Author Archives: Steve Stierwalt
KISS Icon’s GENE SIMMONS BAND Announces New Date In Huntington, NY
Gene Simmons Band, the touring act around KISS singer/bassist, Gene Simmons, recently announced a string of 2025 tour dates. Brooklyn Vegan is reporting that Simmons has now added a May 9 date at Huntington, NY’s The Paramount.
Tickets for the new date go on sale Friday, December 13 at 10 AM, EST here, with various presales starting Tuesday, December 10 at 12 PM, EST.
Simmons’ tour dates can be found below, and tickets are available via genesimmons.com.
KISS interview on American Top 40 with Eric Carr – 1981
Show 600! Clickbait Headline, OMG What Did Someone Just Say! You Will Freak Out!
Ace Frehley Do Ya Video
Behind the scenes at the ‘Do Ya’ video shoot
Kiss Lawsuit Over Firing After Covid Concerns Poses ‘Serious Risks,’ Judge Says
Case involving the band’s ex-hairstylist suing for wrongful termination “could swing dramatically one way or the other
A judge is urging Kiss rockers Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, music manager Doc McGhee, and Kiss’ touring company to consider settling a lawsuit brought by the famed band’s longtime wig stylist over alleged mistreatment on tour.
The lawsuit, first filed in February 2023, alleges Kiss deprived plaintiff David Mathews of overtime wages and adequate breaks and then wrongfully terminated him in 2022 after he voiced concerns about the band’s COVID protocols surrounding pandemic-era shows. After nearly two years of wrangling, a trial is set to begin Jan. 22, 2025.
“The first time I saw this lawsuit, it was clear both sides had very serious risks. If this goes to trial, it would not surprise me if Mr. Mathews got nothing. It would not surprise me if he made a big pot of money. This is the kind of case any rational person would settle. There’s big risk this could swing dramatically one way or the other,” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Armen Tamzarian told the lawyers on both side during the Friday hearing. “This is a tough case for plaintiff to win, but if he wins, there are deep, deep pockets there, and there could be a big result.”
Judge Tamzarian spent 20 minutes hearing arguments but declined to issue a ruling Friday on Kiss’ request that he reject all six causes of action for being allegedly defective. “The issues are complicated. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this,” the judge said. With no immediate decision, the only thing that seemed clear Friday was that some portion of the lawsuit was expected to proceed. “You’re both overconfident in your positions,” he warned the dueling lawyers.
During the 20-minute hearing in downtown Los Angeles, a lawyer for Kiss argued Mathews was an independent contractor not protected by California law while traveling on tour. Attorney Jennifer Raphael Komsky conceded Kiss played 11 shows in California during the time in question, but she argued the underlying lawsuit focused on alleged incidents in Illinois and South America, not California. She said the laws in those locations applied.
Kiss Swedish Interview 1980
1985 Radio 1990 Full Eric Carr Interview
GENE SIMMONS – FIRESTARTER Video
Hear Kiss’ ‘Turn On the Night’ Without the Bon Jovi Keyboards
Ever wondered how Kiss‘ 1987 album Crazy Nights would sound without all those hair metal keyboards?
The FranKENstein Creations YouTube page helps answer that question with a keyboard-free fan remix of the band’s 1988 single “Turn on the Night.”
You can hear the results below.
FranKENstein, who delivered a full-album remix of the band’s 1974 album Hotter Than Hell last month, opted for a less conventional project this time out. “I decided to have a little fun and rather than do a straight remix, play around with the arrangement a bit,” the post explains before running through a laundry list of tweaks, re-arrangements and samples used on the remix.
KISS In The Studio For Debut’s 50th Anniversary (2024 In Review)
The syndicated radio show In The Studio With Redbeard: The Stories Behind History’s Greatest Rock Bands’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of KISS’ self-titled debut album was a top 24 story of February 2024.
Redbeard shared this synopsis: To this day I still recall receiving in early 1974 the debut album from a largely unknown band called KISS, and my ambivalence on whether to take it seriously or not. It started right there with the startling high-resolution cover, before hearing even the first note. “Alice Cooper was the biggest thing in music in 1973,” Cooper himself once told me here In the Studio, “so a band with four Alices? Couldn’t miss.” Kiss lead singer/ guitarist/ songwriter Paul Stanley told me about the band fraternity of groups with whom they shared the stage some fifty years ago, “The lovefest ended when we hit the stage, because we were there to destroy them.” Gene Simmons agrees. “Putting on the make up was like putting on warpaint.”
Few things from the mid-Seventies can totally freeze time the way that listening to Kiss Alive! does. While the world was weary of the Viet Nam War and Nixon’s Watergate scandal, the puckered foursome had cranked out three studio albums in eighteen months, somehow managing to play every college gym and theater between their New York City base and the Rockies. Now they could perform the strongest of that material while making the leap to select arenas, such as in rock-and-roll-mad Detroit and Cleveland, and record their amalgam of testosterone-fueled comic book fantasy, horror movies, and good old teenage lust. How could it not work?
