Kiss on farewell tour: "We were always gentlemen"

one day: Mr Stanley, a taxi driver and a teacher meet in New York and found one of the biggest bands in the world ...

Stanley: ... come. Gene was a hobby musician and elementary school teacher in the Spanish Harlem in the early 1970s, I was taxiing in New York, and working on a kosher delicatessen snack to finance my guitars. We both could not live on the music.

one day: And dreamed of sold out shows at Madison Square Garden?

Stanley: Only of it. In 1972 I drove people in a taxi to the Elvis concert in the "Garden" and swore to myself: One day you will be on stage there. Not five years later it happened with Kiss, unbelievable. And now, after 40 years, we return with our "End Of The Road" show. There memories awake.

one day: Do you like remembering your first meeting with Gene Simmons?

Stanley: That was in the early seventies with a mutual friend in New York. Gene was arrogant, self-loving, know-it-all and immediately dislikable, hard to bear. "I hear you write your own songs," he said. "Show me what you have on it." He had an attitude as if he were Lennon / McCartney in personal union. Finally, I jumped over my shadow and joined his band Wicked Lester.

one day: The success was slow in coming.

Stanley: We had to come up with something new. I came up with the band name Kiss, and Gene, a fan of comics and superheroes, got the idea for the costumes and the flashy make-up. He became the "Demon", me "Starchild", "The Cat" Peter Criss on drums and "Spaceman" Ace Frehley with his guitar riffs. For the live performances Gene took a special course in fire breathing. We wanted spectacle at any price.

one day: Simmons and you are very different - friends or business partners?

Stanley: More like an old couple. We've been together for over 45 years, but luckily I never had to see Gene naked (laughs) . His giant ego he has until today. I can see it from my house, he lives two minutes away.

one day: Why did it happen in the eighties, when you first appeared without make-up, the band crisis?

Stanley: Gene did not care so much about Kiss anymore, more about his own projects, some of them quite questionable, like the B-movies he was trying to do as an actor. I had to keep the band alive and was disappointed with it.

one day: What moved you to the farewell tour?

Stanley: Everyone gets older. If we were to wear jeans and play normal rock'n'roll, we could go on until 90.

one day: But they carry crazy fancy costumes and prance in platform boots.

Stanley: That's Kiss. With the 20-kilo outfits we run all over the stage. Looks very easy - it is hard work.

one day: Will you present new songs on tour?

Stanley: There's no need, the fans will agree. Our repertoire is so extensive, everyone connects experiences or feelings with our songs. We are doing a Greatest Hits Show, a huge firework.

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one day: Will former Kiss musicians be at the start?

Stanley: It would be disrespectful if we were to celebrate our departure without thinking of former colleagues like Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, who were part of the original cast, or Vinnie Vincent and Bruce Kulick. They are all part of our success. Unforgettable is Eric Carr, our fantastic drummer, who died much too early in 1991. Everyone should appear in the show in a certain way.

one day: What traces has half a century of rock star life left on you?

Stanley: Clear. With all the fun we had - rock'n'roll ruined my health, just ask my orthopedist. Should I enumerate? Operations on the shoulders and knees, a heavy vocal cord surgery, new hips, which I owe to dancing on high heels ...

one day: That already hurts when listening. Do you regret something?

Stanley: No, but now it is soon enough. I am 66, the body reports wear. Show me a 66-year-old professional footballer, basketball player, boxer or Formula One driver. What we pull off on stage is competitive sport! We go to our limits, we owe it to the fans.

one day: Critics have been making a mockery of your voice for some time. Do you have problems with high notes?

Stanley: If you want to hear me singing like on "Kiss Alive", please put on the live album from 1975. A voice changes with the years. But I stand in front of 30,000 fans every night that counts. I am sure that I will sing great on the tour.

One day: The brand Kiss should be worth a billion dollars: T-shirts, coffee cups, pinball machines, lollipops, even coffins and condoms make for gigantic sales.

Stanley: We've got it all thanks to Bill Aucoin, our first professional manager. We met him in August '73 in New York, at a showcase gig for record companies. When after the first song was dead silence, Gene went in his monster costume from the stage to Aucoin, grabbed his hands and clapped them together. Then people applauded (laughs) . After that, Bill said, "If you do not mean to become the biggest band in the world, I will not manage you. But that is exactly our goal, we protested. Later, Bill had the idea with the Kiss merchandise. At the time it was new, today everybody does it.

One day: You have a special relationship with Germany - her mother Eva was born in Berlin in 1923.

Stanley: As a ten-year-old she had to flee from the Nazis. In 1933 my grandparents and my mother left everything behind and fled from Berlin to Amsterdam. That saved their lives. The escape continued, finally landing in New York, where I was born.

One day: Gene Simmons' mother Flora has survived two concentration camps.

Stanley: The unspeakable atrocities of the Nazis are well documented and visible to everyone. To call them a disgrace would be a gross understatement.

one day: Against this background do you understand the indignation in the Germany of the early eighties over the Kiss logo, because the two "S" are very similar to the SS runes?

Stanley: In a way, I understood that. The lettering was designed by Ace Frehley. He knew that Gene and I are of Jewish descent and certainly did not want to provoke anyone. The "S" should be lightning, nothing else. The discussion is absurd, especially when one considers that in Germany neo-Nazis are allowed to do more or less unpunished mischief.

one day: Your father William is 98 today, recently you posted a common photo on Instagram.

Stanley: Yeah, my dad is still pretty fit. His ancestors are from Poland. At age 16, he dreamed of high school after graduation. However, he came from a simple working-class family and was asked to accept a job and financially support the family. So he became a seller of office furniture.

one day: Your youth was not straight, right?

Stanley: My right ear was stunted and deformed, I do not hear anything on this page. This birth defect is called microtia. A guy in school called me a one-ear monster. I was stared at by children and adults, a cruel feeling. And I grew up in no intact family. I swore I would not be beaten, to go my own way and show it to everyone. The hate I felt was the best motivation. In the best case, my career is a role model for kids: that you can do something, even if the starting position is difficult. Instead of falling into a victim role, you have to get up and fight for your luck, your success.

one day: Did you reconcile with your parents?

Stanley: Yes. My mother came to many concerts until shortly before her death. I have good contact with my father today and am grateful that I still have him. My parents were not very good at showing me their love, but they never hurt me intentionally. The relationship was difficult. Nevertheless, I'm glad that I could later offer them a good financial life.

one day: Once you have shocked your mother really.

Stanley: When we recorded the album "Hotter Than Hell" in Los Angeles in 1974, I had heard of this tattoo artist: Lyle Tuttle had already refined the skin of Janis Joplin and Cher and stabbed me with a tiny red rose on the upper arm. I just wanted a single tattoo. When my mum discovered it, she was appalled: "You know that as a tattoo artist you can not be buried according to Jewish customs!" Then I said with a shrug: Then you have to saw off my right arm. I can not care then ... (laughs) .

one day: Groupies were lining up at Kiss. Are you glad that was long before the #metoo debate?

Stanley: No, because we have nothing to blame. For sex, there are always two, it must be done by mutual agreement, everything else is just pathetic. You can not manipulate or threaten anyone to get sex. And no matter in which language: no means no ! We were always gentlemen.

one day: "Rock and Roll all nite and party every day" - it's all over soon.

Stanley: Enough is enough. We've built a giant stage and want to make our last tour a lap of honor, like in a Formula 1 race when the pilot celebrates his victory. We will stop with a big bang , with the biggest of all shows. And after two or three years, we do not want to crawl all over the finishing line, but go over it with our heads held high.