Steve Baltin | Billboard

Outspoken Kiss icon Gene Simmons is a journalist’s dream, always good for colorful quotes on a variety of subjects. Like when the subject turns to Kiss’ place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Simmons questions why acts like Madonnaand Donna Summer are in there. And he wonders: “When is Led Zeppelin going to be in the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame?”

But Simmons has a softer side as he talks about his many philanthropic endeavors. He’ll be participating in two charity events. The first is Aug. 16 at Lucky Strike in Hollywood, where he and Johnny Depp will bowl and lead an all-star jam that also includes Gilby Clarke, Nuno Bettencourt and more to raise funds for Mending Kids, an organization that raises money to send doctors around the world to perform operations on kids in need. The second event will take place Aug. 18, where Simmons will be interviewed at the Grammy Museum following stand-up sets by the likes of Bill Burr and Jim Jefferies as part of Comedy Rocks. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Sophie’s Place, a charity set up by his daughter Sophie Simmons, which also benefits children.

Simmons spoke to Billboard about the importance of giving back, as well as his plans for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Tell us about the event Sunday.

Mending Kids does great work. All the funding comes in from contributions, andMendingKids.org sends doctors, on their dime, around the world to provide free operations to children with physical deformities, facial, spinal, anything, where otherwise they would have a life of pain and suffering and perhaps death. So Johnny Depp and I are gonna bowl August 16 at Lucky Strike in Hollywood, so people should go get their tickets. Space is limited, it’s not one of those huge events, so there’ll be high-end people and a rock band, everybody’s gonna jump up and jam. Johnny will play a few songs, I’ll play a few songs, a few other knuckleheads will jump up, and all the proceeds go to MendingKids.org to provide children with operations that they would normally never have.

Have you ever jammed with Johnny before?

No. We’ve met and chatted some, but never been onstage with him.

Are there covers you’d be particularly excited to do with him?

We have no idea. We’re just gonna do it loosey-goosey — which is not a bad name for a band, not a good name come to think of it. But you get up there and just let it roll. There’ll be a good bunch of musicians; it’s gonna be a good night. But anything you do too slick doesn’t come off heartfelt. It’s less about the show and the celebrities and more about the good and what we’re all trying to do for kids.

How did you first ever get involved with the organization?

A few years ago, I was introduced to Mending Kids by a friend. It started off as business, and then the more I looked into it, the more I saw these are legitimate doctors who contribute their time and effort and they try to raise funds.

You did a benefit for them at House of Blues with Kiss and Tom Jones as well.

I put the deal together, negotiated with the House of Blues to give us the space for free, I booked Arsenio Hall and Tom Jones and the guys in Kiss contributed their time. I called Penn Jillette, who hosted the evening, and I called Mark Cuban to broadcast the event on AXS. It was a big night, raised a lot of money, and then as we all do, we get busy with the rest of our lives. Then Mending Kids called me about a month back and said, “Look, we’re having this event, can you please promote it?” They said they have Johnny Depp. I said, “That’s all you need, but I’ll be happy to step up and I’ll bowl and you can auction me off and we’ll jam and do all that.”

What do you look for in charities you work with?

The most important thing is that most of the money goes to help make a difference. There are large organizations that cost a lot of money for offices and staff, I tend not to get involved with those because enough of the money goes to buy people cars and pay office rent and stuff like that. They’re well-meaning, but they’re expensive. The lean, mean organizations that don’t have a high overhead means that more of the money gets to help people. Children are my soft spot, actually.

Continue reading HERE…

Joe Polo

NY Daily News

A young fan was thrilled when she thought she had met Gene Simmons — until the rocker himself had to break the news she had been duped.

A fan named Stefanie tweeted the KISS front man Sunday to thank him for posing with a young girl, presumably her daughter.

“.@genesimmons Thank you. You made her day,” she wrote.

Alas, the 65-year-old star had to inform her that the guy in the red shirt and long, dark hair wasn’t actually him.

“So sorry, but that’s not me,” hetweeted back.

“There are a number of people going around impersonating me. Apologies.”

After the rock star responded, the photo was quickly deleted.

But that didn’t stop Simmons’ other fans from making jokes about the Simmons wannabe.

“Not sure what’s worse,” one person tweeted the rock star. “Dude thinking he looks like gene or the poor fan actually believing that was gene.”

Joe Polo

Lorenzo Soliman | Kpop Starz

Theo Wargo

While Gene Simmons is working on a new album for himself, it has been hinted that there may be songs good for KISS as well, insinuating a comeback for the face paint-wearing band.

