The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Paul Stanley Pt 2 | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

In Part 2 of this candid conversation, Paul Stanley reflects on 50 years of KISS. Together they dig into the legacy, the criticism, the creativity, and the brotherhood behind the band. From the idea of a KISS biopic and their unmasked Vegas shows to Paul's Soul Station, songwriting, and his admiration for icons like Robert Plant and Steve Marriott. Watch The Magnificent Others on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Do you want to see a, like, a Kiss, like a Kiss biopic? I'm on the fence about it. I would rather it never happen than happen badly. I don't want to talk much about your musical partner, because, you know, he says enough on his own. But when you started getting into other things, you know, I called it like Gene with the ponytail in the movies. Gene?

How did you feel about that? Did you see him as being, like, remember when Keith Richards was very, critical of Mick Jagger. Yeah. Like, hey, you're in the Rolling Stones. Like, what the hell are you doing? Did you have a similar kind of reaction? Very much. Very much. I felt betrayed.

So let's start here. I love this word kerfuffle. Do you know this one? There's a recent kerfuffle about you guys playing again. Yes. So I just want you to walk me through that a little bit. The context being you're going to do a thing in Vegas, and you guys are going to play it.

Unmasked, they believe, is the word you use. Every year we did kiss cruises. And fans love them. I mean, I know 10 people have been on the kiss cruises. They love them. Yeah. Instead the most fun. The most fun.

And so much fun for me and for us. Honestly, when we first were toying with the idea, I was like, who's going to go on a kiss cruise? It turned out many. And we did what they wanted. We listened and created something special. That's what we're doing in Vegas. In terms of why, why not?

I don't care about the why. Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude at it. To me, the why is when people get into that stuff in our business, they're looking at the long end of the telescope. Well, also. It's a reflection of a mindset that I'm not a part of. You know, many people live going, why instead of why not? That's the opening of the door.

We're celebrating 50 years. There's always a reason to celebrate, but it's 50 years since the kiss on. and it's also a way to stay connected to our fans. The people who ask us why we're doing it are the people who wish we wouldn't do it in the same way that there are people who would say, you know, why did you continue on as a band? Well, you know, so it sounds like a great, fun time

to, to, to, keep going and to continue a tradition. It's basically a kiss cruise in Vegas in a hotel. Sure. I'm not a doubting person by nature because I just think cynicism is just, it's overplayed in American culture. So the question is not asked with doubt. Semicism comes from bitterness.

Agreed. So I'm just curious of your mindset. that, was it similar to when you guys continued after the farewell tour? It's just like it's our book to author. And if we want to keep adding chapters, it's all good. Totally. We said that we're done touring. We're done in those personas.

Yeah. That we shouldn't pick up instruments together, says who. Yeah. We're not, we're not, and if we did, we're allowed to, but we're not going against what we said. Okay. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to be on stage. I see videos and go from the last tour and go, boy, was that great. But we're not doing that.

You know, we're celebrating where we are today. and our past with the fans who we love and they love us. Yeah, I mean, in many ways, it's a blithe way to put it, but your business model is very much its own thing. You guys have always kind of created your own ecosystem. Always. And it's worked very well for you. Other people it wouldn't work well for,

I don't think it would work well for us. I don't, we're just wired differently. Yeah, we've always, we've always done things. things the way we thought they should be done. Yeah. Certainly in the beginning, we had less control over making those kinds of decisions. But Bill Arquine, our first manager, he never managed anybody in his life. But it felt right.

Yeah. And there are other cases of that happening over the years. And this might be an unfair question to ask you, because, you know, Gene's always sort of, And Gene, when he was here and he sat in that exact same chair, I challenged him and said, you know, in a way, you're always talking about money as kind of a weird cover for how you really feel. I'm not asking you to speak for Gene. But when people have tried to always label Kiss as being about money, I always thought this is sort of missed the point. And I even challenged Gene on that. So what was always your mindset on that? It's never been about the money. However, it's never been about the money. However, it's. If there is money to be made, it should go to us. But...

