Peter Criss and Ace Frehley rejected the chance to join Kiss farewell tour
While Kiss embark on their final tour, celebrating five decades of music, Gene Simmons revealed that original members Peter Criss and Ace Frehley declined the chance to join the band for one last farewell.
The band’s ‘End of the Road’ tour will end at Madison Square Garden in New York in December, where Kiss will play their last ever shows. Thus, Simmons sought the involvement of Criss and Frehley, who both left the band in the early 1980s.
Yet, in an interview with Linea Rock, Simmons said that the Kiss co-founders were not interested in joining the farewell tour. “For the older fans, the ones who’ve been around for 50 years, they’re old, and some of them wanna see Ace and Peter. The newer fans never saw them and they don’t know,” he shared.
“But the older fans wonder about Ace and Peter,” he added. “Well, I asked both Ace and Peter a few times ‘Do you wanna come out for the encores? Do you wanna do some shows?’ And they both said ‘no.’ So, I don’t know what to say about that.”
Simmons added: “But it’s always welcome. But there are many other big stars, superstars, who wanna jump up onstage and play a song. But we’re not sure about that. Maybe the best thing to do is to end the way we started – four guys with guitars. No keyboards, no synthesizers, nothing. Just playing.”
Criss and Frehley’s lack of enthusiasm might be due to personal tensions with their ex-bandmates. Paul Stanley made some vitriolic comments during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show earlier this year, criticising the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s request for Kiss to play in their original lineup when they were inducted.
He said: “At this point, that would be demeaning to the band, and also would give some people confusion. ‘Cause if you saw people onstage who looked like Kiss but sounded like that, maybe we should be called PISS”.
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