According to a Loud Wire report, Simmons reportedly has been writing a few songs, which he believes could work well with KISS.

In the report, the bassist claimed how he thinks the band is ready for another release, which he thinks would happen if there would be enough materials for the group.

“Paul may think there’s not going to be another record; I suspect there will be,” Simmons said. “We never force the issue. There is no one to answer to except our own gut. I recently wrote a song called ‘Your Wish is My Command’ and it feels like KISS. It came out pretty easy. When there’s enough material, we’ll look at each other and say, ‘You wanna?'”

Simmons further talked about creating a new album for KISS in a recent Press Entertainment report. The member claimed how they now feel like writing a record on their own rather than following a contract, which would usually force them to write songs.

“There has to be a purpose to us doing an album,” he reportedly said a few months back. “There was a time when we did albums because the contracts said so. But I only want to work now when it’s justified. Sonic Boom was an album that was very much needed to be done and Monster just felt like, ‘Well, we did Sonic Boom – let’s see where we go from here.'”

“Having accomplished that, I feel we can move forward without new music. There are enough things going on in KISS that right now it doesn’t feel utterly necessary to make a new album.”

Jeff Giles | Ultimate Classic Rock

Kiss co-founder Paul Stanley is using his next bit of downtime from the band to focus on a very different musical project.

On Sept. 11, Stanley presents the live debut of Soul Station, an 11-piece group that’s being billed as his musical “coalition,” at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles. Promising “a gathering of some of today’s leading musicians paying tribute to an era of great soul music,” the show starts ticket sales today at 3PM ET, according to the Roxy’s official site.

Aside from Stanley and Kiss drummer Eric Singer, Soul Station’s lineup is rounded out by guitarist Rafael “Hoffa” Moreira, bassist Sean Hurley, keyboard players Alex Alessandroni and Ely Rise, percussionist Ramon Yslas and backing vocalists Nelson Beato, Crystal Starr and Ayana Layli.

Kiss fans interested in attending the gig should know up front that it’ll present a decidedly different side of Stanley’s musical persona — right down to what you can expect to see him doing onstage. “I don’t play guitar in the band and we don’t do a single Kiss song. That’s not what this is about,” he points out in a press release. “It’s magical to hear those songs played right and we’re making magic.”

To make that magic, Stanley says he’s heading back to the music that inspired him in his youth. “We’re living in a time of being fed canned pre-programmed backing tracks and lip syncing in place of the electricity and passion of real live R&B,” he explains. “When I was a boy, before I ever saw the Who or Led Zeppelin, I saw Solomon Burke and Otis Redding. I saw the Temptations and all that music is part of the foundation of the music I’ve made. Soul Station is my chance to celebrate it for a night that’s real, live and faithfully recreates the sound with the respect it deserves. Whether it’s the Stylistics, the Dramatics, the Temptations, Smokey [Robinson] and the Miracles, Blue Magic and on, these songs, arrangements and sound just blow you away.”

KISSmuseum.com

Today we unbox the incredible new KISS Alive II Stage Deluxe box set. Every detail on contents, assembly as well as a preview of our high-quality shipping methods.

More photos and details at HERE at KISSmuseum.com

Rolling Stone | Kory Grow

This fall, Kiss singer-guitarist Paul Stanley will begin a surprising new gig: soul singer. His new side group, Soul Station, which plays a mix of Sixties and Seventies soul classics, will perform its first-ever concert at Los Angeles’ Roxy Theatre on September 11th. “I don’t play guitar in the band and we don’t do a single Kiss song,” Stanley said in a statement. “That’s not what this is about.”

The Kiss vocalist’s nine-person Soul Station backing band consists of musicians who have played with artists ranging from Christina Aguilera to Bobby Brown. Its drummer, Eric Singer, also plays with Stanley in Kiss. The group will play a mix of songs by the Stylistics, Dramatics, Temptations, Smokey and the Miracles and Blue Magic, among others. Their repertoire includes the Miracles’ “Ooo Baby Baby,” the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination” and the Stylistics’ “You Are My Everything.”

“We’re living in a time of being fed canned pre-programmed backing tracks and lip syncing in place of the electricity and passion of real live R&B,” Stanley said. “When I was a boy, before I ever saw the Who or Led Zeppelin, I saw Solomon Burke and Otis Redding. I saw the Temptations and all that music is part of the foundation of the music I’ve made. Soul Station is my chance to celebrate it for a night that’s real, live and faithfully recreates the sound with the respect it deserves…. These songs, arrangements and sound just blow you away.”

