2024 has been a record-breaking concert season at the Beaver Dam Amphitheatre. From the sold out Oliver Anthony show to the record crowd at the Nelly & Chingy concert, it’s been one of the best seasons in the history of the venue. While there’s still one more show left this year (Hairball on Saturday, September 28th), Beaver Dam Amp officials are already looking ahead to 2025. This morning, they made a huge announcement.
Rock icon Gene Simmons is bringing the Gene Simmons Band to The Dam to kick off the 2025 season. The show is set for Saturday, May 3rd and tickets will go on sale this week.
Paul Stanley of KISS joined Billboard‘s Behind the Setlist podcast to talk about a wide range of topics. Why the band sold its music royalties and name & likeness to Swedish company Pophouse. How the KISS legacy will live in the coming years. His love of soul music and his band, Paul Stanley’s Soul Station. His feelings about KISS’s final tour. His painting career. And his work with About Face, a Canadian non-profit for people with facial differences.
EXCLUSIVE: McG (Way of the Warrior Kid) is in final negotiations to direct Shout It Out Loud, a biopic about Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley and their superstar rock band KISS, which will be produced by STX Entertainment, sources tell Deadline.
STX declined to comment, but we hear the studio is in discussions with Lionsgate to distribute the film worldwide and co-finance. The project previously had been set up at Netflix, following a bidding war, with Joachim Rønning attached to direct, as we first reported in 2021.
No word on the framing the film will take in looking at KISS’s decades-long musical journey. Financed by UMG, the most recent draft of the script is written by Darren Lemke (S
When the deal makes, McG will produce alongside his Wonderland producing partner Mary Viola. Other producers and executive producers for the project include Mark Canton, Leigh Ann Burton, Doc McGhee, UMG’s Jody Gerson and David Blackman, David Hopwood, Courtney Solomon, and Dorothy Canton, along with Simmons and Stanley. Christa Campbell and Annie Herndon are overseeing for STX.
Currently in production on Way of the Warrior Kid, starring Chris Pratt, for Apple and Skydance, McG is expected to move on to Shout It Out Loud when that film completes. Casting is said to be underway as McG is aiming for production to start in the second quarter of 2025.
An iconic band rooted in hard rock and heavy metal, with glam rock influences, KISS was formed in New York City by Stanley, Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss in 1973. Known for their signature kabuki-style face paint and larger-than-life, pyrotechnic-filled performances, the band broke out with the the 1975 live album Alive!, which featured the anthem “Rock and Roll All Nite” and solidified their status as one of the era’s top acts. The band’s most successful albums include Destroyer (1976), Love Gun (1977), Alive II (1977) and Dynasty (1979), which produced hits including “Beth,” “Detroit Rock City” and “I Was Made for Lovin’ You.” All four band members released solo albums in 1978.
Frehley and Criss departed KISS decades ago, leaving Simmons and Stanley as the lone original members. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, the band spent four years on the road for their farewell “End of the Road” World Tour, officially retiring after their final concert at Madison Square Garden in December.
In a recent interview with the X5 Podcast, Evan Stanley, Paul Stanley‘s son, shared his thoughts on the experience of opening for his father’s band, KISS, as the lead vocalist of his own rock group, AMBER WILD.
“For us to get to play and then watch them every night, it really makes you up your game and study what you do,” Evan said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “‘Cause you never wanna be another band — you can’t out-KISS KISS — but you can be the best version of you and take away a ton of just ridiculous insight from watching that show. And not only is the show amazing, but it’s the most consistent show I’ve seen. It’s every single night. The difference between a bad night and a great night, it’s like, no, they’re only great nights. It’s, like, they’re different shades of great. And it’s wild to see a band that far into their career where every night they go out and just throw it all down. It’s awesome.”