Yet, with the KISS legacy secured, would they even be allowed to develop over three studio albums in only eighteen months to get that shot at a “best of, live” album in the 21st century music business? “I think the record climate is very, very tough on bands,” notes Paul Stanley. “What makes or breaks a band is their own heart and desire to rise to the top. Certainly the thing that made KISS in the beginning, which has kept KISS alive, is that nobody will ever decide when we come, when we go, what we do or don’t. It’s the inflexibility within a band, and their desire to stick to their own set of rules, that will make them…It’s totally within a band’s ability, if they have the goods, to succeed,” assures Paul Stanley. “It’s very easy to blame the record company, apathy, the climate, trends in music. There’s ALWAYS room for something great.”
Gene Simmons adds, “We had an advantage, I think. It was a little like the Wild West…We could play on bills with Dr. John and the Raspberries. I remember as a kid going to see The Chambers Brothers, a soul rock thing; Albert King; and Poco…You could see Led Zeppelin and the Woody Herman Orchestra on the same bill!”
KISS kollaborators Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons join me In the Studio for a remarkably frank, insightful look at the golden anniversary of Kiss. -Redbeard. Stream the episode here
Vinnie Vincent Invasion host MTV Metal Music Half Hour – 12/05/86
KISS Ikons Bloody Trading Card Set at KISSArmyWarehouse.com!
The 90-CARD BLOODY SET. Get all 90 cards here without piecing a set together. Only 1 Set Available!
KISS Legend’s GENE SIMMONS BAND Announces 2025 Tour Dates
Gene Simmons Band, the touring act around KISS singer/bassist, Gene Simmons, have announced a string of 2025 tour dates. The dates for the shows can be found below, and tickets are available via genesimmons.com.
April
28 – The Moon – Tallahassee, FL
May
3 – Beaver Dam Amphitheater – Beaver Dam, KY
5 – Basie – Red Bank, NJ
22 – House Of Blues – Dallas, TX
24 – House Of Blues – Houston, TX
Stop by and see us at the KISS Cancer Goodbye Event in Sarasota, FL This Weekend!
Make sure to visit the KISS Asylum / KISS Army Warehouse Booth and get this guitar pick with any purchase over $20!
Five KISS Things We Are Each Thankful For. What Are You Thankful For?
Episode 599. This week is our Thanksgiving episode… Five things (KISS) we are each most thankful for.
1) Song (again, thankful for not favorite)
2) Album
3) Tour
4) Era
5) Memory
Play along and share what you are most thankful for.
Gene Simmons Band will perform at Count Basie Center in Red Bank
While another comeback tour is always possible, Kiss performed for allegedly the last time on its End of the Road World Tour, which came to an end in late 2023, at Madison Square Garden. But singer-songwriter-bassist Gene Simmons is continuing, sans makeup and elaborate costumes, with his own Gene Simmons Band, and they will perform at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, May 5.
Tickets will go on sale Dec. 6 at 10 a.m., with pre-sales beginning Dec. 4 at 10 a.m.; visit ticketmaster.com.
Simmons is joined in the band by guitarists Brent Woods (who has previously played with Sebastian Bach and Vince Neil) and Zach Throne (Jerry Cantrell, Corey Taylor), and drummer Brian Tichy (Whitesnake, Billy Idol, Foreigner, Ozzy Osbourne).
For those wondering … yes, Simmons will undoubtedly perform a lot of Kiss material. I don’t know, though, if he or other band members will handle the lead vocals on the Kiss songs he didn’t originally sing.
Mötley Crüe lead singer, KISS guitarist team up for ‘a concert like no other’ at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun
Lead vocalist of Mötley Crüe, Vince Neil, is teaming up with “The Spaceman,” Ace Frehley for what Mohegan Sun is calling “a concert like no other.” The two will share the stage of Mohegan Sun Arena on Jan. 31.
Neil recently rocked out at Mohegan Sun Arena with Mötley Crüe this August — the first time the group performed in Connecticut in nearly a decade. Before the group returns to the stage with its Las Vegas residency in March, Neil will be performing as a solo act for this performance. With Mötley Crüe, Neil has been the voice behind the group’s lengthy list of chart-topping songs including “Home Sweet Home,” “Dr. Feelgood,” “Kickstart My Heart” and “Girls, Girls, Girls.”
Frehley is also no stranger to the Mohegan Sun Arena stage, performing at the venue in May on his 10,000 Volts tour, according to concert tracking website setlist.fm. Before touring as a solo act in mid-1980’s, Frehley was the lead guitarist of the classic rock band KISS. Adopting “The Spaceman” persona, Frehley could be seen on stage with in a silver and black bodysuit with a Gibson Les Paul guitar that would produce smoke from the pickups. Frehley was responsible for penning KISS songs such as “Cold Gin,” “Shock Me” and “Parasite.”
Dimebag Darrell and Snake Sabo on their love of Ace Frehley, and how the Kiss legend shaped their playing
Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell was never shy about his love of Kiss, and how Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley in particular inspired him to pick up the instrument.
Dimebag even went as far as getting a tattoo of Frehley, in his “Spaceman” makeup, on his chest, and was buried, after his tragic murder in 2004, in a “Kiss Kasket,” donated to his family by Gene Simmons.
Though not quiite as devoted a fan as Dimebag Darrell, Skid Row axeman Snake Sabo was also hugely influenced by Frehley, incorporating the latter’s showmanship and swaggering riffing and soloing style into his fretwork with the band.
Both guitarists were recruited by Guitar World in 1993 for a roundtable of sorts with Frehley – before which Dimebag and Sabo even went to the trouble of donning Spaceman makeup themselves.