People overlooked the fact to how much money you guys blew, too. I mean, you guys blew it. I mean, no one's ever blown money like you guys. I mean, the production, people really knew what that stuff cost, you know? We learned through mistakes. And nobody has to take up a collection for us. Our rent is well paid. But, you know, the idea of being like money hungry or anything like, it's not the case.

I've always done this and we've always done this ultimately, truly, because of the joy it gives us. I was so fortunate. I grew up in an era that took us into the next era, but I grew up seeing Jimmy Hendricks play for a couple thousand people, Led Zeppelin, The Who with Buddy Guy opening in 69, Humble Pie, Derek and the Dominoes, all these bands. That's what I love, and that's what I wanted to be. I never started doing this with the intention.

I'm going to be a millionaire. Back then, millionaire was like, you know, the monopoly man. You know, whoa, you know, that's incredible. But it was never about that. It was about I want to be that guy. I want to be up there. I want to be Steve Marriott. I want to be, I want to preach.

Who wouldn't want to be Steve Marriott? I want to be up there preaching rock and roll, you know, with everything I have. When I interviewed Sharon Osborne, I didn't know that she'd gone to school with Steve Marion. So she knew him as a kid when she was a kid. And we talked about that voice that came out of that body. Boy, I mean, a less Paul on him looked like a birdland. I mean, it was, you know, but gosh, you know, you had to experience that life. But that's what it was about for me.

Yes. there's money generated and I wanted. But it, that was, that was secondary. But it was important. If there is going to be money, it belongs here. Yeah. I guess what I'm after, and I'm not doing a good job of it, is fans tend to do this weird thing.

They try to make these kind of arguments. It's like, it's either about integrity or money. And my argument is, why can't it be about both? Isn't success where the artist gets rewarded for their effort and they maintain their integrity, in essence, they're executing their vision? Isn't that the ultimate win? Totally. Because if you don't generate resources in the music business, you won't have any power.

Because the people actually control the world will put you in positions of which you don't have any choice of integrity. Does that translate the way I'm saying? Yes. and money, what money gives you is the ability to stop worrying about money. And it gives you freedom. What was the Duke Ellington thing? I know how to make a man a millionaire, give him a dollar and he wants 10. And once it gets 10, he wants 100.

It's, you know, money, money is a great thing. But it gives you the opportunity. I think integrity is following your compass. It doesn't necessarily mean doing the right thing always. God knows we've done some, you know, some we've fallen on our asses a few times. But money gives you the ability to survive that and to continue. Walk me through the, I'm not interested in the financial aspect of the Pop House deal, but I'm interested in, you know, Gene, of course, paints this rhapsodic picture,

which you guys are going to do. I like to get the more practical vision of what you have. Of course, when you did the last show at Madison Square Gardens, there was the characters were flashed up and there was a lot of chatter about that. But what's your aspirational hope for, let's call it, kiss in your absence? Firstly, what was it, Madison Square or Garden? was something where there was some dissension or contention even among us, because it didn't represent what we were going to do.

To create what we are doing takes years. And that was, rather than taking literally, it was just the idea that we will continue on. Sure. Pardon me, in another form. What do I hope? that there's a, that the core of this immersive experience is an accurate representation of the band at its best. Because nobody can be us better than us.

So if there is a way and there is to create something lifelike and beyond realistic, something that you buy as real and then surround it with something unworldly that takes us into another realm which most bands can never do. You know, we're not, you know, the idea was never to recreate a concert where you go, doesn't that look like a real amp?

You know, it's to create something that parallels what can, kiss is, which is bigger than life and takes the imagination on a journey. Yeah. So it makes sense to me that there would be a posthumous life for the band as is, you know, it's like I always say, when I was a kid and we would watch the wonderful world of Disney in color on Sunday night at Grandma's house. We didn't know that Disney was dead.

We had no idea. We thought he was a living guy. Yeah. Because he was presented as this character who ran this wonderful world called Disney and Disneyland. Good point. Yeah, I think that I was part of creating Kiss, but I can also step away from it and it lives on. That makes, I mean, as a fellow artist, that makes total sense to me. But basically, the thing, pardon me to interrupt.

