss, despite online petitions. All surviving members of Kiss were on stage together, but the band did not play.
“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,” Stanley says of Frehley and Criss. “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?’”
Stanley goes into depth about what went wrong with the original line-up reunion in his book, including embarrassing stories of the ex-members virtually being taught how to play Kiss songs again and problematic partners.
“I didn’t write anything to assassinate anybody’s character. I wrote the truth. If someone asks you a question you have to tell the reality as you know it. As you live it. I gave examples. I’m the first to say I didn’t throw anybody under the bus but some people walked under it. People connect the original line-up to a time in their lives. Neither one can you realistically go back to. You want to relive your past, well try it, it doesn’t really work. I certainly don’t want to relive mine. Mine got me to here.”
The singer says he never read Ace or Peter’s books, which don’t paint him in the best light.
“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.
“It’s very transparent to me. That doesn’t only go for any guys that were in the band it goes for people in general. You’re either a victim in life or you brush yourself off and say it’s up to me.
You’re either a victim of your parents’ good will or their mistakes or a victim of circumstances you create or you say it’s time to change. It’s all up to us. And we reap the rewards.
“Fame is incredible in its power to either enhance your life or destroy it. I’ve always been of the mindset it’s an incredible tool to give you everything you want and things you never knew you wanted. It’s just how you choose to view it and what you use fame to accomplish. It gives you the ability to have limitless potential as a person and as a musician. The rest is up to you.”
Stanley admits his 20-year-old son Evan is following in his musical footsteps.
“He’s a fabulous guitarist and singer/songwriter but he came to it on his own,” Stanley says. “Nobody wants to be Frank Sinatra Jr. That’s a cross to bear that’s way too heavy. I didn’t want my kids to have to be my mini me. So for Evan, I never approached the idea of him playing an instrument. He took piano lessons when he was little, one day he came to me when he was 12 and said he wanted to play guitar. I said `Great, here’s three chords, see ya’. The rest was up to him.
“The one thing I did say was whatever you want to play, if you love rock, you have to go back to the blues. The deeper your foundation, the sturdier whatever you build is. With that in mind, remember Jimi Hendrix didn’t start playing Purple Haze. If you like Jimi Hendrix you have to listen to what he listened to. Otherwise you just become a mimic. There’s a big difference between somebody who’s mimicking Eric Clapton and someone who’s going back and listening to Robert Johnson and working his way from there.
“My son and I have great conversations about Motown and folk music from the ‘60s, things I was lucky enough to see, like Otis Redding. If you all you listen to is what you like and what you’re playing then it’s kind of like inbreeding. You wind up with a kid with an eye in the middle of his head. The most important thing is to expose your children to all of the arts, everything. If my parents did anything great for me it was exposing me to fine art, to theatre. Those are gifts. They can be an avenue or a map for you to take to express yourself.”
Stanley is now hooked on Cardio Barre, an aerobic workout for dancers he does with his wife Erin.
“I’m in a class with 35 or 40 women, which doesn’t suck,” he says. “It became very addictive for me, I go maybe five times a week. It’s a terrific workout. I miss that more than almost anything else being on tour. Apart from my family.”
His young family means Stanley now curtails touring so he’s never away from home for longer than a few weeks at a time.
Kiss will squeeze a return to Australia in October, bringing their Spider Tour down under for the first time.
Stanley says fans can expect 1980 single Shandi, which was only really a hit in Australia.
“It seemed to become embraced more by Australia than almost any other place. That’s terrific. I like the song a lot. I like the simplicity of the idea of a relationship that should end, but you just keep it going. You say goodnight when you really should say goodbye. And I’ve met numerous young woman in Australia named Shandi.”
Kiss, Perth Arena October 3, Adelaide Entertainment Centre October 6, Rod Laver Arena Melbourne October 8, Allphones Arena Sydney October 10, Newcastle Entertainment Centre October 12, Brisbane Entertainment Centre October 13. On sale 2pm March 26, Ticketek.
Originally published as Kiss legend Paul Stanley recalls wild life of sex, drugs, rock and roll
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