Kiss News

Harleys, headbangin' and cage dancers? Just another day at an LA KISS game.

By Morty Ain | ESPN The Magazine

Photo: Ray Tamarra/WireImage; Illustration by Gabriel Moreno

ORDERING EYEBLACK BY the barrel isn't part of the game plan for most professional football clubs, but all that changed the day a team agreed to call Los Angeles home. In August 2013, KISS frontman Gene Simmons and bandmate Paul Stanley brought the game back to the City of Angels when they cofounded the Arena Football League's LA KISS. Not since the inception of the forward pass has the game undergone such an extreme makeover. Well, the fan experience part anyway. Despite a 3-15 record in their inaugural season, they have become the AFL's marquee franchise. Here's Simmons on the secret sauce behind the success:

Why KISS entered the world of football ...
Well, opportunity knocks probably only once and you don't get another chance. You don't have to be a genius to look around in perhaps the second-largest market in America, Los Angeles, and see it doesn't have a professional football team of any kind. Arena football is cool. For one thing, you don't have to mortgage your home to buy tickets -- $99 for season tickets, what's wrong with that? It's air-conditioned, no matter rain or shine or anything else. It's comfortable. You don't have to travel a mile for the food. If you want to pee, it's right outside the door. It's all good. It's also much faster, much more in your face. It's actually more aggressive. What we do is to make sure you don't have a chance to dip your chips every time the ball goes down on the floor and people are huddling.

The goal of every LA KISS game ...
To make it the Super Bowl every game. That's exactly the idea because you have to be honest with yourself. Although there are a lot of football fans, there aren't 100 million football fans, come on. Just like when you go to the Kentucky Derby, everybody that goes there doesn't necessarily know anything about horse racing. They go there for the spectacle. It's a must-see event. And if you take away the spectacle that is the Super Bowl, the music and the fireworks, if you take away all that, what do you got? How could you have cheerleaders without music? And when the guys run out to the field, isn't that music that heralds their arrival? Don't teams -- if they are lucky -- have their own anthem? Words to those anthems mean something: This is who we are, this is what we stand for. So that's what we try to do, and we've been very successful because in one season, our very first one, we were the only team in the AFL to pull at least 10,000 people to every home game. That's unheard of. What other AFL team had a reality show on the air? You've got to try to break new ground and not do what grandpa used to do. Welcome to the 21st century. Any fireworks that you see at a KISS show should be at our LA KISS events -- it shouldn't be just a football game; it should be an event!

What to expect at an LA KISS game ...
We have full live rock bands -- nobody playing tapes. When the band sings it's real, it's live. We have extreme sports people doing full 360-degree flips on motorbikes. We have our Junior KISS Girls who are 10 to 12 years old -- cute as a button -- and they all do their dance routines to music. We have laser light shows. Our dancers are A-level athletes. Some of them are hanging in iron cages 50 feet above the ground above the goalposts. The opening day we had our guys levitating down from the ceiling, 80 feet up in the air. Basically, if you mixed up KISS and football you'd get LA KISS, which is profoundly and accurately why it's called LA KISS.

On Jon Bon Jovi's and Motley Crue's involvement with the AFL's Philadelphia Soul and Las Vegas Outlaws, respectively ...
Never heard of them. I know that one of the guys was involved in Arena football. I don't know if the other guy respectfully is going to be involved, but I keep hearing the same things you do. But look, when you're running a race you can never look over your shoulder to see who is behind you. You just run your race, look forward and be the best that you can be and good luck to anybody who wants to get into the game. But we've never lost in ventures. We're serious about it. One of the first things that I tried to do was bring concerts and music and glamour and glitz to KISS ventures. I mean what's Caesar coming back after a successful war without trumpets heralding his arrival? What is anything without music? What's church without music? What is sports without music? Think about it: When these guys train, you think there is nothing going into their ears? I mean music is really the soundtrack of your life. Anything from Mantovani all the way to Chopin. But if you're doing anything having to do with adrenaline, you're probably listening to KISS.

Simmons on the state of the NFL ...
Football has gotten bigger, and if football doesn't watch what it's doing, something else is going to come along, something more exciting. Maybe it's Arena football, maybe it's extreme fighting, whatever it is. Look, people have the attention span of gnats. Yes, there are team rivalries based on "my city is cooler than your city." I get it, it's always been about that, but you don't have to do that just in football. It can be in anything. Listen, the NFL invited me to sing the national anthem in a few stadiums, including the game at Wembley Stadium in front of 80,000 people, and I was proud to do it, so the NFL does a great job. But hockey is exciting, so is basketball, so is lots of stuff. Everything can coexist, but if the only thing you're doing is what you're doing, you've got to give more and music is a good "more." I don't mean just something for your ears, I mean the visual experience of music. And this is nothing new.

