Paul Stanley isn’t reserving his broadsides for former Kiss bandmates Ace Frehley and Peter Criss these days, leveling new charges that stalwart partner Gene Simmons deserted the group in the 1980s for “questionable side projects.”
This latest salvo, in which Stanley asserts that he took over leadership of the group during its second decade because he had been left essentially alone at the wheel, follows a series of salvos launched in the wake of their long-awaited invite into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Stanley announced that he and Simmons wouldn’t be performing with ousted members Criss and Frehley, and then that Kiss wouldn’t play the ceremonies at all, after a dispute over who would be inducted.
That set off a firestorm of accusations from all sides.
Still, up until this point, the battle lines were drawn between Simmons and Stanley on one side and Criss and Frehley on the other.
Stanley’s new comments, which explore a period that saw Kiss remove its makeup for the first time and then begin the use of outside collaborators, open up a new front.
“There wouldn’t have been a band without me, because when your partner is off doing all kinds of questionable side projects — and not only taking time but also involvement away from the band,” Stanley tells Guitar World. “For me, it ultimately came down to: I love what I do; I don’t want this to end. So I decided to bail water, for my own survival.”
He admits that, at the time, that sparked some ill will — questioning the profit-sharing percentages of the era: “I only minded the fact that I was still splitting the income and royalties as though I had a partner. That bothered me. The fact that I was running things? Honestly, that’s probably what got us through that decade.”
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