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Don’t expect new music from Kiss once they finally finish touring, says Paul Stanley

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 30 August 2022

When Kiss finally bring their lengthy farewell tour to an end and actually retire from that touring lark, what are they going to do? Well, while they’ve hinted at various post-touring plans, none of them include recording new music. So says guitarist Paul Stanley, anyway.

It’s now ten years since the band released their last album ‘Monster’, and so the question of a follow-up naturally came up in a new interview with Stanley on the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast. But the answer to the question “will there be a new Kiss record” is a simple “no”.

But not because any new record wouldn’t be any good. Stanley is certain any new music the band created would be as good as anything they have done before. It’s just that the fans won’t ever get nostalgic about new songs.

“At this point, I came to the conclusion that [new material] can never compete with the past”, he says. “Not because it’s not as good, but it hasn’t the connection to important times in your life. It doesn’t have that patina to it of, ‘Gee, I remember I heard this song when I was eighteen’, or, ‘I heard this song when I was on my first date or whatever’. You can’t compete with that. It’s more than a song; it’s a snapshot of your life at a certain point”.

“There are songs on [’Monster’ and 2009’s ‘Sonic Boom’] that are every bit as good as anything I’ve ever written, but they’re new. Somebody says, ‘Why don’t you do a new album?’ You do a new album and do a song – we have one song, ‘Modern Day Delilah’, which is as good as ‘Love Gun’ or any of these songs, but it hasn’t aged; it’s not like wine that has a chance to have grown in importance. Not just because of what it is, but because what it’s surrounded by”.

He adds that, with all that in mind, he feels that making a new album now would just be setting himself up for disappointment, saying: “Not crushing disappointment, but when you put your heart and soul into doing something and it kind of gets a polite nod, there’s other things I’d rather do”.

Like just go on a never ending farewell tour? Originally announced in 2018, the band got started with their last ever tour in 2019. After a pandemic enforced break, they got underway again this year, with plans for shows to run into 2023. Although now it seems that the tour will be extended further still.

Speaking to Chaoszine last month, Gene Simmons said: “We are adding another 100 cities on the tour before we finally stop. The band is strong. We feel good. We’re playing strong, so we’re going to stretch it out a little more. But once we stop, of course, it’ll be like when you run in the Olympics. When you win a race, sometimes, they just fall to the ground exhausted because of the physical demands of the race. [But] even though you’re dead tired, you feel exhilarated”.

“It’s like climbing the tallest mountain in the world”, he added. “Going up is really tough, but when you get to the top of the mountain, there’s no feeling like that. So you’re happy, but of course, you’re sad too because we’re never going to do that again. But everything in life is like that. At some point, Olympic athletes have to stop. At some point, the world champion boxer has to get out of the ring because age is the ultimate winner”.

So, while they are currently still adding shows, the farewell tour can’t go on forever. He concluded that the plan is to “get out of the ring … while we’re still champions, and that’s because we admire and respect the fans, but we also have self-respect for ourselves”.

Right now they still feel like champions though, so who knows when this tour will actually finish? “This is a tour that will not stop until it stops”, he said. “So we’re not going to take a year off and then resume. We’re in the tour mode. We’re going to stay out there until we stop”.

And then the holograms can take over.