No, no, it's to you I want to hear from me. No, but doesn't that make sense? Because whether or not your kiss and you can live on visually as an artist creating music, your music lives on. Well, that's the real important thing. Sure. So I'm sure that's at the heart of your desire is like that people are going to hear these great songs. And it's connected to these wonderful personas.

Yeah. that enhanced the experience. Yeah. We see it now with Star Wars and Star Trek. And, you know, like, there's these other lives that they didn't anticipate when they first created. Totally, totally. You can only create within the capacity and the technology. And as that broadens, other things become possible.

This is just a curiosity question. I'm sure you, you know, the Queen movie went out and to be the most successful band, music biopic, I think, in the history. I'm sure people have proposed it to you. Do you want to see a, like, a kiss, like a kiss biopic? I'm on the fence about it. I would rather it never happen than happen badly. No. We don't need Kiss Meets the Phantom 2.

But, yeah, it would be, I would love to see it. It almost be interesting as like a Netflix mini series or something, if they were willing to put up the money and do it right. Yeah. Because, you know, most people are going to gravitate towards the OG period because it's obvious. It has all the typical movie arcs, you know, this and this, right? All this typical stuff that they want in the movie.

But I find your middle period just as fascinating. I have to say that the truth is far more interesting than anything that somebody could write. What we've gone through where Gene and I in particular started because we started before Kiss. With Wicked Lester. Yeah. I'm still somewhat haunted by the she, the original she version with the flutes. Yeah. You know, that came...

Who knew? That came from a time where we were just so lucky to be... We were just thrilled to... Recording at night, right? Wasn't that the thing you would go in at night? We would go in... We were going in on an electric lady, which was, you know, that's like Olympus, Mount Olympus. Yeah, Jimmy Hunter?

Yeah. With Eddie Kramer. Yes, and we would go in... Wicked Lester was with Ron Johnson. and this other producer, and we would record on spec time, which meant basically that if there was an artist who was book time from noon until 8 o'clock at night,

we would show up at seven. They might go on till 12 or 1 o'clock in the morning, and we'd sit around for four or five hours and then go in and use that empty time. So, and during that time, truly, if there was a song that came out with a banjo, we put a banjo on a song, you know, I never heard the word euphonium. We had a euphonium, you know, on one of the songs. It was, it was, what's hot today, you know, oh, put a sitar on it. Yeah.

No one sings like you, but I know you have your singing. I mean, we talked about Steve Marriott. Who were some of the other singers that you thought, I wish I could sing like them? Well, you only had to see Robert Plant in 1969 to bear witness to something where you... It's unfair, isn't it? Yeah, it was like you gobsmank, but you're also...

You're just trying to figure out how in the world is he doing that? just this and exuding this sexuality. But his voice was insane over the years, obviously, like everybody, the voice either deteriorates or changes. But at that pinnacle, it was... Oh, those kind of first four years, five years, his voice is almost without peer. Yeah. And live.

I mean, not just live, live in the studio. Oh, yeah. You hear some of the outtakes that it's the same. It's not like he fixed it in the mix. No, what he was doing effortlessly was mind-boggling to me because at that point, my voice didn't have a lot of range. And I couldn't figure out how he was opening that door in the back to get to that voice. How did you figure out that upper voice in yours?

Because it's very unique. It just clicked during the 80s. And the 80s suffered for it in some ways because all of a sudden I found this way, you know, of getting into a head, head voice, a combination. Yeah, you hit some impossible notes on those songs. Yeah, I mean, ease, you know, I mean, just crazy, crazy notes and not necessarily needed on those songs. But it was like, hey, I can do it. I can do it some of that.

Yeah. So, yeah, I listen to some of that now. And I'm incredulous at those notes. But, yeah, listening to... Like forever, and there's like, I can hear your voice. And it was effortless. Really? Oh, totally.

