The Tapes Archive

Marc Allan: Where are you today?

Paul Stanley: I’m in Toronto.

Marc Allan: Things goin’ okay?

Paul Stanley: That would be a lack of respect for how well things are going. I’d say, they’re going okay. I think it’s common knowledge that they’re not going okay. I think it’s common knowledge that they’re going amazingly well.

Marc Allan: Well that’s on the outside, but you never know how they’re going inside.

Paul Stanley: The closer you get, the better it looks.

Marc Allan: The last time I saw you was in ’74. So, am I gonna see a, I’m gonna see something better than I saw in ’74?

Paul Stanley: Absolutely.

Marc Allan: Really?

Paul Stanley: Sure this leaves that in the dust.

Marc Allan: Why? How?

Paul Stanley: We’re better. Musically we’re better, but more importantly, we’re just better at what we do.

Marc Allan: Is that just from years of practice?

Paul Stanley: Yeah, I guess each one of us has become better as an individual and that goes into multiples. You know potentially it multiplies when you put it together. Kinda what happens on the Richter Scale with an earthquake. Each number up is actually multiples of the one beneath it. So if you put the four of us together, you’ve got something pretty potent.

Marc Allan: Does it feel different on stage with Ace and Peter, compared with let’s say, Bruce and Eric?

Paul Stanley: Absolutely, it’s different, amazingly comfortable, and familiar. It’s as though we never stopped. I’ve always had you know, tremendous feelings for both Bruce and Eric. And they’ve been nothing but champs about us going out and doing this. But, this is the foundation of everything that came after it. You know, this monument, this building that we’ve built over the last 20 years, as Kiss, has to be built on a pretty solid foundation. And Ace, Gene, Peter and myself are the ones who built that foundation. So, it’s solid and very familiar.

Marc Allan: You mentioned that everybody had to be clear-headed. How important was that, was that the real key element?

Paul Stanley: Well it was a prerequisite. I wouldn’t think of this unless everybody was clear-headed. And that means not only the obvious abuses, you know substance abuse and alcohol abuse, which fame comes every poison known to man, and you just pick yours. The obvious ones and the most fatal, are the drugs and alcohol. But it’s very easy to succumb and become addicted to a bunch of parasitic friends, or hangers-on, or business associates who will do everything from tell you that you’re the second coming to you know, telling you you should be making films. You forget sometimes that those people have their own agendas, either cash in their pockets, or you may be paying for the roof over their head. You know, in the most true sense. So, or you’re paying their salary. As I said, you pick your poison. And what we had to make sure was that everybody was free of those and that everybody had reached the point where they would stop pointing fingers of blame at the people around them and look in the mirror and say, “I did it.” That was a prerequisite to everything. I mean I don’t need the money, don’t need the aggravation, and don’t need to immerse myself in something that I struggled free of. No money’s worth that. So this has to be on the proper terms.

Marc Allan: Do you personally avoid like most of that, I mean it seemed like, you know, I mean I think Ace’s substance problems and Peter’s for that matter are pretty well known. Are you pretty all right? I mean as far as-

Paul Stanley: Yeah, absolutely. You know, once you’ve seen somebody put a gun to their head, and pull the trigger and you see the results, you’re not exactly keen on doing it yourself, unless you’re a complete idiot. Yeah, I mean, drugs are suicide. And anybody who doesn’t see that needs glasses.

Marc Allan: Is this reunion a one-shot deal, I mean are you guys together for the long haul?

Paul Stanley: I have no idea. I mean really the only way to do this, and enjoy it is to not think about the future. The future will come if we take this a day at a time. But, in terms of recording, or what goes beyond this tour, we have no idea. As long as this is fun for us, we’ll do it. When it stops being fun, we’ll go home. There’s nothing more transparent to an audience than a band on stage that isn’t getting along.

Marc Allan: And a band that is having fun is obvious too, do you think?

Paul Stanley: It’s absolutely, it’s obvious and it’s contagious.

