Paul Stanley Announces KISS Return With Holograms?

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KISS frontman Paul Stanley has teased the fans. The band has spent the majority of its legendary five-decade career concealing their faces in makeup. Now, as the band plans the next phase for its music and iconic characters, KISS is still leaving its fans with mystery and intrigue.

Paul Stanley reveals KISS return

Following the culmination of The End of the Road Tour in December, KISS commenced the year with the sale of its name and likeness and plans to live eternally in the digital world.

Details are scarce, but the band has said the virtual performance should launch in Las Vegas in 2027. During a conversation with Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast, frontman Paul Stanley wouldn’t say exactly how the group will carry its legacy into the future. However, in typical KISS fashion, Stanley has ambitious goals.

“It’s a must-see, go-to experience,” Stanley boasts. “It’s beyond anything that anyone else has contemplated.”

Virtual artists are nothing new. A Tupac Shakur hologram appeared at Coachella in 2012, and avatars have resurrected deceased musicians such as Ronnie James Duo and Whitney Houston for live performances. Those earlier examples of digital likenesses pale in comparison to Abba Voyage, a high-budget, mixed virtual reality-live music concert in London that has won rave reviews.

Back in April, KISS sold its name and likeness rights to Pophouse, the Swedish company that assisted in building Abba Voyage around virtual versions of Abba’s four members made to look decades younger. Although those early generations of avatars wowed audiences, KISS isn’t content to replicate the previous models, says Stanley.

“We’re creating something that’s not a concert,” Paul Stanley explained. “The idea of a hologram — and it’s not a hologram, but that term seems to get thrown around a lot — but the idea a simulated concert is not what we want to do. Frankly, I would find that boring.”