Simmons on the state of MLB ...
There is still a grandmother playing an organ of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." I mean, really. You got to be careful, baseball used to be America's pastime, but really it's not anymore. A few years ago a consortium, including myself, tried to buy the Dodgers. And it is stuck in the muck and the mire. It's stuck in the past: the outfits, the games. The first thing I wanted to do was to bring in baseball cheerleaders and have a theme song, like all this branding stuff. You should have heard the uproar, "Well that's not how we do things!" Really? Says who? Who is the rule maker? Baseball is an exciting game, but while the pitcher is lining up and looking around to think about which ball to throw, everybody is just dipping their chips and talking to each other. I would speed it up. I would install a time limit. You've got to throw that ball whether you're ready or not in 10 seconds or less. If not, it's an automatic ball.

What to expect next season from LA KISS ...
We are certainly going to scale back on special occasions. The ceiling levitation thing cost a fortune -- 250 grand just to do the opening spectacle because there were so many fireworks. We can have people rappelling 100 feet up from the rooftop. We play at the Honda Center and some of the other arenas we play at have very high roofs, so anything is possible. Why can't you do that with music, and people coming down in parachutes or jet packs? Give them a show!

On the response he's received from the football community ...
Not a clue. I never looked around, I never asked anybody how they feel about it. It's beside the point. I'm sure there are lots of people that wish us well, and some people who don't. I mean what's Christmas without Scrooge? But you can't let the Scrooges of the world stop you from having a good old time and enjoying Christmas. As far as I'm concerned, every day is Christmas -- of course we call it KISSmas -- and I'm the guy that brings the presents. I'm coming down your chimney whether you want me to or not.

On attempting to sign Tim Tebow to the team ...
I was very vocal about it [circa September 2013]. We didn't even talk about it as a team. I was just talking about it, not as a press angle or anything, but as a matter of ethics. If any one of our guys gets caught in a bar fight or impregnates a girl without being responsible, they are out. I don't care how well you play. And remember when people, and the media, started making fun of him because he's a religious Christian? So he gets down on one knee and crosses himself. What's the problem with that? He's a good family guy, doesn't use drugs as far as we know, doesn't kill or torture dogs and is not facing a murder charge. As far as I'm concerned, football could use more Tim Tebows. Clean it up! There are kids watching.

www.SongFacts.com

The LA Kiss finished their first season in the Arena Football League with a 3-15 record, but did so with all the fanfare, explosions and bombast you would expect from a team owned in part by KISS members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons.

In this conversation with Stanley, he talks about bringing the KISS approach to football, and explains why the band is so much more than their music.

Roger Catlin (Songfacts): When I first heard of the L.A. KISS arena football team, I thought: Kiss may not know football, but they certainly know arenas, after four decades of touring.

Paul Stanley: We know arenas and we also know the point of view of trying to give people more for their money, give them an event. The same rules and laws that have made Kiss successful for 40 years apply to pretty much anything else you want to do. I always feel that rather than second guess other people, if I fulfill a need in myself, I will do the same in other people.

I'm not a sports aficionado but the idea of being able to take my kids or go with friends to see an event that not only brings in the gladiator competition but is also spectacle - great women dancers, BMX bike riders, pyro - that's why we came into the AFL.

The AFL, in my way of thinking, is the black sheep of football. LA Kiss is the black sheep of the AFL. But clearly we're doing something right because in spite of whatever our record is to date which gets scrutinized much more as a starting team understandably, we had 8,000 season tickets sold for this past season and we'll hopefully double that for the next.

Songfacts: How does this square with Kiss the band, though?

Paul: For us, I think that Kiss is much bigger than rock 'n' roll. It's a way of life, it's a way of viewing challenges, so it made perfect sense. It wouldn't to most bands, but let's face it, most bands aren't the sharpest pencils in the box.

Songfacts: Was there skepticism in the league when Kiss came in to buy a team?

Paul: Sure. Of course. The league, interestingly, for as much as they want to promote themselves, I think there was a certain reluctance that we would overshadow them, which really had to be calmed because anything that's good for LA Kiss is good for AFL.

Songfacts: How do you think Kiss managed to last 40 years?

Paul: I think that clearly we're a little bit more insightful, a little brighter, a little bit more motivated, and also know how to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves. And somehow, for some people, that's counter the rock mentality, which is somebody else's loss.

I didn't do this either to become a dead legend or to wind up working in a car wash talking about my hit record from 10 years ago.

Songfacts: Does your show change when you go out on tour?

Paul: Coke ran into a big problem when they came up with New Coke. Why do you need New Coke if Coke is selling? If you want Pepsi, you can buy it.

So I think for our fans, they want something that's identifiable. You could say brand identity, I say band identity. You want something that immediately harkens back to the beginning in some way or fashion. In fact, we're always moving forward. It's 40 years on. But to assume a new identity every time we go on tour would be completely counter to everything we're about. We are as we appear.
 

Songfacts: Do you change the set?

Paul: I designed this latest stage set, which is arguably our best. People believe, and I'm in agreement, it's probably the best stage that we've had. We're not going to suddenly come out in red leather this year. We're not going to paint our faces green. We are Kiss. And arguably we're the most readily identifiable band in the world. We can go anywhere in the world and show somebody the photo and they may not know the individual names, but they'll tell you that's Kiss.