I could do that for hours. I mean, we would go in the studio and I would sing something to just... Let's do that again. Let's do that again. For hours. It's interesting. story. It was an interesting time for me. I had known Ron Nevesant for years, the producer, and we finally went in to work with him on an album that some people like and some people

don't like. But I was thrilled to go in with him because Ron had done Zeppelin. He had done heart. He had done the babies. He had done a lot of work with really good singers, bad company. and I'm in there. First, I played in the demos. He said, you made my work easy because we're just going to basically copy the demos. But when I was singing, and I'm thinking, he's going to take me to some place I've never been.

And I said, I sang one of the songs, and I said, let's do it again. And he goes, why? And I said, well, because I can do it better. And he goes, who's going to know? And I was like, it was kind of like, I was like, really? But, yeah, I mean, Robert Plant was very, very important.

As was Steve Marriott as a performer and as a conduit, as a preacher, that was Nottie Holder. Right. Never thought about that with you, but that makes sense. Yeah, just those foghorn voices. Yeah. And the way I wasn't going to be out there, although we did it with Kiss, so I got a chance to do it,

you know, with just a microphone and swinging the mic, but I was going to be, I guess, more Steve Marriott. I played a guitar, so I'm going to be the guy talking. But, yeah, I wanted to preach. I wanted to talk to the people in the very back row. Yeah. Well, there's those great YouTube clips where it's just you talking. Yeah, possessed.

Possessed. How do you rate yourself as a songwriter? Are you comfortable as a songwriter? Do you feel strong as a songwriter? I can't think of where you've really talked about it much. Maybe I didn't see it. I was thinking last night, and I've thought this before, that over time, over years, I became a technically

better songwriter, but I will never write something as good as come on and love me or love gun. Songs that didn't know what you can and can't do. Yeah. Songs that came from you and weren't labored over. Yeah. She's a dancer or a romance or I'm a Capricon and she's a cancer. I saw her picture in a music magazine when she, you know, I couldn't do. But you were living it too. That's a different mindset too. Well, even before I was living it, I was fantasizing living it. I ultimately wound up living it. I mean, a song like Room Service is me just going, wee!

You know, this is unbelievable. You know, the unpopular kid is in the candy store, you know. But so before we had that kind of attention, sure, strutter, I saw those girls, those women on the street. They wanted nothing to do with me. They were with the dolls or whoever, you know, was playing at the Mercer Art Center or going to Maxes. So those kind of songs came from, I wanted to be there. I wound up there and, you know, those were joyous songs.

Songs of, you know, celebrating debauchery, but also celebrating debauchery and, you know, celebrating debauchery and being... Well, do you write the line, put your hand in my pocket? Grab one through my pocket. Yeah. Now, I heard that when I was about 10, and I didn't know what it meant, but I knew it wasn't good. Yeah.

Well, you know, good guy, Miss Molly, sure liked a ball. You know, it's... Amazing, you got away with that. Totally. Totally. But, hey, peaches and herb. There's one perfect fit, and this one is it. and that's like a love song between, well, what are you singing about, you know? So were there people that you look to to teach you how to songwrite?

Because like most rock people don't go to school to learn how to write songs. They listen to somebody. Yeah. So who were your songwriting kind of gurus? Basically what I was doing was hearing songs that I liked in trying to write. write my version. Scott Muni, the disc jockey in New York, on N.E.W., he had a program once we called

the British Power Hour, and he would play like the top 10 in England. That was a huge Anglophile. That was really the music that I loved. God loved Jefferson, Airplane, and all that kind of stuff. I had no time for that. To me, what was going on on the other side of the pond was so interesting. So, for example, I heard a song called Fire Brigade by The Move. Don't know that one. Oh, it was a big hit over there.

And, well, I couldn't find that song or afford that song. I wrote Firehouse, you know. And it's basically the same, get the fire brigade, you know, and get the firehouse. So I had a tendency to pattern songs on songs that I liked. And that's a good thing. There's a lot of kind of 50s changes in your, in your, in your, in your, in your, quarter work, but it doesn't sound 50s the way you do it.

You put your own spin on it, but to me quarterly, there's a lot of kind of, well, there was also, I loved, I mean, I love great rhythm guitar playing, whether it's Ritchie Havens. or Pete Townsend. Richie Haven is an incredible rhythm player. It's insane. You ever try to play the way he played with the one chord and the thumb? That thumb. Yeah. You know, he tuned the guitar just to one chord.

