The veteran heavy metal group, Kiss, is joining a growing list of classic acts putting out new music through the world's largest retailer.

"Sonic Boom" is due to be released only at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores on Oct. 6. The three-disc package will include a CD of the band's first new music in 11 years, re-recorded versions of famous Kiss hits and a live DVD.

Graycap23 said:

The Kiss 3 CD/DVD set is going to be $12, too! Has Prince started a new trend for releasing 3-discs sets at a low price and still keeping rights to the songs?
I'm pretty sure that's why Kiss re-recorded their hits....so they can have the rights to the new recordings. There's no way a record co would let them, Prince, or anyone else release 3 discs for $12.

DerekH said:

No. Prince isn't the first to release a CD at a fair price exclusively through a retailer. Garth Brooks, The Eagles, Tina Turner, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Lionel Richie, Barry Manilow and a ton of others have done the same thing.



You obviously don't know your KISS history.

I'm rooting for them but as far as I know they haven't written a good song in over 20 years. Songwriting gets in the way of marketing and deifying himself (Gene), so that's pretty much a no-no.

don't get me started on Kiss. But like I said, I'm hoping for good things.

ernestsewell said:

Those others that u speak of, were they 3 cd's of new material? What was the average price of that material?

ernestsewell said:

I know Prince wasn't the first to do an exclusive with one of the "big box" stores, but did all those others do a 3-disc for $12 or something close to it?

I was guessing on the Kiss re-release thing, usually doing a re-recording is a way to not have to pay royalties to whatever record co did the original release.

I

DerekH said:

You only know that because Prince has said so. Read up on your KISStory though.

ernestsewell said:

OK, I know a little about the band's background:
Originally signed to Casablanca Records (founded in 1973), debut album came out in 1974, last studio album was "Psycho Circus" in 1999.
Gene and Paul are the original members still in the band. Paul's real name is Stanley Eisen, Gene's is Chaim Witz, Ace's real first name is Paul, Peter's full last name is Criscuola.
Lead guitarists after Ace left: Vinnie Vincent, Mark St.John, Bruce Kulick, Tommy Thayer. Drummers after Peter left: Eric Carr, Eric Singer.

How about that?

The cover is atrocious. Did the band hire the Paisley Park art department as a means to reduce costs?

DerekH said:

KISS basically own every single thing they ever recorded, every video, every documentary, every endorsement, every comic book etc...they were easily the originators of this kind of franchise. Though some may not like Gene Simmons and the way he speaks at times, and think he has an ego etc... well he should, he knows the business, and knew it very early on, thats why the HOUSE is in order

so then why DID they re-record?

errant said:

too bring more attention to the project, i mean they have about 40 different variations of their hits released, a box set etc...i dont think a new album by them at this point would be a big selling point for Walmart, so those extras are tossed in mainly because Kiss pretty much has a die hard audience that will buy it all.

lastdecember said:

if the first new album in 11 years isn't enough of a selling point, i seriously doubt re-recorded hits, when there are so many collections out there already, is going to help matters any better.

Copycat said:

According to Billboard.com, they hired the same artist who did the "Rock and Roll Over" cover. It kinda looks like it, too:

errant said:

Well thats the way they did it, maybe they were tired of the shitty sounds, and wanted to do things over, who knows, bands do these things, maybe they know its a final album or final whatever and they want something special. If they cared about selling they would have put the old versions on their for customers who dont own any KISS, so this is not a get more people in to buy, they have their following they arent going to get any new KISS fans almost 40 years into their careers

lastdecember said:

Someone knows their KISStory. You're right on track with what I was alluding to earlier.

lastdecember said:

ernestsewell said:

I didn't know they owned the masters and publishing on their older releases, Since Casablanca was bought out by Mercury/Polygram Records, and Polygram was later bought out by Universal. The remastered CDs are released on Mercury Records/Universal distribution.

I knew they had rights to the band name and logo and stage clothes and makeup designs. Gene's even trademarked his own name (I don't know if the other guys did, too). This is how they make all that $$ in merchandise sales.

