“One of the greatest right hands ever”: Paul Stanley on the best rhythm guitarist he ever heard
Lead guitarists have always been the poster boys of rock and roll music, enticing audiences with flashy, self-aggrandising solos and flamboyant personas. However, it is the often-forgotten rhythm guitarists who laid the foundations of the genre. Take Keith Richards, for instance: arguably rock’s definitive lead guitarist, but listen to him without the backing of Brian Jones, Mick Taylor, or Ronnie Wood, and you start to hear the importance of the rhythm guys. For Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley, that fact was never in any doubt.
It is, by this point, no secret that Kiss were not the greatest rock band ever to grace the airwaves. Indeed, much of their material and imagery was more akin to a bubblegum parody of mainstream rock than anything else. When you start to paint your faces with stars and place as much importance on pyrotechnics and stage clobber as the music itself, it becomes difficult to view yourselves as a principled rock band on the level of artists like Led Zeppelin or The Who.
Nevertheless, the existence of Kiss was reflective of wider trends within the American rock mainstream during the 1970s and 1980s, as the genre became increasingly focused on commercial appeal and revenue. At their heart, behind all the layers of face paint and glitter, the members of Kiss were all rock obsessives like any other band of the time. Paul Stanley, in particular, had been a devotee of rock guitarists from a very early age, worshipping the likes of Eddie Cochran and Elvis Presley during his childhood in the 1950s.
Unlike most kids of that generation, though, Stanley was never drawn in by the siren song of rock’s lead guitarists. “I didn’t want to be the flashy lead player,” he once told Guitar Player. Explaining his unique and admirable choice, the Kiss musician shared, “As much as I admired them and wanted much to be like them, I became much more involved with being a rhythm guitarist.”
Exclusively playing guitar chords to build out a song’s melody and rhythm is a thankless task, but one which is utterly essential within the rock world. “Very often, rhythm guitar was looked at as what you do before you can play lead,” Stanley confirms, “And there were certainly consummate guitar players who, yes, they could play lead guitar, but that wasn’t their wheelhouse, really.” Highlighting some examples, he continues, “Whether it was Keith Richards or Pete Townshend — or even David Crosby.”
No, Stanley’s adoration was largely reserved for the underappreciated rhythm men of the guitar world. “One of the greatest right hands ever,” he said, highlighting one of his all-time favourite players, “Richie Havens — that was more fascinating to me: not what the left hand was doing, but what the right hand was doing.” While the guitarist’s left hand – that is, the hand darting around the fretboard to hit all the right notes, is vital for a lead guitarist, the brilliance of rhythm is all in the right hand, the strumming hand.
That right hand is probably the most underrated weapon in the arsenal of any guitarist. But, as the wise Keith Richards once pointed out, “If that one [the right hand], doesn’t connect with that one [the left hand], you’re getting what? One and a half stories?” In contrast, Richie Havens was always adept at telling full, captivating stories from the heart.
That is the root of Stanley’s role in Kiss; being a flash lead guitarist is all well and good, but it is the rhythm which creates the backbone of a band’s sound. Although he might not be the most respected guitarist in rock history, his philosophy on the importance of rhythm makes Stanley more knowledgeable than many modern rock guitarists out there today.
