For five decades, KISS has embodied spectacle. From painted faces to towering pyrotechnics, the band built a legacy as loud visually as it was sonically. But as the group steps away from its farewell tour and into a new fan-focused chapter, frontman Paul Stanley is choosing intimacy over illusion, without sacrificing the spirit fans have come to expect.
In a candid conversation with Justin Richmond on the Broken Record podcast, Stanley opened up about KISS‘s upcoming appearance at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas during the three-day KISS Army Storms Vegas event from November 14 to 16. The celebration marks the 50th anniversary of the KISS Army fan club. It will be the band’s first public engagement since the conclusion of their End Of The Road farewell tour at Madison Square Garden in December 2023.
“It started off as something, honestly, that Gene and I kind of took a back seat in, and, honestly, we reached a point not too far in the past where we both said, ‘You know what? This isn’t the way we want it.’ And it’s going to go through some major changes to be what we think it should be,” Stanley shared (as transcribed by Blabbermouth)
That reflection led to a creative pivot. Instead of letting third-party organizers run the show, Stanley and Gene Simmons reclaimed the reins. The result: a landlocked reinvention of the beloved KISS cruise, minus the ocean, but with everything else intact.
“We spent 12 years nurturing a KISS cruise and what that means and what goes into it and what you get to participate in and the social aspects between fans from 33 countries,” Stanley explained. “So, this will virtually become a KISS cruise in Vegas. [It] doesn’t need a ship. It will have all the familiar touchstones that people love about a KISS cruise, whether it’s bands playing, Q&As, contests, food available, good drinks, or social aspects to it.”
For a band that has always treated fans like family, the communal spirit remains central.
“So, it started in a way that we kind of took a step back to see what some other people might do. And then we recently found ourselves going, ‘No. This isn’t what we want to do or the way we wanna do it.’ So there’ll be some announcements forthcoming and a lot of stuff where people are gonna be very happy, as I am, that.”
While ships may not have been available, that hardly stopped the band from docking somewhere else: “A KISS cruise — there were no ships available, but a KISS cruise can take place anyway,” Stanley added. “And to do it in Vegas at the Virgin Hotel, it’s gonna be everything that people want and have been hoping for.”
Richmond suggested that the Las Vegas setting might even top the cruise experience. Stanley agreed wholeheartedly.
“It will be great, and it’ll be a great, fantastic weekend of all the things that we’ve loved and that people loved,” he said. “So, whether you’re KISS Army, Navy, cruiser, whatever you are, this is about to become much more. We’re really excited. So I think people should just stay tuned.”
But will there be a live performance? Absolutely — just not the way you might expect.
“We’re going to do a no-makeup set. We’ll play 15 songs, whatever. And Tommy, we’re all geared up to do it. We really look forward to it.”
Asked whether the set would be acoustic, Stanley was quick to correct that notion: “No. That’ll be electric… So it’s gonna be great. And the other bands that are gonna be announced, it’s gonna be everything that everybody loves on the KISS cruises. I think that was missing from what was being planned. And we needed to put our big hands into this and we needed to steer the ship.”
Stripped of face paint but not of identity, KISS is proving once again that spectacle comes in many forms. In the desert, as at sea, the Army marches on.