“I think it’s weird ’cause I grew up, obviously, so close to it. So I didn’t grow up really listening to a ton of KISS,” he continued. “It was more dad’s band and dad’s work. And when I was maybe, like, 17, I was, like, ‘I’ve gotta try my best to… Let me just try and listen the way a fan would or someone.’ So I got KISS Alive, ’cause that seemed to be kind of — everyone talked about that. And I’ll never be able to listen like a pure fan, but I did my best to kind of disconnect, and I’m, like, ‘Whoa, this is actually so sick.’ And then I kind of started listening to some of the earlier records and made my way through the discography.”
“All the theatrics aside, which are awesome, they’re just great songs. If you close your eyes and go to a KISS show, they’re killer, killer players playing great songs. And I think a lot of times people will try and go, ‘Oh, it’s all spectacle. It’s not a real band.’ It’s, like, get up there and try and do that. Good luck. I’m, like, no. They have incredible songs, timeless songs, great, great players, and it’s so cool-looking. And they blow up a million pounds of s**t every show. How do you top that? It’s, like, you’ve got everything.”
In 1991, Star magazine published an article claiming that founding Kiss drummer Peter Criss was homeless and living on the streets of Los Angeles. The story was eye catching and alarming — it was also completely false.
Around the same time, the rocker had been tending to family matters in New York following the death of his mother. When he returned to his Southern California home, he was inundated with questions about his well being. “They say you’re totally broke and you’re sleeping in the toilets of Santa Monica,” Criss was told, as recounted in the rocker’s memoir Makeup to Breakup: My Life in and Out of Kiss.
“I was blown away,” the rocker admitted, adding that he immediately got his hands on a copy of the tabloid. “There was a photo of some bum who was claiming to be me lying in the toilets in Santa Monica, and next to it was a photo of me in my Kiss makeup. I was furious.”
At this point in his career, Criss had been out of the spotlight for some time. The drummer departed the band in 1980 – some say he quit, others say he was fired. Regardless, the rocker had spent the next decade working on solo material, guesting with other acts and spending time with his family.
When a homeless impostor claimed to be the former Kiss drummer, Criss found himself unwillingly thrust back into the limelight. The musician immediately began the process of suing Star magazine, when his manager called with an offer from The Phil Donahue Show.
“They wanted me to come on and talk about having an imposter pose as me,” Criss recalled, adding that his manager thought it would be a great way to publicly denounce the fictitious story. “I just wanted it to go away, I was so hurt.”
Despite his initial resistance, Criss agreed to appear on the program. On Feb. 5, 1991, the drummer would confront his impostor on The Phil Donahue Show.
“Why couldn’t you impersonate the Lone Ranger or Tonto, something like that?” the real Criss asked Christopher Dickinson, the homeless man who’d been posing as the musician. “You’ve really given me a rocky time.”
Dickinson apologized to Criss, explaining that his alcoholism had played a role in the lies. “Ninety percent of the time, I was out of it. Loaded. Drinking,” Dickinson admitted. “I was walking around in a haze for months and months and months.” While waiting in line at a food kitchen, Dickinson had been approached by a reporter and photographer from the Star. He gave them his fake story for $500 and a motel stay.
Bryan Adams just released a new double a-side single featuring his renditions the classic KISS songs “War Machine” and “Rock and Roll Hell”, that he co-wrote with Gene Simmons and Jim Vallance, for the masked band’s 1982 album “Creatures Of The Night”.
Adams explained how the collaboration came about during an appearance on Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk of SiriusXM earlier this week. Bryan explained, “I was 21, and I released my album called ‘You Want It, You Got It’. And I got a call from a guy called Michael James Jackson, who was a producer at the time, and he called me to say, ‘Hey, I really like your record. And I’m actually working with this band KISS. Would you like to write a couple of songs with them or for them?’ And I said, ‘Yeah. What? Is this for real?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’
“And so, they flew me to Los Angeles and I met Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley and Eric Carr, who was the drummer at the time. I sort of sat down with each one of them individually and wrote songs with each one.
“I wrote a song with Paul and I wrote a song with Eric. And with Gene I didn’t write anything, but Gene had a really good bassline that I sort of recorded on my cassette recorder. And I took it back to Vancouver, and I was telling my usual songwriting collaborator, Jim Vallance, that I’d done this thing, and ‘Check out this bassline of Gene’s.’ And we listened to it, and within an hour or so, we’d written this song called ‘War Machine’ around it.