Marc Allan: Yeah, you said that Bruce and Eric were very, were wonderful about this. I mean do you, how do you leave it with them? I mean did they-

Paul Stanley: We really had to leave it. You know, we had just finished with them, arguably the best studio album we’d done in 10 years. But, this came along and it was clearly the right time to do it, and we all sat down and talked about it. And in a perfect world, they would rather be on tour, but they realize that this is something that we have to do. And as fans they understand it.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I was gonna say, they had to be Kiss fans, so they must really appreciate this too.

Paul Stanley: Sure.

Marc Allan: Let me see what else I wanted to ask you. Are you gonna play Terre Haute, Indiana, do you know?

Paul Stanley: You know, we don’t know right now. We are trying to play every arena possible. We’re in the enviable position that we can’t fill the demand for tickets in any city. In New York, we sold four nights at Madison Square Garden in 45 minutes. That’s 60,000 tickets. And after that 45 minute period, the phones didn’t stop, or the demand stop. What stopped was our time availability to play New York. We could’ve done 7 shows. Detroit was 40,000 people in about 40 minutes. We’re really trying our best to play to as many people as possible. And right now, we’re trying to stay in arenas, as opposed to going into stadiums, really for the benefit of the fans. Right now, we’re trying to do this in the classic sense, which was an arena tour.

Marc Allan: Clear up a couple of rumors for me, would you? One, is that you were going to play, you were supposedly going to play two shows in Indianapolis, but the first show did not sell out quick enough for the band and therefore that’s why there’s only one show here.

Paul Stanley: I would doubt that seriously. We are planning to return to most cities, but we’re also in a tight time schedule, because we leave for England the beginning of next week, to headline the Monsters of Rock Festival over there. So, we’re trying to get as much under our belt before we leave.

Marc Allan: And it sounded kind of absurd.

Paul Stanley: But it’s also absurd, because if it sold out but not quick enough that’s, what’s the criteria for not quick enough. It only sold out in two hours, instead of one.

Marc Allan: Right.

Paul Stanley: You know, clearly if you sell a show out, that quickly it’s a demand that goes beyond that.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I think there’s no doubt about it. But, you know how fans are.

Paul Stanley: Sure.

Marc Allan: That’s what they say. I have an acquaintance here who has scheduled his wedding to be on August 9th, the day you will be here, and he called me up frantic, because you originally supposed to play here in July. Got pushed to August 9th. And he was going to cancel his wedding to be at your show. So you know that’s the kind of fans that you have.

Paul Stanley: And that’s so great, you know. It’s very easy for bands now to pay lip service and say they have the greatest fans in the world. But the line sounds awfully familiar and it rings a whole lot more true when it comes from us, because there are no fans like Kiss fans. They wrote the book and they are the standard by which all other fans are judged. There’s nobody more devoted, more honest, we have fans that stand by us, but make it clear to us, when they’re not keen on what we’re doing. We don’t want that blind kind of worship, clearly when one album outsells another, or when one tour does better than another, the fans are telling us, you know they’re speaking. And we listen.

Marc Allan: Another rumor if you would, and that is that you guys are doing this basically because you want to help Peter and Ace financially.

Paul Stanley: Absolutely not. Again, if this weren’t done with the right spirit and with the right intent, it would never had happened. That never was an issue.

Marc Allan: Two or three other things. One, I’ve been asking everybody I interview for another story, have you been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and what do you think of the idea?

Paul Stanley: I’ve not been there, and it sounds awfully boring to me. And it sounds to me a complete contradiction to what rock and roll is all about. A rock and roll hall of fames and rock and roll hall of fame dinners in black tie would probably make Elvis and a whole lotta other people roll over in their graves.

Marc Allan: Although Elvis has plenty to roll over about without worrying about that. Thank you, thank you very much. I’ll be in the lounge.

Paul Stanley: Thank you very much, thank you very much, but.

Marc Allan: I’ll be playing in the lounge all week, anyway.