In the meantime, Kiss remain as active as ever. After Stanley’s Soul Station gig, the band will play a run of shows in Australia and New Zealand in October.

In other Kiss news, the group recently partnered with the makers of Scooby-Doo for a new feature-length cartoon, and the band was honored by songwriting-royalties organization ASCAP with a “Founders Award” at a gala where Dave Grohl called them his childhood superheroes. The band’s singer-bassist, Gene Simmons, has also launched a film venture with WWE studios, which will make “elevated horror movies.”

George Varga | San Diego Union-Tribune

Kiss singer and guitarist Paul Stanley covered a lot of ground in his 2014 autobiography, “Face the Music: A Life Exposed,” including his disclosure that he was born without a right ear. But he didn’t drop a single hint to even suggest he was yearning to front a new band that will focus entirely on classic soul and R&B songs from the 1960s and ’70s.

That, however, is precisely what Stanley, 63 will do next month at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood. On Tuesday, the veteran rocker announced the official launch of Soul Station, a 10-piece music “coalition” that will makes it debut at the Roxy on Sept. 11 and features longtime Kiss drummer Eric Singer. Stanley will dispense with his usual guitar duties to focus exclusively on singing.

“We’re living in a time of being fed canned pre-programmed backing tracks and lip syncing in place of the electricity and passion of real live R&B,” Stanley said in a statement released Tuesday.

“When I was a boy, before I ever saw The Who or Led Zeppelin, I saw Solomon Burke and Otis Redding. I saw The Temptations and all that music is part of the foundation of the music I’ve made. Soul Station is my chance to celebrate it for a night that’s real, live and faithfully recreates the sound with the respect it deserves. Whether it’s The Stylistics, The Dramatics, The Temptations, Smokey (Robinson)and The Miracles, Blue Magic and (so) on, these songs, arrangements and sound just blow you away.”

Since Stanley is not a jazz fan, it seems unlikely he named “Soul Station” after the classic 1960 album by sax great Hank Mobley. There are currently at least four other bands called Soul Station, including one in Italy, one in England, one in Australia and another in France.

As of this point, Stanley has announced no other shows with his Soul Station and no plans to record. He will rejoin Kiss for an October tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Will Stanley mix “Strutter,” “Shout It Out Loud,” “Rock and Roll All Nite” or any other Kiss favorites into Soul Station’s concert repertoire, which will reportedly include covers of The Temptations’ “Just My Imagination, The Miracles’ “Ooo Baby Baby” and The Stylistics’ “You Are My Everything?”

In a word, no.

“I don’t play guitar in the band and we don’t do a single Kiss song,” he said. “That’s not what this is about. It’s magical to hear those songs played right and we’re making magic.”

To aid him in his quest to create magic, Stanley will be assisted by a group of “legendary band members.” The lineup includes Rafael “Hoffa” Moreira (guitar & backing vocals), Sean Hurley (bass), Alex Alessandroni (keyboards), Ely Rise (keyboards), Eric Singer (drums & backing vocals), Ramon Yslas (percussion), Nelson Beato (backing vocals), Crystal Starr (backing vocals) and Ayana Layli (backing vocals).

Apart from Kiss drummer Singer, none of Soul Station’s members qualify as legends, in any conventional sense of the word, although most of them have solid resumes. No fewer than five of the nine musicians have performed on “American Idol” or “The Voice,” although not as contestants.

Tickets, priced at $69.50 each, are now on sale for Soul Station’s Sept. 11 Roxy Theatre performance. There is, apparently no significance to the date of their show.

RTT News

Slash and KISS guitarist Ace Frehley have reportedly recorded a new version of a Thin Lizzytrack. The track will be included on Ace’s new covers album and Slash broke news of the recording session in a recent post to Twitter.

“Had a really fun, live session with Ace Frehley last night, jamming on a Thin Lizzy tune for his new covers album,” he said via Twitter. “Good times.”

Ace also revealed that he plans to sing lead on the release so that fans can get a feel for his singing voice.

“On Kiss records I’m not singing lead. So I’m going to sing lead on them like I do live so there’s (studio tracks) out there with me.”