New Inteview
October 2009

"Look at Kiss culture," says Gene Simmons, radiating pride. "People tattoo their bodies with Kiss faces, name their children after our songs, have Kiss conventions.
"This is Planet Kiss; we just live on it. The stage is holy ground, and what we do is electric church."


Holy hyperbole! The kabuki kibitzers of big-top rock are back in greasepaint and spandex, armed with a new album and a fresh stage spectacle to solidify a legacy built on thundering riffs, pyrotechnics, superheroic role-playing and hucksterism.

The singer/bassist, 60, and guitarist Paul Stanley, 57, are meeting in the Sunset Strip office of manager Doc McGhee to chat up Sonic Boom, Kiss' 19th studio album and first since 1998's Psycho Circus. The album, out today exclusively at Walmart, is a three-disc set with a CD of re-recorded hits and a DVD of a Buenos Aires concert packaged with 11 new songs. It's $12, "the price of a sandwich," Simmons crows.

The band began writing last spring, rehearsed tunes in May and recorded in June, wrapping up Boom by mid-July. Reviews have lauded the album's return to the crunch and muscle of '70s classics Destroyer and Love Gun.

"To describe the process: Stop trying to show off and get in touch with what happens naturally," Simmons says. "Through the years, we've wandered and had other agendas, one of which was to make critics happy — with The Elder (a 1981 concept album), and to follow the dance thing — with I Was Made for Lovin' You (a disco track on 1979's Dynasty). We've played around with symphony orchestras and boys' choirs. The thing that changed the game was touring this last year and getting a tsunami of e-mails and letters asking 'Where's the new record?' "

Crafting Boom was one of the easiest and most joyous projects in the band's 36-year run, Stanley says. But he would not have stepped in the studio without the title and authority of producer.

"In the creative process, democracy is vastly overrated," he says. "The whole idea of everybody having a say is terrific, but in the end someone has to make a decision. We've had some failed attempts in the last decade or two at trying to make a great Kiss album. I have to chalk that up to having band members who perhaps had the wrong priorities or no priorities.

"I didn't want any outside writers. What you wind up with is somebody's interpretation of what Kiss is. Who knows better what Kiss is than Kiss? I wanted to capture the spirit, the hunger of the band at its best."

Guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer flesh out the Kiss lineup, replacing originals Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, who have had a rocky history with the band and made their most recent exits in 2003 and 2004, respectively. To those who suggest their absence diminishes Kiss, Stanley snaps: "Put Willie Mays in a baseball uniform and see how well he hits. The magic you remember isn't there.

"Quite honestly, the whole idea that there were four people putting in the same amount of effort is nonsense. Never happened. This is the band in its ideal form. No other lineup could have made Sonic Boom."

Kiss Army still a force

Fans certainly seem satisfied with the overhaul.

"Kiss remains an international phenomenon, (and) the Kiss Army remains strong," says Ray Waddell, Billboard's editor of touring, noting that the current U.S. leg of the band's Kiss Alive 35 tour, a global trek launched in 2008, is ahead of projections. "With Kiss, I believe reputation has more to do with selling tickets than any new album. Like a lot of other heritage rock acts, Kiss' audience is multi-generational. The difference with Kiss is the band has always had huge appeal to young male teens, and the visual aspects of their shows are particularly engaging to the YouTube generation."

The Kiss fan base is steadily replenished by youngsters, says Detroit-based music journalist Gary Graff, who caught the band's Sept. 25-26 launch at Cobo Arena, where 1975's Alive! album was recorded.

"I was struck at the Detroit shows by all the little Genes and Pauls and even Aces who were running around, 8- and 10-year-olds who had their faces made up," Graff says, describing the band's appeal as "four guys strutting around in makeup and giant boots, blowing fire, spitting blood, blowing things up. Kiss is a comic book come to life with no pretense of being anything other than entertaining. It's the ultimate Guitar Hero experience, and both the songs and the themes — sex and rock 'n' roll — are so elemental and base that they have a timeless and cross-generational appeal, the kind of thing people never get tired of.

