Paul Stanley on the Competitive Bond That Held Kiss Together for 50 Years

Kiss wrapped its End of the Road tour in 2023, closing a live career that stretched across five decades of fire, blood, and makeup. Behind the spectacle, Paul Stanley says, the engine was a friction he shared with one person.

“At the end of the day, if it was a relay race, the two of us won it,” Stanley told Outlaw magazine, reflecting on his partnership with bassist Gene Simmons. The two met in 1970 in a short-lived New York band called Wicked Lester. That project collapsed after an album for Epic Records went unreleased, but Stanley already sensed something lasting. “Soon after we met, and once we’d sorted out a few differences, I realised I was far better off in this duo, this partnership, than on my own.” They formed Kiss in 1973 with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, and for the next half century the core balance held.

Stanley described a dynamic built on shared values and constant one-upmanship. “I’ve always tried to push him to be better, and whether or not he’s known it, he’s always been my incentive for trying to be better — better than him, sometimes.” That competitive streak surfaced publicly in 1978 when all four members released solo albums on the same day. Frehley’s record sold the most, driven by the single “New York Groove,” but the tension between Stanley and Simmons remained the band’s creative center.

While the Kiss orbit filled with substances and self-destruction, Stanley and Simmons stayed sober. “I saw people around me die,” Stanley said. “The currency at that point was mainly sex and drugs. It was what people used to get backstage, to the hotel, to befriend you. Quite honestly, I would forego the drugs — it’s not in my nature — but I was happy with the sex.” That clarity, he suggests, helped the two men survive a business that chewed up plenty of their peers. The bond outlasted lineup changes, reunions, and the very stage it was built on.