James Zahn | The Rock Father

There’s an L.A.-based duo called SNAKED (Hugh Myrone and Depressed Teenager) that just debuted a new single called “Paul Stanley” via NestHQ, and it’s worth a listen. They’re calling it RDM (Rockstar Dance Music), and over the top of the beats and riffs sits the onstage banter of the KISS vocalist for which the song is named. There’s a couple of “Ohs” and “Woos” that sound more like VAN HALEN’s David Lee Roth from the famed“Running With the Devil” acapella takes, but it’s a tune all about Paul. Check it out below… 

KISSmuseum.com

We put the old and new versions of this classic bit of KISS memorabilia up against each other and show what’s the same, what’s different and which one is better!

Only $14.95 at KISSmuseum.com 

Ryan Lambie | Den of Geek

Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons starred in Michael Crichton’s 1984 sci-fi thriller, Runaway. Ryan looks back at a flawed yet intriguing film…

BPR

Timothy Guy | The Press Enterprise

WENN

On Tuesday Gene Simmons Disagrees With Paul Stanley Over New KISS Album was a top story. Here is the recap: Gene Simmons reveals in a new interview that he is on a different page than KISS cofounder Paul Stanley when it comes to the idea of the band making another studio album.

Simmons was asked by Southern California newspaper The Press Enterprise in a new interview if there is any chance that the band would record new music soon and he contradicted Stanley’s recent comments that it was unlikely the band would ever record another album.

Gene said, “Paul (Stanley) may think there’s not going to be another record; I suspect there will be. We never force the issue. There is no one to answer to except our own gut.

“I recently wrote a song called ‘Your Wish is My Command’ and it feels like KISS. It came out pretty easy. When there’s enough material, we’ll look at each other and say ‘you wanna?'”

Read the full interview – here.

Corbin Reiff | Ultimate Classic Rock

On July 25, 1980, Kiss played their first concert without founding drummer Peter Criss, introducing Eric Carr to the world at the Palladium in New York City.

It was an event a few years in the making, really. Criss had spent a majority of the late ‘70s immersing himself deeper and deeper into the throes of drug addiction. It had significantly affected not only his behavior, but also his musical ability. He had drummed on just one track for 1979′s Dynasty – his own song, “Dirty Livin’” – and wasn’t featured at all on the follow-up, Unmasked. Session drummer Anton Fig performed on both albums in his place.

By the middle of 1980, Criss was officially out. In his autobiography Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss, Criss remembered the moment he was shown the door. “A few weeks after I got back from my honeymoon, I got a call to come to the office because the guys had something important to discuss,” he wrote. “I got to our conference room, which had a nice bar and a huge round table and all our gold records on the walls. There they were. ‘Where is everybody?’ I asked. ‘Ah, this is between us,’ one of them said. They cut to the chase. They didn’t want me in the band anymore. I was too out of control. I had lost my chops.”

The search for a replacement began almost immediately and concluded when the band selected Eric Carr, another Brooklyn native, to sit behind the kit. Carr had spent a majority of the previous decade in one group or another and had just called it quits with his last band, Thrasher. After a quick audition, the group felt good enough about his ability and his personality to extend him an invitation to join Kiss, which he accepted.

In his memoir Face the Music, Paul Stanley remembered his first impressions of their new drummer. “He seemed like a good soul,” Stanley wrote. “Some of the other people who auditioned had acted like rock stars, thinking they would gain points for that. Eric was sweet. He eventually proved to be tortured in his own way, but he certainly was a much-needed breath of fresh air in the wake of Peter’s departure.”

With their first new member, Kiss was left with a dilemma, should Eric Carr carry on the Catman role or assume a new persona? Stanley recalled the character quandary in his book. “It took some time to figure out a character for Eric. Heaven forbid we put him in a character people already knew. That seemed too obvious to us, and maybe sacrilegious. Originally, he was going to be the Hawk. We had a costume built with a protruding chest and feathers all over it. He painted a beak on his nose. But he looked like the mascot for a high school football team. All that was missing were the big foam chicken feet. It was horrible. Fortunately, he came up with the idea of the Fox. He wore the same size boots as Peter, so we used existing boots and had the platforms built up even more. The boots ended up being like stilts, and he still looked tiny next to us.”

With everything finally in order, Kiss took the stage at the Palladium to formally debut their new drummer. Carr’s sister Loretta would later recall the significance of the venue to her brother. “It was at the Palladium where, at the time, he was working with my dad delivering furniture. He had just gotten into Kiss, but still kept the job delivering furniture while he was in Kiss. So, he would rehearse with Kiss, then go and work with my dad after that.”

