Paul Stanley brings up a good point, should bands carry on without any original members?

I was listening to the radio the other day and they had an interview with Paul Stanley from KISS. He was talking about how KISS is like an NFL team where you have new players and the team keeps going. You don't just retire the team once all the original team members are gone. Paul thinks KISS can keep going on even without him and Gene. I kind of see where he is coming from but I don't really agree with that concept because it's not really KISS anymore. Sure they could keep singing the old songs but what's the point in that other than to keep collecting royalties? I guess him and Gene see it more as a business than I do.

 

This will never happen. It's just Paul's way of excusing having two guys in Ace and Peter's costumes and personas.

Everything Paul has said in the last two years makes me hate him. There's just no sugar coating it for me, he's a small, petty man. He obviously had a lot of social difficulties growing up and he's never grown out of it, no matter how much he claims to be happy and grounded.

Everytime Paul goes onstage now it's an absolute trainwreck vocally. If there was a chance or a desire for a KISS without Paul it should have happened already.

Again, this will never happen. Okay, maybe a one off show, but that barely counts. It would be diminishing returns until there was nothing left at all.

 

Someday you'll learn about the greatness of all KISS.

 

There have been bands where members have been in high rotation but there's always been some continuity in either main members/songwriters. You're right, they do see it as more of a business. To them it's not only a band but a brand. It's something they can market.

 

So, Paul and Gene view Kiss as a corporation rather than as a Band? Didn't see that coming...

 

All original members gone, so is the band

 

You read the thread wrong.

 

What's new? Kiss has always been about the brand. They were the first rock band to blatantly invent a product to bring to market, exploit and promote, just like any other mass-produced supermarket product. Why would they want to treat it like a unique group of guys in it for the music?

 

I guess it's possible but just like the NFL some of the versions are going to really, really suck.

 

Depends on the band, Would Gillian, Glover and Morse be considered Deep Purple?

 

Let's throw Fleetwood Mac into the discussion.

 

Paul has always had a diplomatic nature which is sometimes false humility.
He's a master of both.
Maybe the best PR front man ever.

 

There are certainly gospel groups that do this all the time. It's interesting. You typically have a thing where one founding or main member is a towering influence, but it still keeps going after his passing or his retiring -- think of the Blind Boys of Alabama or the Zion Harmonizers with Sherman Washington. I've seen the Zion Harmonizers at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, without Sherman, recently, and they're really not bad at all -- in fact they are quite good -- but it is certainly not the same thing as it was seeing the same group in its heyday a couple of decades back.

There are also a couple of New Orleans-style trad jazz bands that continue on with old names, and it's basically just attrition and slow change over time, until it basically becomes led or booked by the current owners of the trademark, and not all of those bands are a bad thing, either! There is a group of younger guys currently using the name Dukes of Dixieland, who have no actual musical affiliation with the original group, other than an overlapping but mostly-continuous line of random changing members, dating back to 1974... but they're really great musicians and have a lot of fun with it.

 

not a huge Kiss fan, tho saw them a few times ca. 1976-78, but I kinda see the point, sorta......i mean, when i see the Harlem Globetrotters still going, i think, what, no Curley Neal? No Meadowlark Lemmon? CAN'T be the Globetrotters I remember!!! But....the people who might like them with their kids, don't care WHO is in the Globetrotters!!!!!!! And yeah, Kiss or any band is not a sports team, but i saw an ad on TV for a "Summer of Love 2016 Cruise", with such psych faves like Herman's Hermits, Gary Puckett, The Grass Roots, etc, and one knows NONE of the original 'Roots are in that band, nor the Hermits excepting Peter Noone, but i bet Kiss could easily replace the guys, as long as the singers sounded like Stanley and Simmons.....future fans wouldn't know the difference!!!!!

 

Certainly the costumes and make up make the members of Kiss more replaceable than most other bands.

I would not be shocked if they had used a replacement at some point when someone was sick or otherwise unavailable and just not told anybody.

 

No! The Metropolitan Opera should disband immediately. They're a bunch of frauds. They have no original members, don't play their own instruments or write their own songs and sometimes they dress in sillier costumes than Kiss.

 

Here's the problem.
I agree too, that because of the KISS image, with the costumes, it's possible.
But that's not what Paul is solely referring too.
If he is, then he's now admitting that KISS has always been primarily a marketing scheme and is about business, not Rock and Roll.
This is why KISS has lacked credibility in so many circles, and now Paul is just giving them ammunition for their age old argument.

 

As a lifelong KISS fan let me throw in my 2 bits...

Paul is right in that they have set themselves up since the Reunion tour that they can drop members in and out and it doesn't really effect their bottom line; they still do great numbers live. But like most classic acts they don't sell much in terms of new music.

So ultimately there could be a "KISS Las Vegas" or some kind of touring circus. Sustained interest is the question. I'm in it for the music Gene and Paul create, so a revolving door of Spacemen, Cats, Demons and Starchildren does nothing for me.

PS - I like Tommy and Eric Singer as musicians, but them wearing the make-up of Ace and Peter does rub me the wrong way.

 

Yeah, I'll believe this when Gene and Paul both retire from performing and let two other guys take their places. Ain't gonna happen and they'd hate it if it did.

Maybe, just maybe, a totally re-staffed Kiss team could continue as a touring band, but it's very unlikely they'd be able to sell new recordings. And they wouldn't be playing stadiums.

 

is musical collaboration a business venture?

 

Okay so not a Kiss fan so the first comment is kind of negative but I think your use of the term "circus" is appropriate. Secondly it appears to me that this marketing team created "characters" to perform the songs and that the newer performers have simply adapted the persona of their characters and not a particular person.

 

Heck, they are halfway there already, why stop now?

 

Nobody is gonna pay full ticket price for an entire group of replacements. So, they won't be able to do the big, over the top show....which is pretty much the main reason to go see Kiss in the first place.

 

Yes. I think it has always been so. In order for any artist to live out their creative drive and inspirations there is a business component that allows them to continue in as much as that artist intends to sustain a living from their artistry.

 

The Sons of the Pioneers are still around: http://www.sonsofthepioneers.org/

I wonder if their fan base got all excited when Leonard Slye left back in 1938 and changed his name to Roy Rogers.