Gene Simmons recently opened up on 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” is celebrating the KISS fan club’s 50th anniversary and will be the band’s first appearance since Simmons, guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley, 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 the “Jim Kerr Rock & Roll Morning Show” on New York City’s Q104.3 radio station, Simmons said:
“Well, this is not a KISS concert. We promised when we sold the IP [KISS intellectual property rights] to Pophouse, an amazing company — they’re futurists — about a year and a half ago when we finished touring at Madison Square Garden. There’s gonna be a film and there’s a lot of stuff coming up. We promised we would never tour again, because, as you noticed, I’m stunning in real life and that’s when you want it… While you’re on top, get out of the ring. Don’t wait for some chump to knock you out. We’ve all seen boxers and rockers and everything that stayed around too long. 50 years, half a century is plenty of time.”
Simmons went on to say that he and his KISS bandmates still want to honor the group’s fans. “So that’s what we’re doing,” he explained. “We are showing up for a fan-run event. Three days in November at the Virgin Hotel. Be there or be square. And it’s really for the fans. There’ll be lots of questions — if they want a back rub or anything. But it’s not a KISS concert. We will jump up [and] jam, but certainly we are not bringing the flying rigs and 60 people on the crew and the jets and all that stuff… Other bands will pop up on stage and stuff, but it’s really a chance to be more intimate with the fans — actually, to be cornball about it, to our bosses. Because without the fans, I would surely have been asking the next person in line, ‘Would you like some fries with that?'”
50 years ago in Terre Haute, Indiana, a small group of fans lit the spark that would become the loudest and proudest fan movement in rock history: the KISS Army. Now, five decades later — and 30 years since the first official KISS convention — KISS is cranking it up to 11 in Las Vegas for the ultimate celebration.
Gene said: “Strange story. There was a guy in Terre Haute, Indiana, as a matter of fact, and in the early days, radio didn’t play KISS ’cause we didn’t do John Denver kind of namby-pamby stuff… But we just didn’t do the la-di-da kinds of songs. We liked to turn the guitars up and have fun, and radio wouldn’t play us. So this one guy, [Bill] Starkey, his name was, called the radio station, which was a small building outside of town. ‘Play KISS.’ ‘I’m sorry, kid. We don’t play that song.’ And he threatened them. He said, ‘If you don’t play KISS by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow, the KISS Army will surround your building and everything.’ Of course they did not. So what happened? The cover of the [local] newspaper [ran the headline] ‘Kiss Army Invades WXYZ’, whatever it’s called, and that’s where the name came from. And by the way, afterwards, they played KISS. Because they knew that we knew what their home address was, and when they weren’t home, we might set their pets on fire. There’s that.”
