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