Paul Stanley says he feared the original Kiss lineup wouldn't have cut it if they had performed live at this year's Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction.
Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley were finally inducted in April and organisers wanted the foursome to perform at the ceremony.
But Stanley and Simmons wanted to play with the current band, which includes Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer. In the end, neither lineup played live.
Stanley tells KNPR News: “They wanted to have the original guys play in the band, and all of us in makeup, and, quite honestly, I think it would have done the band a disservice. That lineup has not been together for 14 years, and physically, perhaps, wouldn’t have looked that great, and musically, undoubtedly, probably, would have sounded a bit suspect.
“So, to have people watch it on television and identify that as Kiss because there’s four guys in makeup would not send a great signal to the people who are not following the band in its current permutation, or what it is today.
“We just did 42 shows and played to 600,000 people in America, and I would hate for those people to turn on a TV show where we were an unwanted guest in the first place and see us strong-armed into doing something that really does a disservice to something that I worked at for 40 years.”
Stanley became embroiled in a war of words with the Rock Hall in the run-up to the event, saying Kiss were never wanted in the first place.
He adds: “The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame wanted nothing to do with us – they begrudgingly let us in. And my sense was that we were going to be a dog-and-pony show.
“I never quit the band twice, once, and to dilute what I’ve worked on all these years just to make a committee happy that really wasn’t all that thrilled we were there in the first place. It sent the wrong message and endangered something I hold very dear to me.”
Former Kiss guitarist Frehley said after the induction he felt the band owed the fans a performance, adding they lost some support by refusing to play.