She went on to recount a funny episode that occurred just outside of the venue that night. “That day they were playing, the boss’ sons from the furniture store saw my father and asked him ‘What are you doing here?’ He told them my daughters are fans of Kiss, and in reality Eric was on the stage. So, the guy they knew was the guy behind the make-up: my brother Eric, who was delivering furniture for them, and they never knew.”

Carr would spend the next 11 years beating the skins in Kiss. Sadly, in 1991, after feeling a bit ill, Carr learned that he’d contracted a form of heart cancer. He passed away on Nov. 24, 1991 at the age of 41.

Rock Revolt

Ace Frehley packed Harrah’s Voodoo Lounge in Kansas City, MO with a sea of fans wearing Kiss and Space Invader shirts. Space Ace took the stage with a crowd favorite ‘Rocket Ride’. Ace continued through a notable set of 19 songs including ‘Space Invader’, ‘Love Gun’ and ‘Parasite’. He wrapped up the evening with ‘Detroit Rock City’ and ‘Deuce’. Kansas City photographer, John Thornbrugh was there to capture these incredible shots for RockRevolt™ Magazine!

See the entire photo gallery HERE

Joe Polo

Chris Salce | Nuke the Fridge

Chris Salce | Nuke the Fridge

Thursday was my first day at Comic-Con in San Diego and it was a big one. One of the interviews I had that day were with none other than Kiss, for their new animated film Scooby-Doo! And Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery. Yes, you heard right. Kiss teams up with Scooby-Doo to solve a mystery! In this roundtable interview with the Demon Gene Simmons and the Catman Eric Singer, we discuss how the project came about and the secret to being successful. So here you go, you wanted the best, you got the best…

Q: Kiss and Scooby-Doo, how did this come about?

Gene Simmons: We appeared on Scooby in the seventies and now that Warners has stepped up and proudly made the most expensive Scooby movie of all time, Kiss meets Scooby-Doo really breaks the mold and because what you’ve got is rock n’ roll, Scooby stuff, there’s a mystery, as soon as you think you’ve got it figured out within the first half hour, all of a sudden, rules aside, everything changes. They’re often space monsters, sci-fi, witches, all the cool stuff fanboys love. End of story.

Q: If you could craft a unique song for a Marvel or DC comics character, who would it be?

Simmons: Dr. Doom because the character is so defined and when you understand, here’s the important part, the pathos of it, in other words, what makes this bad guy not just a one-dimensional thing. When you saw King kong, you understood that he actually loved that little girl but he loved her, he would die for her. That’s what made King Kong unique and what makes Dr. Doom unique is that this is actually damaged goods. This guy’s got his face with all kinds of acid and stuff so he’s not fighting the world, he’s fighting himself. I could have written ‘Unholy’ about him.

Q: How much control did you have over the characters and the writing itself?

Simmons: We respect and admire the Scooby mystique and the iconic nature of it so much that all we did was take care of Kiss. We take care of Kiss, they’ll take care of Scooby.

Eric Singer: They’ve got it! When they wrote the script, let’s face it, whoever did their homework, did their homework and basically got the real gist of the individual characters, physically, how the moved and basically stylistically with how they talked.

Chris Salce: You guys are obviously a really successful band, you’ve been around for years…

Simmons: And good looking too [smirks]

Chris Salce: [Laughs] yes, and everybody knows who Kiss is. How did you guys become such successful businessmen? You have a football team, TV shows, tons of merchandise all over the place and now Scooby-Doo.

Simmons: There’s no excuse because all the information mankind has ever put together is really available for free [picks up phone], so when a guy walks up and says ‘Yeah man what’s up?’ that’s not society’s fault, that’s his fault for not taking the time to learn language skills, people skills and all the information you want is right at your fingertips for free!

Singer: Yeah it’s called the internet!

Simmons: What you do before was the library and I used to go to the library everyday. Read. Seek and you shall find. I didn’t create that and you didn’t either so, in my new book, [smirks] ‘Me Incorporated,‘ it actually goes in there! It’s your responsibility, you can always make more money. I guarantee you tomorrow, if you cut out all the bulls*** money you spend on today, you’ll make twice as much money tomorrow. Cigarettes, bars, going on vacation, you don’t need to do all that stuff. That’s the first step, lean and mean.

Q: What’s the next team up that you would like to do?

Simmons: I would like to team up with God.

Q: Why God?

Simmons: He’s cool!