Kiss News

Shock rock band doing it �for the fans� 20 albums in

By Francois Marchand, Vancouver Sun

Canadians have always embraced KISS.

In the shock rock band�s early days, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss were playing rooms a far cry from the arenas and stadiums they are now known to fill with pyro and solid rock thunder.

�Canada has always been great to us,� Stanley said in a recent interview with The Vancouver Sun. �Our first tour included lunch rooms and cafeterias of schools in Edmonton and Calgary when nobody knew who we were. So we�ve always had a great time, whether it�s in Moncton, Sudbury, Lethbridge � places where people go, �What are you doing here?� and we say, �You don�t decide where you�re born but we decide where we play.��

Forty years later and with a 20th studio album in tow � the old school, Detroit-style rocker Monster � little has changed about KISS�s philosophy: Rock and roll all night, party every day.

Doing so, KISS continues to offer a fan-oriented experience like no other band can, a recipe that has generated millions of KISS Army members, and licensing and merchandising revenue like few acts on the planet boast.

Celebrating the kickoff of its latest Canadian tour with a press conference at its KISS Army Depot pop-up store at Vancouver�s Tom Lee Music, KISS was staking its claim that fans have always craved the merch.

�The whole idea with the KISS Army Depot was to let the fans run their own store,� Stanley said. �It�s a guerrilla store, so-to-speak. It circumvents the big business and it allows the fans to have the say of where it goes.�

A number of the pop-up stores have appeared across the country in some of the cities where the band will be stopping: Victoria, Edmonton, Calgary � even though the recent flooding has forced the band to cancel its performance � and Toronto.


Shock rock band doing it �for the fans� 20 albums in

By Francois Marchand, Vancouver Sun

Canadians have always embraced KISS.

In the shock rock band�s early days, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss were playing rooms a far cry from the arenas and stadiums they are now known to fill with pyro and solid rock thunder.

�Canada has always been great to us,� Stanley said in a recent interview with The Vancouver Sun. �Our first tour included lunch rooms and cafeterias of schools in Edmonton and Calgary when nobody knew who we were. So we�ve always had a great time, whether it�s in Moncton, Sudbury, Lethbridge � places where people go, �What are you doing here?� and we say, �You don�t decide where you�re born but we decide where we play.��

Forty years later and with a 20th studio album in tow � the old school, Detroit-style rocker Monster � little has changed about KISS�s philosophy: Rock and roll all night, party every day.

Doing so, KISS continues to offer a fan-oriented experience like no other band can, a recipe that has generated millions of KISS Army members, and licensing and merchandising revenue like few acts on the planet boast.

Celebrating the kickoff of its latest Canadian tour with a press conference at its KISS Army Depot pop-up store at Vancouver�s Tom Lee Music, KISS was staking its claim that fans have always craved the merch.

�The whole idea with the KISS Army Depot was to let the fans run their own store,� Stanley said. �It�s a guerrilla store, so-to-speak. It circumvents the big business and it allows the fans to have the say of where it goes.�

A number of the pop-up stores have appeared across the country in some of the cities where the band will be stopping: Victoria, Edmonton, Calgary � even though the recent flooding has forced the band to cancel its performance � and Toronto.

�Our sympathy goes to anybody who has to live through a natural disaster,� Stanley said of the Calgary cancellation during the band�s press conference Thursday. �Calgary is a great example of the resilience people have. We stand with them and, as soon as we can, we will be going back to try to cheer everybody up a bit.�

If in 1973 KISS�s brand of hyper-sexualized, overly macho rock draped in leather costumes and trademark symbolic characters makeup were made to shock � Stanley�s Starchild, Simmons� Demon, Frehley�s Spaceman and Criss� Cat Man � today the band is an instantly recognized and respected entity.

�The media said, �They are cannibals, they�re from outer space.� We ignored all that stuff,� Simmons said. �That�s all kid�s stuff � do what you and don�t worry about what people think or say or anything. When we started out, we played our instruments, we wrote our songs � we got on stage and we were who we were.�

�It was shocking when we first started out because it was new,� Stanley said. �You had the magician pulling the rabbit out of the hat. Ultimately, you have to have content. Maybe the shock value is gone, but now it�s a monument, an institution. It�s something that�s lasted 40 years.�

Buoyed by its fan base, KISS was a modest shocker hit early on.

Albums like KISS (1973), Hotter Than Hell (1974) and Dressed To Kill (1975) contained more than a few songs now considered band classics (Strutter, Deuce, Rock and Roll All Nite), but it wasn�t until the band�s first live album Alive! that things really took off, thanks to a concert-styled compilation featuring KISS�s singular live energy and a raw, nerve-slicing edge courtesy of producer Eddie Kramer.

A slick re-invention thanks to Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd) with 1975�s Destroyer made them a band that would hit the top of the charts with Beth, a decidedly un-KISS piano ballad sung by Criss.

The �80s and �90s were not as glorious: The band removed the masks, faced upheaval and multiple lineup changes, and faltered.

It wasn�t until they put the makeup on again that KISS thrived once more, finding renewal via 1998�s Psycho Circus (which yielded the first concert experience incorporating 3-D visual elements) and continuing via the solid Sonic Boom (2009) and last year�s surprising Monster, the latter two produced by Stanley and Greg Collins.

