The bands that Paul Stanley dismissed as “nonsense”
A lot of people take music far too seriously. Yes, a heartfelt song every now and then can be deeply moving, but we should have a laugh as well within art. Kiss are a band who certainly lean further towards the fun side of music.
If you ever want to feel sorry for a band, feel sorry for Black Sabbath when they took Kiss out on their first world tour. Black Sabbath were already considered rock legends at this point. They had helped establish heavy metal and were very much a band that the rest of the music world looked up to. By taking Kiss out with them, they figured they were doing this group of unknowns a favour; however, they actually ended up getting up staged by their support act every night.
It wasn’t that people preferred Kiss’s music. They certainly were fans, as it’s hard not to be. When you get that shredding guitar, catchy choruses and unmistakable stadium rock, even the most anti-rock ‘n’ roller will tap their feet. But that’s not why the crowds of Sabbath fans left those fateful gigs with the name of their new favourite band in their back pocket. The thing that really drew people towards Kiss was the entertainment factor that they brought to every gig.
Kiss didn’t just want to play your bog standard rock music, they wanted to bring a lot more than that. This meant unleashing a flurry of excitement on adoring fans in the form of pyrotechnics, fireworks, lights and lasers. Not an inch of the stage wasn’t used, and the whole room was plunged into a sea of chaos as Kiss brought their show to life unlike any other band in the world.
“Kiss was the first one to use pyro,” said Geezer Butler, reflecting on touring with this new breed of superstar. “You’ve never seen that. I mean, the shock of that. And they were supporting us, so they weren’t even headlining. I went out and watched them. There were all these flames coming out the stage and everything. It was like ‘Oh my God, what’s going on here?’”
He continued, “It was a completely new direction for people. People had to start thinking about stage production after Kiss. It was tough to follow them. We went on just as an ordinary band, no effects or anything, and everybody else still had their mouths wide open from seeing Kiss.”
On top of all of the effects that helped elevate Kiss’s show, the band also painted their faces. You weren’t watching a regular group, you were watching aliens, superheroes, whatever you wanted to call them. The whole thing was silly and fun, and yet, was also something that people could take seriously. Kiss’s look might have helped hook the intrigue of passers by, but once they had poked their head behind the proverbial curtain of Kiss, they were met with a unified band, one that had a clear sense of identity, and that absolutely championed rock ‘n’ roll.
This is why Kiss has had such good longevity. While the face paint and the lights might be good for a sales pitch, the serious nature of their music and the genuine effort they put into the band gives people a reason to stick around. Paul Stanley admitted that he never had time for bands whose whole gimmick relied on being unpredictable and strange. Those two things might have been elements of Kiss, but they weren’t what he relied on wholeheartedly.
When talking about the club CBGB, Stanley discussed some of the bands who he felt relied too heavily on being experimental and out there. While CBGB started life as a venue which would promote Country, Bluegrass and Blues (hence the initials), it evolved into a space for emerging punk and experimental talent. A lot of the crowd in New York loved the bands that played, but Paul Stanley had no time for them, referring to some as “nonsense.”
“I went there, but that scene was based more on wanting to express yourself than knowing how to play an instrument well enough,” said Stanley, “There were a lot of artsy bands at CBGB that left me cold, like Richard Hell & The Voidoids and all that nonsense.”
