Joyce Smith | Kansas City Business

KISS co-founders Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley have signed their first Rock & Brews restaurant franchisee, a Kansas native who plans to open five locations in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Williams has formed Kanbrews LLC to develop, open and operate five Rock & Brews in Kansas and Oklahoma over the next five years. He also has an option to open an additional five units in Missouri and Nebraska. A corporate owned restaurant was planned for Overland Park but it will now be owned by Kanbrews and at least one more Rock & Brews could open in the Kansas City area.

Williams said the concept is “very family and neighborhood friendly.”

“The thing that sold me I think was the variety of craft beers, that was one piece. And I was real excited about the quality of the food,” Williams said. “It was really beyond my initial expectations. You want people to come back for the food.”

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Erika Engle | Star Advertiser

Rock & Brews Paia opened for business at 11 a.m. Wednesday, but famous KISS rockers Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were not present for the first lunch service.

The restaurant’s famous co-founders were present for the blessing about a month and a half-ago, according to the hostess on duty Wednesday afternoon.

“We like to call them our mascots,” she said.

The Star-Advertiser reported on the planned restaurant two years ago, which raised community hackles in the historically low-key town.

The restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Rock & Brews also has locations in Southern California and Los Cabos, Mexico.

Bryan Alexander | USA Today

Lena Headey is clearly not a big Kiss fan. At Tuesday night’s premiere for 300: Rise of an Empire, rocker Gene Simmons found that out the hard way after Headey snubbed his aggressive social advances.

It was a scene that would have fit in perfectly on the rocker’s canceled reality show.

Simmons tried in vain to pull Headey, one of the 300stars, away from an ongoing black carpet interview . He wanted to introduce her to his son Nick Simmons, 25, who was waiting with a pained expression a few feet away.

At first Headey smiled politely as Simmons assured her that she would much rather meet his son than continue an interview.

Then Simmons joked lamely about the AP microphone in front of him. (“I have an app on my phone,” he said.) No one laughed.

Then he found out that Headey was not going to move despite being guided by his left hand on her back. Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones and Spartan Queen Gorgo in 300: Rise of an Empire, stood her ground and continued her interview.

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Kory Grow | Rolling Stone

Kevin Mazur

The bitterness between the current and former members who founded Kiss will not be quelled anytime soon. It’s been a little over a week since the group announced that it would not perform “in any lineup” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, following Ace Frehley’s comment that he would not perform with current guitarist Tommy Thayer wearing Frehley’s sometime makeup. Now, in a new interview with Guitar World, vocalist-guitarist Paul Stanley has derided Frehley’s talent.

Kiss’ Long Road to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Photos

“What we had at the beginning was magical. . . Ace and I played great together,” Stanley said. “But in my mind it’s a crime what Ace did: He threw away incredible potential and talent. The Ace I played with when the band first started out was a comet – and not [Frehley’s late-Eighties band] ‘Frehley’s Comet!’ But he was burning bright and really had the ability – and this would rub him the wrong way – to be a real contender. But he stopped practicing. He got involved with a whole lot of things that really diluted and diminished his craft. I saw that comet grow dim.”

Stanley also said that after Kiss ousted drummer Peter Criss in 1980, he decided the band needed to reinvent itself, and that’s why they removed their makeup in 1983. It’s a decision he now feels hurt the band. “Rather than saying, ‘We’ve built these iconic figures together and we’re going to continue on with what we built,’ we bought into the idea of, ‘We have to have a new character,'” he said. “That watered it down. Some people may argue with me, but I feel that Batman is Batman whether he’s played by George Clooney, Christian Bale, Val Kilmer and on and on.”

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KISSonline.com

Paul Stanley’s “Face the Music: A Life Exposed” will be released in ALL formats including eBook and spoken word on April 8th! Paul will be signing copies of his new book at the following locations:

Monday, April 7 – New York – 6:00 pm

Barnes & Noble Tribeca
97 Warren Street
New York, NY 10007

Tuesday, April 8 – New York – 7:00 pm

Barnes & Noble
2245 Richmond Avenue
Staten Island, NY

Wednesday, April 9 – New York/New Jersey – 6:00 pm

Bookends
211 E. Ridgewood Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ

Wednesday, April 16 – Los Angeles – 7:00 pm

Barnes & Noble
The Grove
189 The Grove Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Thursday, April 17 – San Diego – 7:00 pm

Warwick’s
7812 Girard Avenue
La Jolla, CA 92037

Friday, April 25 – San Francisco – 7:00 pm

Jewish Community Center
3200 California Street
San Francisco, CA 94118

Special Risks Bureau

That’s 1,001,462 U.S. Dollars.

Joe Polo

Classic Rock Magazine

Kiss frontman Paul Stanley has insisted he and Gene Simmons were never going to allow Ace Frehley and Peter Criss to take part in their cancelled Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction performance.

And he adds that while they’re still welcome to attend the ceremony in April, there’s no chance they’ll be allowed to wear the make-up that made them famous.

Stanley and Simmons last week stated that no line-up of the band would play, following previous comments which had offered fans some hope the four original members would take the stage together.

The frontman’s latest comments come after the partner of Bill Aucoin, the manager who helped make the band’s name, called for them to stop their “nonsense” and find a compromise.

Stanley tells the LA Times: “Imagine getting on stage and playing with a line-up that does not exist.” He compares the situation to being forced to reunite with a former spouse.

He adds that he’d still be happy for Frehley and Criss to take part in the actual induction – but he’ll accept no argument that current members Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer should not be there too. “The naysayers talk about Tommy or Eric being impostors,” Stanley says. “I think an impostor is a guy up there doing it for a pay cheque.”

Meanwhile, both ex-members have expressed their disappointment. Guitarist Frehley says: “For years, Gene and Paul have been trying to minimise my contributions to the band, even though I designed the famous Kiss logo and the trademarked make-up for the Spaceman character.”

Criss comments: “We should have been able to work it out as grown men. It’s a shame we couldn’t.”

NBC

The fun starts at the 1:51 minute mark…

Mitch Lafon

Steve Appleford | LA Times

Liz O Baylen

The sideshow at Dodger Stadium is about to begin as Paul Stanley emerges from his backstage trailer, shirtless and in full kabuki drag: bright red lips, his face painted harlequin white, a black star over his right eye. The singer-guitarist is here to perform with his band KISS but hears his name and walks over to a crowd gathered at the fence.