"As for Sonic Boom, I don't think we're looking at another Destroyer here, but at least it sends a message that the group is, if you will, alive and trying to add to its legacy."

Will the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame add to that legacy? Eligible since 1999, Kiss is among nominees for the 2010 induction. Hall of infamy is more like it, Simmons says.

"It's a nice organization, but it's like the Boss Tweed days in New York, back-room politics where 10 guys from Rolling Stone decide who gets in," he says. "Tutti Frutti, I get it. The Eagles, I get it. But Madonna? Show me one iota of rock in that. You've got a little headset and the track playing in your ear and dancers on stage. Come on! If you're not playing guitars and drums, it ain't rock."

Stanley's conflicted, as are Kiss fans, he says.

"There are days I'm not sure I'd consider it being inducted or indicted," he says. "We're already a member of a very exclusive rock 'n' roll hall of fame. We've lasted this long. We've influenced people in every form of music, from Garth Brooks to Lenny Kravitz. There are doctors, politicians and street sweepers who cite us as influences. We've made our mark. If somebody wants to invite us into their club, that's fine."

Giving critics the kiss-off

Kiss, long a popular target of the music press, has never kissed up to critics and vice versa, though the same revisionism that upgraded Led Zeppelin over time seems to be casting a kinder light on the Kiss saga.

"Art to me is the name of a nice guy," Simmons says dismissively. "Critics never understood. Put them on a roller coaster: Everyone else has the time of their lives, and critics say, 'What does it mean?' They missed the ride.

"Anytime we meet a new band, they say, 'We cut our teeth on your records.' When you see fireworks at Paul McCartney's show, where do you think that came from? 'N Sync? Why should I care about critics when we have 3,000 licensed products, 35 years of touring and every band in the book pointing to Kiss as the pivotal reason they wanted to do something big on stage?"

Ah yes, the Kiss mantra: sex, dough and rock 'n' roll. The Wal-mart pact includes Kiss Korners stocked with branded goods from fleece blankets to wigs to M&Ms. Could it be that some detractors are simply appalled by a mercenary band's pipeline of 3,000 trinkets?

"I'm appalled it's not 6,000," Simmons cracks.

He props his foot on the coffee table, pulls his wallet out of his silver-tipped cowboy boot and flashes a Kiss-logo Visa card. At the other end of the spectrum: the Demon, Starchild, Spaceman and Catman faces on new cheesy Mr. Potato Head collectibles.

"Couldn't wait to do it!" he says. "Dorks rule, baby."

Stanley is puzzled by knocks against the Kiss assembly line.

"We'd be idiots to put out things fans don't want," he says. "The idea that we're genius businessmen is ridiculous. If someone says, 'Gee, I'd like a belt buckle,' we give it to them. And anybody who says, 'I'm only in it for the music' will find himself washing cars and wondering where the money went. Gene and I believe in working hard and making no apologies for what we get for the hard work."

Besides, touring and merchandise are crucial lifelines to offset losses incurred by piracy.

"You grab an album and leave a store, they put you in handcuffs," Stanley says. "And yet someone on the Internet can decide whether or not I get paid. File-sharing, that's like me stealing your car and telling you I'm sharing your transportation."

'What we do isn't charity'

Illicit downloading is one reason the band resisted recording new material for a decade, says Simmons, sneering: "These freckle-faced college kids have destroyed an entire industry by stealing. I don't believe in socialism and, the last time I checked, what we do isn't charity."

It's drug-free, fun-driven capitalism with zero tolerance for rock-star clichés that glamorize self-destructive behavior.

"When we first became very successful, everyone fell prey to their own vices," Stanley says. "Drugs, alcohol, women, sycophantic friends. There are piranhas just waiting to put one arm around your shoulder and the other in your pocket. That rock 'n' roll lifestyle is a cartoon, and it's pathetic. You're either a laughingstock or you die. Being a musician who lasts 40 years is nothing short of hard work."

For all their swagger and ego, Simmons and Stanley say they're humbled by the band's longevity and express enormous respect for the Kiss Army.