Yeah. So you basically play one finger. Yeah. Yeah. But once, you know, he would also... Yeah, he'd add a little bit of... Yeah. But Richie Havens, I mean, when Evan, my oldest, was playing guitar,

I said, listen to Richie Havens, because this... Yeah. This is great, but this is where you play guitar. Some of those Richie Havens albums are really, really well produced. Beautiful. Cool, cool sounds. Beautiful. So, as far as what we were talking about.

Songwriters. Songwriters. You know, you get into Carol King, Jerry Gough, and you get into Barry Mann and Cynthia Will, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. Yeah, I was listening. I'm sure you've done that where you hear some. Who wrote this song? Whether it was walking in the rain by the rennettes

and it's Manon Wheel or Wiler? I mean, what a song. I mean, it's still goosebumps to this day. It's like... You know, well, Barry, man, I knew Barry from electric lady forward. And Barry is, I mean, R&B on Broadway. I didn't know that, yeah. Oh, yeah.

So, yeah, those people, they wrote songs, man, because they understood the formula. I mean, you know, you've lost that love and feeling. That's Barryman and Cynthia. Yeah. Yeah, there is that thing that oftentimes gets lost in translation with rock and roll because the radio playlists up to the early, the mid-70s, were very regional.

So people who grew up in the Northeast got a very different physical education than people growing up. Yes. where I grew up in Chicago. And like, if you listen to Tommy James, you can really hear that doo-wop influence, but then that kind of psychedelia, but it's very East Coast. And like you said, the West Coast, the Jefferson Airplane version, Buffalo Springfield, it's a very different kind of psychedelia.

Less influenced by doo-wop and more influenced by, I guess, I don't know, people smoking weed or something. I don't know. Very different. More based, I think, probably on acoustic, on the folk. Yeah, exactly. More folk, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, very, very much so, that different areas had, you know.

You know, it just occurred to me because harmonies are kind of a hidden thing in your music. I'm not saying it's hidden, but I'm saying is there's a very unique kiss vocal harmony style. Was there somebody you guys pattern yourselves after? I've always loved harmonies. And one of the great things in my family was when I was growing up, all. four of us, my parents, my sister, and I all had really good voices. And we would sing. Oh, so you just grew up with that? Just grew up singing innately in four-part. We sang in great harmonies. So that was always, always something special. There's, I mean, the birds, you know, their,

their harmonies were fantastic. It's unfair when you hear those voices. Yeah, I mean, and I Crosby, Jean Clark. Gene Clark, you know. There's an unsung here. Oh, unbelievable. You know. One of my favorites all time. Me too. You know.

Did you ever listen to this stuff he did after he left the bridge? Yeah. Early country rock. Some of it got a little, you know, a little out there. A little out there. But, you know. But him with Dillard and Clark. Yeah.

And there's some interesting stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So because your history in music is so often explored, I just want to kind of tangentially touch on it because there's almost no way to express it. but I thought it would be interesting to kind of do it this way. So if we break your life into these four eras that I've somehow made up my own version

that you have four errors of music, I thought, okay, with the original band, take me to the moment in your life when you're standing on stage somewhere and you think, like, wow, this is really going to work. Is there like a specific show or specific? Yeah, I think it was Dayton, Ohio. I love it.

Yeah. And we were playing, we could do 14 shows in a row, whatever. Were you on one of these package tours where it was like you and Rush and, you know, was one of those? Rush did their first tour opening for us. Everybody, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were. But I'm saying, those were the times where there was all these shifting bills. Yeah, but we were, I would always say to our road manager before the show when we were getting ready, how are we doing? And what that meant was our ticket sales.