“So that’s how ‘War Machine’ came about. And then just to drag Jim into it further, he had a song that he wrote by himself called ‘Rock And Roll Hell’. I said, ‘We should retool that song’ – ’cause it didn’t do anything – ‘we should retool it for KISS.’ And he said, ‘Okay, let’s give it a go.’
“So, I came up with a verse idea and then the two of us sort of came up with a lyric idea and we finished the song and sent it down there. And that became the second KISS song. Gene wanted a third verse, so he wrote a third verse for it.”
Ace Frehley has certainly come up with his fair share of classic guitar solos over the years, either with Kiss or on his own: “Shock Me,” “Strange Ways,” “Rocket Ride,” “Almost Human,” “Rip It Out,” etc. But it turns out that he is not a fan of working out solos beforehand in the studio, which can lead to troubles in replicating them live.
During an interview with the Guitar Tales Podcast, Frehley discussed how he tends to create his guitar solos. And how has been known to have to re-familiarize himself with some of them later on.
“I never know what I’m going to play when I do my solo. It’s never the exact same solo every night,” Frehley said (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar). “I always mix it up with different things and whatever comes to mind.”
“Sometimes I’ll just start playing something out of the blue that pops into my head, but, you know, the fans enjoy it, and I’m having fun.”
He also prefers playing solos off the cuff in the record studio. Which, has proven tricky in the past when it came to the concert stage.
“When I’m like recording guitar solos, I don’t really think about what I’m playing. As fast as I do a guitar solo, I forget it. Like, sometimes I’ll record a solo, and two months later, we decide we’re going to perform it live [and] I got to learn it.”
“I had forgotten it already because it just came to me. It was creative energy that just came out of me. But you don’t remember it unless you’re doing it every day.”
“Remember rock ’n’ roll? You guys used to rock ’n’ roll real good.” – Creem Magazine Dynasty Review
Episode 588. We go back to October 1979 and read and react to the Creem Magazine review of Dynasty…
“We had some good times, but now they’re gone. So long,.”
—Ace Frehley,
“Save Your Love”
So long, Ace, it’s been good to know ya.
And, uncool as it may be for someone my age to admit it, y’know, five years ago I held high hopes that you guys would ultimately transform yourselves into the great American white (faces) rock ’n’ roll hope. But hey, Ace, the Ramones now have that title—and they don’t even wear make-up. But they sure can rock ’n’ roll, eh?
Remember rock ’n’ roll? You guys used to rock ’n’ roll real good. As a matter of fact, Dressed To Kill and Rock ‘n’ Roll Over still rank, along with side four of your second live album, as your supreme studio moments (and that’s not even considering Hotter Than Hell’s “Parasite,” which features your most homicidal guitar solo ever). I mean, the original Alive! still packs enough punch to render Helen Keller senseless.
But then something went wrong, beginning with the dreaded (for the wrong reasons) Love Gun, foreshadowed by the equally ominous (again, for the wrong reasons) Destroyer. And Ace, what happened to the much-vaunted “Strutter 78” which appeared on the Double Platinum album? It was actually weaker than either of the original -’74 or live ’75 versions. Then came the glut of solo albums, TV specials and comic books— each new enterprise a coin in the coffer and a nail in the coffin.
By this time, Ace, the low points were beginning to greatly outnumber the highs. Somewhere along the line, you guys lost your demons.
And I miss that. There just aren’t any demons on your new album, Ace. Why don’t you leave the pop diddling to Abba and the disco stuff to Giorgio Moroder? You guys were born to rock ’n’ roll and, although I know you think you’re making a good move career-wise by recording this stuff, believe me, you’re making a lot of your vintage fans (you know, the ones who put you where you are today) angry and—even worse—sad.
Go back to Eddie Kramer and tell him you want to rock ’n’ roll. He’ll know what you mean.