"We're privileged," Simmons says. "There but for the grace of God, anyone of us would be asking the next person in line, 'Would you like fries with that?' What have I got to complain about? I'm filthy rich. I've been there, done that and owned the T-shirt with my own face on it."




http://www.usatoday.com/l...boom_N.htm

Yeah, the cover is "classic KISS". It's just distasteful in a very retro way.

Seems like the artist himself installed Photoshop just last year, though.

The album is straight ahead Kiss, they bonus disc on the deluxe with the new versions of hits, is actually done quite well, the playing is really good.

The set comes with a booklet containing an autographed pic of the band and complete lyrics to the new tracks. The cover art I mocked in a previous post doesn't look bad at all on the actual product.

Gene Simmons: The Billboard Cover Story
October 2009

It would be hard to come up with a more prominent rock'n'roll bassist than Gene Simmons of Kiss. The Kiss co-founder, reality TV star and entrepreneur has his fingerprints on virtually all segments of the music industry. Born Chaim Witz in 1949 in Haifa, Israel, and the only child of a Holocaust survivor, Simmons ignited the Kiss explosion in 1972. The band remains a touring, licensing and merchandising powerhouse, and it launched the U.S. leg of the Kiss Alive/35 tour Sept. 25 in Detroit. The group released "Sonic Boom," its first album of new material in 11 years, Oct. 6 exclusively through Wal-Mart and Sam's Club.

As was demonstrated last year in his keynote at Billboard's Touring Conference, when Simmons deigns to impart his worldview it's a wild ride, and his Billboard Q&A is definitely no exception. Spiced with a series of nearly unprintable (but admittedly funny) jokes, Simmons offers his unique take on merchandising, branding, professionalism and owning our children.

What is the biggest myth about Kiss?

That there's some grand master plan. That we're brilliant beyond belief, that we're masters of merchandise and all that stuff. That's giving us a lot more credit than we deserve. It's a simple idea. When you love something, and people use the word "passion," you tend to look at every rug and pick it up and see what's under it.

For argument's sake, if you're a stamp collector worth your salt, you'll know every minutia about it, you'll spend all the free time you have, above and beyond your job, because you love it. And you'll know every obscure stamp, which date it came from, what condition it's in, what's the marketplace. You'll know about it because you care about it. So everything begins with a tug of the heart.

People see this cold business savvy and it starts the other way around. It starts with, "Wow, I'm in Kiss"; everything else is the what-if, could-it-be, what could it be? You start with a dream without limitations. It's only when we wake up that we say, "It's not going to happen, it probably won't." Never listen to people, and believe in your own dreams.

My point of view is "Earth," that's not such a cool name for the planet. "Planet Kiss," now you've got something. If every inch of ground is Kiss ground, and the air you breath is Kiss air and the food you eat is Kiss food, then we've got something. Brand everything. And you should pay us for every step along the way.

Was there any sort of creative objective when you started?

Well, before Kiss there was no template. There was Disney off on the left-hand side, with their cartoons and lifestyle branding. If you were a little kid, your life was filled with Disney, you covered yourself in Disney clothing and wrapped yourself in Disney sheets, and the Disney movies had some kind of Good Housekeeping seal of approval. And over on the right side you have the world of rockers, which is inhabited by morons. There but for the grace of God we'd all be asking the next door neighbor, "Would you like some fries with that?"

We never went to school, we never learned to read or write music. We still can't, none of us. [Paul] McCartney to this day cannot write a single shred of music. Nor can [Mick] Jagger or [Jimi] Hendrix if he were alive, and so on. We all do what we do by the seat of our pants, except some of ours are made out of leather and are tighter.

Musically was there an objective for Kiss?