Paul Stanley: No, I find all that stuff irrelevant, and completely you know of no interest to me. Monuments to rock and roll and award dinners. These are like the Friars and the Masons. I put rock and roll as a reaction to all that.

Marc Allan: So you went, in 1999, when Kiss is eligible, is Kiss gonna get in?

Paul Stanley: That’s not for me to say, but rest assured, I’m not losing sleep over it.

Marc Allan: Apparently not. so, I guess when you had a hit in Cleveland, that’s not gonna be the place you spend your afternoons.

Paul Stanley: I love Cleveland, but it has more to do with what Cleveland has given me. It has little to do with awards.

Marc Allan: And if you wouldn’t mind, would you recollect for me what you have about the founding of the Kiss Army here in Terre Haute.

Paul Stanley: In the early days of the band, when we were not being played on radio and not being taken seriously, the Sands under the direction of Bill, do you remember his last name?

Marc Allan: Starkey.

Paul Stanley: Yeah, Bill Starkey decided that an uprising was necessary and called the radio station and gave them a deadline to play Kiss music by a certain hour, or the troops would assemble around the radio station. And the radio station thought that this was very funny, but nothing to take seriously. Lo and behold, when the music wasn’t played, the Kiss Army arrived. Suffice to day, Kiss music was heard in Terre Haute. You know, what has always been most important to us, and what we always held dearest to us, is that our fans are dedicated and willing to stand up for what they believe in. That beats any Rock and Roll Hall of Fame trophy or prime rib dinner, you know, in a penguin suit. I have 70 million of ’em. And it speaks a whole lot louder than from broiled chicken and cold vegetables at the Waldorf Astoria.

Marc Allan: I actually, I’m gonna talk to Bill Starkey and wondered what was Bill like? Was he a pain in your ass, or was he-

Paul Stanley: Not at all.

Marc Allan: No, okay.

Paul Stanley: You know, that kind of devotion you know should be everybody’s, I mean that should be the worst that anybody ever gets. What could a band want more than devoted fans? We’ve been living in a time now, where bands get up on stage and either look at their shoes, or complain about how terrible life is. No wonder most music listeners are scratching their heads, ’cause it’s sure not a reflection of any life that I know.

Marc Allan: Yeah, that’s been pretty good for you.

Paul Stanley: Well, you know life is good. Life is great. This is America. We all have an opportunity to live the American dream and if your life isn’t good, you have the ability to make it good.

Marc Allan: So, your feeling about Bill is-

Paul Stanley: That he was a trailblazer in the early days of the battle for world domination.

Marc Allan: And I guess I should ask you this, since he’s a, well I mean basically his feeling was he had a nice ride with the band for a little while and sorta feels like he should’ve gotten a bit better treatment, a bit better piece of the action. And I guess you probably have a lotta people over the years, who feel that way, or maybe think that way too. Is he wrong or right?

Paul Stanley: I appreciate everything that Bill did. And of course, I appreciate the spirit in which it was done.

Marc Allan: Okay. All right, anything else going on with you, the tour or anything that you want me to let people in on, that we haven’t talked about?

Paul Stanley: No, we’re just leaving a heap of rubble behind us, okay.

Marc Allan: Yeah, but it’s gotta be great. It’s gotta feel good, man. People still-

Paul Stanley: It’s the greatest. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as satisfying to be playing for an audience that wanted a stroll down memory lane. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as satisfying to play for an audience that wanted to relive its past. As it is, to play for the audience that we’re playing for, which I’d say is overwhelmingly people who’ve never seen us. And have heard the stories about us, or seen old footage of us and really is only judging us by what they listen to today. And that’s how something has to stand up. It can’t live on its past. The coolest thing about seeing it, is time has stood still. And you will see the band that you saw in ’74.

Marc Allan: Sounds good. Listen, I appreciate your time. Glad things are going well and see ya’ Friday night.

Paul Stanley: Nice talking to you.

Marc Allan: Take care.