"We’re Batman with a guitar and Superman with a Marshall amplifier." Paul Stanley on the "timeless" appeal of Kiss

Paul Stanley, Madison Square Garden, NYC, December 2, 2023 — (Image credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)

Kiss frontman Paul Stanley believes that the band's image has made them "timeless", which gives them "superhero" appeal to generations of rock fans.

In a new interview with Vulture, the vocalist/guitarist looks back over some of the defining moments in his band's career, and identifies the release of the New York quartet's 1975 live album Alive! as a game-changer for the group.

"Alive! was such a turning point for us," he tells writer Devon Ivie. "We already had three albums out. We did three albums in 18 months, which is pretty much unheard of for rock bands, because we really wanted success. The idea for Alive! wasn’t to have a live album in the sense that at the end of a song you heard people clapping. We wanted you to be in the crowd and have a sense of empowerment. We wanted you to hear the noise of people next to you between songs, because technology doesn’t really allow for multisensory overload.

"The entire album showed the power and commitment of us as a band," he adds. "Nothing could stop us, not because we were the best necessarily. Maybe there’s naïveté involved. Before that album came out, we were building a following as a live band, but our albums weren’t selling because they didn’t sound like we sounded live. So the perception of the band was perhaps bigger than we actually were. I remember doing an interview and somebody said, 'So how does it feel to be rich and famous?' I said, Well, I can tell you how it feels to be famous."

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Referencing the band's iconic image, Stanley continues, "Part of what has been our strength over the years is looking the same onstage. The idea of being omnipotent, of being ageless, is incredibly powerful. When somebody comes to see the band live and goes, 'My God, they look like when I saw them in 1975', that’s something other bands can never have. So in that way, we’re timeless superheroes — Batman with a guitar and Superman with a Marshall amplifier."

Kiss will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame tonight, June 11, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.