The template was the Beatles. Kiss always fashioned themselves as the Beatles on steroids, with lots more makeup and higher shoes. The idea was everybody sang, everybody was a star, instead of the Stones kind of model or the Temptations or those kinds of bands where there's one singer and everybody else is in the background. The thing that I loved about the Beatles is they all looked like they came from the same Beatle mother. It was like the perfect band in terms of look, merchandisable, eternal. Except they never trademarked their haircuts or anything much about their faces. Kiss was the first band of any kind to ever trademark their faces. It's in the Library of Congress. Which is why 35 years later there are literally thousands and thousands of things with our faces on them, anything from Kiss M&Ms to Kiss Mr. Potato Heads and Kiss Visa cards. We have Kiss Kondoms and Kiss Kaskets. We'll get you coming, we'll get you going.


Why aren't we talking today about merchandise from Wicked Lester, the band that first brought together Kiss' original members?

Because Wicked Lester never had the legs, it just didn't have the right spin. Wicked Lester was kind of like the United Nations-you had one of everything in it. You had a Norwegian, an Italian, two Jews and a partridge in a pear tree. It was a Doobie Brothers kind of band, where if you take a look at it there's one of everything, but you can't quite put your finger on what it is.

The perfect bands for me were bands that had a sound you could instantly recognize, and you could not take a member of the band and put them in another band. I love U2 and the Stones, but I could take the Edge and stick him in the Kings of Leon and nobody would know. You could take Charlie Watts and stick him in Dave Matthews Band and nobody would know. There's a kind of facelessness to most bands.

We wanted an audiovisual band, because as kids we went to see all of our favorite bands because we loved the music. And then we went to see them live and they turned their backs on us and stared at their shoes. It was such a big visual disappointment. So the idea with Kiss was, "Let's put together the band we never saw onstage." Because there was plenty of good music. Every band was making good music. There was lots of great music going on and there still is. And with most of these bands there's either one guy you care about or they're just boring.


The visual elements, including the big productions and the makeup, were always part of the presentation?

Everything. A concerted effort was made to explode like a cluster bomb, not just one explosion but every piece of the explosion explodes again. In point of fact, we promoted our own shows, we paid for it, we advertised ourselves, put up our own posters, before anybody did. We had a logo and trademarked it before anybody knew what that was.

When we played the Diplomat Hotel [in New York on July 13, 1973] and took over the ballroom, we were second on the bill and we rented out the whole place, paid the headliners the Brats and some other local bands to play. But when we invited people, we just positioned ourselves as "Kiss, 9:30, Masters of Metal," before there was such a thing as "heavy metal."

I used the offices of the Puerto Rican Inter-Agency Council, where I was the assistant to the director, and after they left I mailed out a photo and a one-pager and an invitation for everybody in the music business to come down and see us-managers, agents, producers-at the Diplomat Hotel, and they did.

Windfall Records, Mountain's label, came down, a few other people, and this guy named Bill Aucoin, who became our manager. When they got there the entire front row was filled with girls wearing black T-shirts with "Kiss" in glitter. [Co-founder/guitarist] Paul [Stanley] and [drummer] Peter [Criss] had stayed up all night the night before and literally glued the shirts and hand-poured glitter on them, and gave the T-shirts out to girls and put them in the front row.

You only get the respect you demand. We created our own buzz. So when people came to see us at the Diplomat Hotel, they saw the place was completely sold out-although they weren't there to see us, they were there to see the headliner-but the people we invited didn't know who was the headliner. They came there to see the 9:30 show; the headliner went on at 11. So they saw us and the entire front row was Kiss girls; it was our show. It cost $5 to get in, you saw three bands, we had about 350 people there, it cost $1,000 to rent the place. We probably made two grand.



It seems very early on you placed a lot of importance on touring hard.

There was no choice, because we weren't the Starland Vocal Band. We didn't do singles. We wrote songs like "Strutter" and "Deuce" and "Black Diamond," and that wasn't a radio staple. "Torn Between Two Lovers" was not Kiss.

But your first album recorded on the road, "Alive!" in 1975, got you a lot of traction.

The history is pretty well-known. The whole live record thing was started by Kiss. Before Kiss, nobody did live records as a career choice. Then after "Alive!" came "Frampton Comes Alive"; everybody used the "alive" thing, they even used our engineer. And they all did double-albums because we were out of our minds.