And I remember, how are we doing? Sold out. Oh, cool. And then next night, how are we doing? Sold out? And it's like, and then I'm going, do I sense a pattern here? Yeah. And I remember before we went on, I was all made up and ready. And we had a curtain, like a kabuki. And I went out, and looked down and I was like oh my god this place is packed and that's when I thought wow this is this is this is happening you know I always thought of it um analogous to you know you're you're on the roller coaster and you're being pulled up and you know sooner or later suddenly you know yeah you better hold on because this is going to get pretty tricky my sense of it at the time and I was young, was, you were as hot a band in that period

as any band has ever been in the history of rock and roll. Was that how you felt or saw it? You're in the eye of the hurricane. But that was a pretty fierce hurricane. Yeah. I was certainly aware. I think more so that we were on a crusade. We were taking no prisoners,

and we were just going, we were going to conquer the world. And that's really more that than the impact we were having. By destroyer, yeah, then I was aware that this is out of control. This is massive. But before that, I was more committed to the outcome that we want. Yeah. Was it as simple as we want to be the biggest band in the world? Was that something you would say? Or I know it sounds silly to say it, but I used to tell my band, we're going to be the biggest band in the world because I needed to believe in something. I think we did the same. I think that's that's probably a cliche, but I think that it's something that you aspire to.

Yeah. You know, if it's up here and you reach here, that's okay, but you have to aim for there. Yeah. So, yeah. I remember when we first got together with Bill O'Coyne, our manager, who became our manager, and he didn't have a pot to piss and never managed a band, but it was meant to be. and he said, if you don't want to be the biggest band in the world, I don't want to manage you.

And it was like, that's our man, you know. There's the guy. That's the guy, you know. And, yeah, I think naivetee is a good thing if it's coupled with determination. If you just think you can will something to happen or imagine it, if you have an objective and if you want to get to that end of the field, you don't see the obstacles.

Yeah. You just keep looking there. Yeah, I feel like if you knew how hard it was, it would mess you up. You almost have to believe it somehow. Totally. It's like a magical spell or something that happens. Totally. I often thought, you know, if I knew how long it was going to take me to feel I was a good guitar player, I never would have picked up the guitar.

So there's these kind of, I don't know, a funny is not the right word, there's these interesting moments because like I said, in my impression, and I was at least there and I was watching, my impression was this band is as hot as the Beatles were. You would hear about the Beatles in the 70s, but you guys were like the living embodiment of what that, like, beetle mania felt like. At least that's what it felt like where I was growing up. But then you have these weird cultural moments of like, kiss me. beats the phantom. And I oftentimes think of you guys on, was it the, was it Tom Snyder where Ace just goes off? Yeah. And you could almost, I'm maybe I'm projecting, but I just see you guys' faces like, oh my God, what's happening? It's somewhere between panic and anger and anger. I would say more anger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, we reached a point where in Australia,

When we went there in 1980, it was pegged as Cisteria. Well, that was Shandy was a huge hit. Yeah. And, you know. You guys played like crazy crowds. Crazy crowds. And we were locked in the hotel. And we would have these wild parties every night where the promoter would invite

every female celebrity, actress, newscaster, and leave your boyfriend's home. So, yeah, we live. We lived that where you, we had the whole floor of a hotel and then you can only get out of the hotel if you lay on the bottom of a truck. And we did the same thing in Japan when we broke the Beatles record for concerts at Buda Khan. So, yeah, we, we were aware, but I was never delusional in the sense of comparing us to the Beatles. Let other people do that. It's an insane embarrassing. I just mean it because...

In terms of the adulation and that fan veracity... Sure. Yeah. It certainly existed. And from time to time, bands have that. Yeah. I just made it through the prism of very few bands cross into the culture, where it becomes a cultural phenomenon and not just a musical phenomenon.

Well, that's... I say, you know, bands make music, phenomenons impact society. Right. And it's kind of that simple. So skipping to the next era, we'll call it the makeup off era. What was the internal logic? Like, we've taken this as far as it can go, or what was the internal thinking? Survival.

We reached a point where I felt that people were listening with their eyes. And... Sorry, I got to stop you because this blows my mind. So I went to one of these AI chat GPT, GROC type of things. And I said, list for me the top 10 American rock bands of all time.

