Paul Stanley spoke about Kiss’s upcoming appearance without makeup at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas as part of the three-day “KISS Army Storms Vegas” event, which runs from November 14th to November 16th.
“KISS Army Storms Vegas” celebrates the KISS fan club’s 50th anniversary and will be the band’s first appearance since Stanley, bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons, guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer wrapped up their “End Of The Road” farewell tour at Madison Square Garden in New York in December 2023.
In a new interview with Justin Richmond of the Broken Record podcast, Paul Stanley shared details of the Vegas event.
“ It started off as something, honestly, that Gene and I kind of took a back seat in, and, honestly, we reached a point not too far in the past where we both said, ‘You know what? This isn’t the way we want it.’ And it’s going to go through some major changes to be what we think it should be.
“We spent 12 years nurturing a KISS cruise and what that means and what goes into it and what you get to participate in and the social aspects between fans from 33 countries,” Paul explained. “So, this virtually will become a KISS cruise in Vegas. [It] doesn’t need a ship. It will have all the familiar touchstones that people love about a KISS cruise, whether it’s bands playing, Q&As, contests, food available, good drinks, social aspects to it.
“So, it started in a way that we kind of took a step back to see what some other people might do. And then we recently found ourselves going, ‘No. This isn’t what we want to do or the way we wanna do it.’ So there’ll be some announcements forthcoming and a lot of stuff where people are gonna be very happy, as I am, that.
“A KISS cruise — there was no ships available, but a KISS cruise can take place anyway,” Stanley added. “And to do it in Vegas at the Virgin Hotel, it’s gonna be everything that people want and have been hoping for.”
When Richmond noted that a KISS event in Vegas sounds just as good as, or better than, a cruise, Paul concurred. “It will be great, and it’ll be a great, fantastic weekend of all the things that we’ve loved and that people loved,” he said. “So whether you’re KISS Army, Navy, cruiser, whatever you are, this is about to become much more. We’re really excited. So I think people should just stay tuned.”
Asked if he and Gene will perform at all at “KISS Army Storms Vegas”, Paul said: “We’re going to do a no-makeup set. We’ll play 15 songs, whatever. And Tommy — we’re all geared up to do it. We really look forward to it.”
After Richmond asked if the performance will be “acoustic”, Stanley clarified: “No. That’ll be electric… So it’s gonna be great. And the other bands that are gonna be announced, it’s gonna be everything that everybody loves on the KISS cruises. I think that was missing from what was being planned. And we needed to put our big hands into this and we needed to steer the ship.”