The first three records kind of floated, though we were huge live. By the third record we were playing Anaheim [Calif.] Stadium and Atlanta Braves Stadium, but we still hadn't sold records because we didn't have singles. This was 1976, and by '77-'79 we were the No. 1 Gallup Poll group in all of North America. No. 2 was the Beatles, No. 3 was the Bee Gees or Led Zeppelin, depending on which year you're talking about.

"Kiss mania" is not even a description of it. We owned your children. We owned them. They looked like us, they painted their faces like us, they walked like us, they knew our songs, and they tattooed their bodies. And eventually they had children and they named them after our songs.

When did it start to become the Kiss Army?

That started in 1975 in Terre Haute, Ind. A guy named Ray Sharkey, I think, was a fan who wanted his local radio station to play Kiss in Terre Haute, but they wouldn't do it because it wasn't the Bee Gees or Pablo Cruz. And he threatened them; he said, "Me and my friends, we call ourselves the Kiss Army. We're going to come down there and surround the station," so the radio station gets nervous and calls the cops. The radio station refuses to play Kiss, the newspapers send over a photographer, the next day a big photo of thousands of fans surrounding this little station, which looks like an outhouse in the middle of a cornfield outside of Terre Haute. [The] headline [was] "Kiss Army Invades Terre Haute," something like that, and there and then the Kiss Army was born.

Did you trademark it?

Immediately. And 35 years later, the Kiss Army still exists, but it's certainly a volunteer army. Everybody proudly belongs and marches. Jagger or [Jimmy] Page or anybody out there would give their left nut to have Kiss fans. Are you kidding me? What are you going to do, tattoo Michael Jackson on your ass?

The army has been amazingly loyal to Kiss, even through lineup changes.

We had to [make lineup changes]. We had to, because there's an ethical and moral commitment that we made to ourselves and our fans: We treat the stage as holy ground. This is electric church. And when we get on that stage, our call to arms starts off with "you," our fans, not "our" or "we." "You wanted the best, you got the best, the hottest band in the world, Kiss!" We say our name last, you come first. And the vow we made to ourselves was, "Dear God, if you ever give us the chance, we will never take it for granted, ever, not one single show, at any time. And if any one of us doesn't deserve to be out there, we will kick his ass off that stage." And if you use drugs or alcohol in Kiss, you're out. If you can't respect yourself and your body, how the hell can you respect the band, and especially the fans who put you there in the first place?

[Guitarist] Ace [Frehley] and Peter, in the beginning, belonged in the band, and later on they did not. They belonged home so they can save their lives and try to turn their lives around, not onstage. This is not a babysitting service, this is the Olympics and if anybody catches anything in your bloodstream, you should be thrown out on your ass. Your medals should be stripped, you're gone. And [current drummer] Eric Singer and [guitarist] Tommy Thayer are professional, they love it.

What did you like about the exclusive Wal-Mart deal with your new "Sonic Boom" album, and why did the band decide to go that way?

The world's a different place. I'm not a fan of downloading for free. I don't believe in anything for free. The kids next door that we think are sweet and have freckled faces were never punished for stealing everything. You can literally point to a million people out of work-the truckers that truck the records to the stores, the stores themselves that used to hire people, the gasoline they used, the warehouses-an entire industry is wiped out because some college kid didn't want to pay for songs. And who's to blame? The record industry, for never having a repercussion.

If you try to break into my house, I'll shoot your head off. Are you out of your fucking mind? But fans were allowed to break into stuff that people created and simply take it without paying for it, and that is nobody's fault but the record industry. It was lax. Wal-Mart is a real company. We met the Walton people-they're fine upstanding people, we're big fans of them, and they give millions of people jobs and we're all for it. And they're willing to charge for the product. Last time I checked, Kiss is not a charity. I will let you know when I want to give my stuff away for free. I don't want you to determine that.

Does it bother you when people say you're just in this for the money?