Songfacts: I was thinking more of the song list when you're on tour. Does that change?

Paul: Well, we're in this enviable position that's also our cross to bear. We have so many songs that are considered classics, that it's hard to shift the set very much because people expect to hear certain songs.

Look, we don't come and play every week. So if you come and see us every couple of years, you get to hear a certain stable of songs. Perhaps we'll change up four or five of them, but it's tough when you have that many songs.

Songfacts: And people want to hear them all.

Paul: Yeah.

Songfacts: Who are you seeing in your audiences these days?

Paul: It's a terrific audience because our audience at this point is almost tribal. It's gone beyond a rock concert. You have fathers bringing their children, you have families coming. Rock tends to be very age-specific, demographic-specific, whereas with us, that doesn't apply.

Most concerts, you don't want to see your little brother there. God forbid you see your dad there. But at Kiss, everybody is part of this huge secret society, so it has a very different feel to it. Some parents bring their kids almost as a right of passage.

This is much bigger than rock 'n' roll. I always say: Kiss is a phenomenon. Rock bands make music, phenomenons impact society.
 

KISS IS EVERYWHERE!

Here's a KISS vs. MOMOIRO CLOVER Z billboard outside Shibuya Station in Tokyo, Japan.

The collaboration single will be released on January 28. It will be released in two versions � "Momoclo Edition" and "KISS Edition" � via iTunes in 120 countries.

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KISS will bring their 40th Anniversary Tour to Estacionamento Do Estadio Nacional in Brasilia, Brazil on April 24,  2015.

A KISS Army Fan Club exclusive VIP/Meet & Greet package pre-sale will take place beginning at 10 a.m. Friday, January 23rd. Regular pre-sale tickets will also be available beginning at 10 a.m. Current KISS Army members may sign in here.

If you are not a member, join the KISS Army now at http://www.kissonline.com/kiss-army for access to the Brasilia, Brazil concert pre-sale.

Public on-sale begins Saturday Jan. 24.

KISS� Simmons and Stanley open up about the role food plays in their lives, what it was like growing up as New York City kids, and the successful expansion of their restaurant chain, Rock & Brews

The Daily Meal - Kristen Oliveri

They might be known for the glitz, the glamour, the in-your-face rock-star attitude, but Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are simply sons of immigrants who grew up in New York City. That said, these guys know their stuff when it comes to food thanks to many years of traveling the world, trying different cuisines, and understanding new cultures. Stanley in particular has found a deep appreciation for cooking. His California home boasts a brick oven where he makes pizza and other creations for his family.

Stanley was born in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City to a German mother and a first-generation Polish father who made sure the family understood the value of a decent meal.

�They understood dining and savoring a good meal, which I learned at an early age,� he said. �I think to cheat your palate by limiting your foods is like cheating your ears by listening to bad music.�

The Concept

The concept for the original Rock & Brews was a basic one: to create a fun atmosphere with great food and paid a tribute to rock and roll, Simmons said. And what better way to pay homage to the music they loved than to highlight micro and craft breweries to add to the overall essence of the restaurant?

�We want to remain consistent with what we do, but the Rock & Brews in Kansas is different than the one in Cabo. Our focus is local. There is local fare and local breweries that we incorporate onto our menus,� Stanley said. The menu also boasts gluten-free offerings, as they wanted to commit to serving the growing gluten-free community. �We didn�t want those with gluten intolerance to have cardboard mac and cheese. We wanted to circumvent that,� he said.

Simmons echoed his sentiments, noting they do not use any frozen products and use only the freshest beef for their signature hamburgers. Simmons takes pride in the restaurants� layouts for being wide open spaces that encourage patrons to walk through their kitchens. �You can see our chefs tasting their own dishes. If it�s not good, they throw it out,� said Simmons.

Expansion Plans

The first Rock & Brews location opened in the picturesque beach community of El Segundo, California, just south of LAX, in April of 2012. Today there are restaurants in Redondo Beach, California; Los Cabos, Mexico; Paia, Maui; Overland Park, Kansas; and Oviedo, Florida, among others. The brand is also entering into the airport and arena concept as well. They currently operate in LAX and arena locations will be announced shortly, they noted.

The overall growth pattern is 25 percent a year and they plan to launch five new locations in 2015 domestically but also in Australia and Japan.

�The idea for the restaurant is certainly about the diversity of its locations, but it�s the quality of the food that keeps it all together,� said Stanley.

When asked when Rock & Brews will hang a shingle in their hometown of New York, Stanley said with a smile, �When the time is right.�

Birthday wishes to the Ultimate Rock Star - Paul Stanley! We hope you have an amazing day celebrating with your family!

Here's our birthday boy, Paul Stanley rockin' "100,000 Years" with KISS.

Here's the MOMOIRO CLOVER Z vs KISS "YUMENO UKIYONI SAITEMINA" Music Video. The collaboration single will be released on January 28. It will be released in two versions � "Momoclo Edition" and "KISS Edition" � via iTunes in 120 countries.

KISS will rock Barcelona, Spain on June 21nd!

Thanks to Surferdadi for sharing the photo!