Asked if he took some inspiration from Ezrin or Kramer to rejuvenate KISS�s sound, Stanley said: �Truth be told, there have been times when we had people who got producer credit who weren�t much more than engineers. Bob Ezrin was a producer. Certainly I think of him often when we�re in the studio � �What would he do?�

�But, you know, I�m fortunate enough to have seen some of the greatest bands play when I was a kid � Zeppelin, Humble Pie, the Stones, Derek and the Dominoes. Perhaps what we brought to the band now and in the last few albums is something that�s classic and timeless. I think the band sounds better than ever.�

Simmons heaped praise on Stanley�s design of the band�s latest live show, which features a spider-like stage construction that�s arguably the most advanced KISS fans have ever seen.

Stanley made it clear that even though the band�s current band members may one day call it quits (Eric Singer now sits behind the drums instead of Criss and Tommy Thayer plays Ace Frehley�s licks), he would like KISS to live on forever.

�I think I�m really great at what I do but I don�t think there isn�t someone else that can do it at least as well,� he said while answering a question during the band�s news conference.

�There was a time when everybody said, �Oh, it�s gotta be the four original members.� Well, those people are 50 per cent wrong now. I will be proud to be replaced at some point, because it only means KISS is everything that I hoped it would be. I�d like to sit in the audience and see the greatest band without me in it � but not any time soon.�

After cancelling 36 years ago, Kiss finally plays for Victoria tonight

Mike Devlin / Times Colonist

For a contingent of long-suffering fans, tonight�s Kiss concert at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre will be the realization of a dream 36 years in the making.

A crowd of more than 6,000 is expected to watch the legendary rock group play its first-ever concert in Victoria tonight at the Blanshard Street venue. In the audience will be longtime fan Steve Barrie, who has waited decades to see the band perform in his hometown.

In fact, Barrie has been waiting to see the group behind the hits Rock and Roll All Nite, Beth, and I Was Made For Lovin� You since July 25, 1977.

That was the infamous date of a Kiss concert scheduled for the former Memorial Arena, which was cancelled three days before showtime.

�I wasn�t originally allowed to go, because I was nine years old,� Barrie said.

The mother of one of Barrie�s childhood friends eventually bought him a ticket for what would have been the last stop on the band�s 15-date tour of Canada.

�It was a big deal,� he said. �Everybody at school was showing off their tickets.�After cancelling 36 years ago, Kiss finally plays for Victoria tonight

Mike Devlin / Times Colonist

For a contingent of long-suffering fans, tonight�s Kiss concert at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre will be the realization of a dream 36 years in the making.

A crowd of more than 6,000 is expected to watch the legendary rock group play its first-ever concert in Victoria tonight at the Blanshard Street venue. In the audience will be longtime fan Steve Barrie, who has waited decades to see the band perform in his hometown.

In fact, Barrie has been waiting to see the group behind the hits Rock and Roll All Nite, Beth, and I Was Made For Lovin� You since July 25, 1977.

That was the infamous date of a Kiss concert scheduled for the former Memorial Arena, which was cancelled three days before showtime.

�I wasn�t originally allowed to go, because I was nine years old,� Barrie said.

The mother of one of Barrie�s childhood friends eventually bought him a ticket for what would have been the last stop on the band�s 15-date tour of Canada.

�It was a big deal,� he said. �Everybody at school was showing off their tickets.�

For decades, rock fans in Victoria have speculated about why the concert was cancelled. It has lived on in local lore � a framed ticket to the show used to hang on the wall in Legends Comics on Johnson Street � in part because of the cancellation. Close to 5,000 fans were expected to attend.

When the concert was called off, the Victoria Times ran a news story under the headline Kiss Goodbye Leaves Arena Brass Furious.

There was speculation that Victoria police had shut it down, or the fire department. Others blamed the band�s excessive use of pyrotechnics, which might have torched the roof, setting the insulation ablaze.

The official reason, according to John Bate, the Memorial Arena�s assistant manager at the time, was the lack of trusses in the venue. There was no way to hang the vast amount of production elements Kiss used in its set, Bate said.

�The reason they gave us was that there wasn�t enough rigging points. I guess they had such an elaborate setup, it wouldn�t have worked.�

Like Barrie, diehard Kiss fans Clark Mantei and Donnie Black also missed out on the 1977 concert. All three will be in the room tonight. Each one said he wouldn�t miss it for the world.

Barrie was once a member of the Kiss Army, the group�s legendary fan club, and often wore his members-only Kiss gold chain to class at Margaret Jenkins Elementary.

Black, who frequently dresses as Kiss bassist Gene Simmons for functions, has seen Kiss perform nine times since 1988, while Mantei owns what some consider one of the biggest Kiss memorabilia collections in existence. He even plays drums in the Kiss tribute band, Arise.

Tickets for the 1977 concert cost $9.50; seats for tonight�s performance top out at $126, plus service charges. If his first Kiss show is anything to go by, Mantei expects a stage show unlike any other in Victoria.

�When I saw them in Tacoma, Wash., on Aug. 31, 1996, I was laughing and crying and singing,� Mantei said.

�It was like living a dream. All these years later, it was great to see how great they really, really were.