Paul Stanley 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” celebrates the KISS fan club’s 50th anniversary and will be the band’s first appearance since Stanley, bassist/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 The 500 With Josh Adam Meyers podcast, Stanley said: “This will be, for lack of a better description, it’s a Kiss Kruise in Vegas. It’s a Kiss Kruise without a boat or without a ship. We’ll take over the Virgin Hotel, and all the things that people have come to expect on a Kiss Kruise will happen. It’s a chance for international fans and friends to convene, as they always have. And there’ll be Q&As, time spent with each person in the band. We will play, although looking more like this [without any makeup or special stage outfits] than in classic gear. It’s gonna be really, really cool, and A lot of things are being added to it.
“I would’ve liked to have perhaps had the menu to give to everybody a long time ago, but it’s still evolving,” he continued.
“So, there’ll be great people playing, great bands, all kinds of competitions, all the things that we’ve done in the past on the cruise. Just like a tribal gathering with music and entertainment. Like I said, it’s a landlocked Kiss Kruise.”
Asked who created the KISS Army and when, Stanley said:
“The KISS Army, like the best armies, was volunteer. KISS Army started in Terre Haute, Indiana when Bill Starkey, a resident, and his friends weren’t getting any KISS music on their radio station and they called the radio station as the KISS Army and said, ‘If you don’t start playing KISS music by a certain time, we’ll surround the building.’ And, of course, everybody chuckled, until they surrounded the building. So that was the start of the KISS Army. KISS Army started as not a calculated fan club, but as an uprising of the army.”
