WABENO – Gene Simmons is becoming something of a Wisconsin northwoods regular, and even in the leather pants and rock star cowboy boots, he fits right in.

The KISS legend was back at Potawatomi Casino Hotel Carter on Tuesday to open the newest and 25th Rock & Brews restaurant in the franchise he co-founded with bandmate Paul Stanley.

He hammed it up with local media, swiping microphones and flipping up the collars of his interviewers, and sat down with Green Bay’s WIXX-FM morning show co-hosts Huggie, Natalie & Corey for a chat minus the usual radio questions.

He posed for photos with the kitchen staff, members of the Forest County Potawatomi Community color guard, kids in KISS makeup and T-shirts, elders with walkers and “every person on the planet” at the invite-only ceremony. He signed KISS memorabilia, did the honors of the ribbon-cutting with a pair of giant scissors and impromptu danced to Prince’s “1999” in between meet and greets like only he can.

Just when everyone thought The Beatles had done all that could be done with rock music, the 1970s arrived. Following the momentous hippie phase of the late 1960s, this new decade was marked by more anarchistic countercultural revolutions in the punk wave alongside progress in the realms of heavy metal, glam rock and prog-rock. Somewhere amid this chaos was the New York City glam metal group Kiss.

In the early 1960s, rock bands mostly stuck to dark suits, later embracing colourful, fluffy jackets and shoulder-length hair in the psychedelic era. By the time the 1970s rolled around, glam rockers like David Bowie and Marc Bolan operated at the fashion vanguard, the former with colourful flare suits and orange hair and the latter with a fetching stovepipe hat and cheek glitter.

Taking heed of such developments in style and showmanship, Kiss made icons of themselves by layering their faces with white makeup and elaborate suits that developed throughout the years. As bassist Gene Simmons unravelled his six-inch tongue on stage before tearing into an early hit like ‘Deuce’, there could be no mistaking who stood on stage.

Behind all the glitz and glam, however, Kiss were serious about their craft and prided themselves on innovative composition. Invariably, their music was hard-hitting, inspired by early metal innovators like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, with an appreciation of catchy bass hooks and uptempo rhythm guitar work.

As the band’s co-lead vocalist, prolific songwriter and bassist, Simmons relied on inspiration from all corners of the musical map. As a bassist and composer, few of Simmons’ luminaries could measure up to Paul McCartney, whose songwriting prowess seemed to outshine his melodic grasp of the bass throughout the 1960s. “When I was growing up as a Beatles fan, I heard a Beatles song, and you’d listen to it, and you’d go away humming it,” he reflected in a 2016 conversation with Rock Cellar. “You only later realise that every once in a while, you’re humming a bass part.”

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