Anybody who simply wants to do it for free should give me any dollar they don't want. They're all full of shit. Everybody lies, but we don't. Of course we want to get paid for what we do, but there's also a tug of the heart, of pride. We created this thing-this ain't the Monkees, baby. We're the mother and we gave birth to Kiss and I'll be damned if anybody's going to tell me what it is, how it walks and how it talks. And do I want to get paid for that? You bet your ass I do.

But you still have fun when you get onstage, right?

Beyond that. Of course. It's a thrill, an honor and a privilege, but who says you have to enjoy it? That's not a prerequisite. How about treating it like craftsmanship? Whatever you can do, do it well. Most of the people on planet Earth, if they're lucky enough to have a job, they go to a job they probably hate. They go to work and all they want is to get paid at the end of the week. We consider that the salt of the earth. Why is that any less valid than what I do? Forget the thrill of it, you like getting paid. And the better job you do, the more money you make. Even God passes the fucking hat around.

You made a memorable point at Billboard's Touring Conference last year about professionalism and being on time for shows.

Pride. It's self-respect. For fuck's sake, just do it for yourself. Say what you mean, mean what you say. Shit out the Axl Rose disease in your system, get rid of that. Excuses are for the next guy that winds up in jail and becomes very popular there, becomes somebody's girlfriend.


Do you care what critics say?

Of course. But that will still never get them laid. They were ugly bastards before who never got laid, and no matter what, they still look like Bob Lefsetz. They shine my shoes. I bury them in my backyard. You guys are just jealous that we get seas of pussy and you get nothing. I go to see movies or a band when somebody that I know says, "I just saw this." I trust his word. Not somebody who gets free tickets who's a failed human being.

When it comes to building a career, what do a lot of bands get wrong?

They don't listen to Gene Simmons. When you're dishonest with yourself and your fans and sugarcoat everything you say, you're full of shit-you can smell that a mile a way. Be who you are. It's difficult for me to accept someone who's worth $100 million-and I am-who gets up and starts talking about rain forests and whales and acid rain. Shut the fuck up. Play your songs, and if I want information, I'll go to people who are qualified to talk about it. I don't want rock stars talking about the environment in the same way I don't want environmentalists talking about rock.

What's your take on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

I think it was a good idea, but it's clearly political. It's Boss Tweed, it's the old New York rotten system, where you get 10 guys in the back room who decide who's going to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I want nothing to do with that. It's a sham and those guys mean nothing. You should take a look at the photo of the guys that vote on it. Fucking scary.

What would you still like to accomplish with Kiss?

There's nothing we can't do. We're developing a Kiss animated show, like a superhero, X-Men kind of show. We have a Las Vegas Kiss show that's being planned. I just came back from Singapore. There's nowhere we can't go and nothing we can't do.

This is the weird thing. There's something going on here that even we and I don't pretend to understand. All I know is we are not going to take it for granted. We take it deadly seriously. And we intend to live up to our own legend. We intend not to let the fans down, the fans that have been there for 35 years and are probably in their 50s, some in their 60s, and the new 15-year-old fan who's heard about the legend of Kiss.

So many things in life are not real. Santa is not real. Superman is not real. Kiss is real. And we're going to make sure that when you leave that show, your first Kiss show or the 100th, you'll walk away, whether you love the band or not, and say, "That is the best fucking thing I've ever seen on planet Earth." That's a vow we make to ourselves and anybody who's willing to come out there and see us.


http://www.billboard.com/...ory?page=3

DerekH said:

Hey the album cover isn't atrocious! I love it, I got the shirt with the album cover today .

Gene Simmons comments are always so priceless.

Amerigo said:

As I wrote today in my previous post on this, I've since changed my mind after seeing and purchasing the CD.
[Edited 10/7/09 19:03pm]

Kiss has sucked badly ever since they took off their make-up for Unmasked about 30 years ago and went Disco

Wanted to state some facts..

"Dynasty" was their so-called disco record. That came out in May 1979..30 yrs ago.

"Lick It Up" was the 1st record they took their makeup off for. That was in 1983.

"Unmasked" was the LP cover that joked on them taking it off. That was 1980.

love 4 kiss no matter what

[Edited 10/8/09 8:31am]