And you guys weren't in the top 10. And at some point, they were listing the records and you guys have sold over 100 million records, so you weren't in the top 10. And I wrote to the chat GPT thing, why isn't KISS in the top 10? And chat GPT or whatever was apologized to me and said, well, they're oftentimes discounted

for their theatricality. And I said, what difference does that make when I'm asking a business question and chat GPT again apologized and then slotted you guys in where you belonged. Thank you. But it was such a weird. I mean, we're talking about, like, just the fact that a machine learning AI system would discount your accomplishment is so, that's such a weird thing to you.

Well, somebody had to feed that into that. That's what I'm trying to say is. Yeah. To discount music because of theatricality, look, when I would jump up in. the air or slide across the stage, that's considered some sort of like, um, kitchy showman, you know, that, that's, that's not credible. But there are other people who do it, who are great, you know, ultimate showmen. You know, they'll use a stick on one person and then the next person, somehow that's an attribute.

Yeah. So, um, where were we? Sorry. No, that's like, oh, we were talking about survival. Yeah. So people were listening with their eyes and didn't like what they were seeing. So even though Creatures is a great album, as far as I'm concerned, and even on that album, I had said to Gene, we should take off the makeup.

And we didn't, and the album did not do well. And then we did take it off. And understandably, it was much more difficult for him to take off the makeup. And we did it for lick it up. Why was it more difficult for him? Because his face and that persona really is the visual face of the band. I see. There's just no denying that, you know.

Yeah, like if the stones is the lips and the tongue, you know, jeans makeup in the hair. Yeah. Come on, you know. When I saw it, I went, wow. Okay, I can't top that. So, you were there. Yeah, so it was, it was much tougher for him because what I've always done has been basically me, you know, me as a performer.

Yeah. So did you guys unmask on MTV wasn't the thing? Yes. I was watching live, so I remember that much. Which is peculiar in itself because there were two guys who had. not been in the band all the time. Right. You know, so, you know, to have the guitar player who had played on one album.

Yeah. Suddenly taking off his makeup. But, yeah, so we took off the makeup and lo and behold, the lick it up album did, you know. That was huge. Yeah. And the songs have really aged well, I think, too. Those are good songs. Those are.

Heavens on Fire. Yeah. They look it up, right? Evens on Fire is on Animalize. That period, I think, is more fondly remembered than I would have imagined at the time. Interestingly, there are people who were introduced to the band through those albums. Yeah. And, hey, Max Martin grew up on those albums.

Yeah. You know. Yeah, it was, I think for OG fans, it was a tough time. And because you guys were sort of generally lumped in with the hair metal scene, and as you know, the grunge thing was very much a reaction against hair metal. The ballads being the number one offender. Well, everybody had to have a power. It's a ballad, but it's a power ballad.

But I think about 800 of those MTV basically launched the Gruns Revolution. It was a revenge play because we were just like, we can't handle any more palates. The pendulum swung. Yeah. Yeah, look, we had our moments. I guess, sorry, I didn't. Go ahead. I think, because I don't want to skip past that period, because I think it's a really

strong musical period. Something about taking off the makeup. It's something about the band being reinvigorated with the public. A lot of great music came out of that period. We certainly weren't leading the parade, but we were... But can I make a musical point to you? Sure. My memory of it at the time was you guys were getting in behind the shifting trend. But when I actually went back and listened to the music in the last five years, because I did this thing where I went through and listened to your whole catalog in a row. I do these weird things where I just want to listen to everything in a row because I end up changing my perceptions about things

because sometimes your perception at the time is actually inaccurate, which is weird because you were there. And what I realized was you guys had a lot more to do with more people in the hair metal scene were ripping you off than I thought at the time. So I didn't, even though at the time my perception was you were following, I actually think you had a lot more to do with it. Well, yeah, certainly a lot of those bands had listened to us. So I'm saying is there's more kiss in those bands than I would have thought at the time

because I think I got caught up like everybody else, whatever was the new thing. Yeah, I mean, the clothes got ridiculous, you know. We looked like we got dressed in the dark in a costume store, you know. Where do you think my feather earrings? Oh, good. Goes with your eye makeup, you know, but, yeah, it was a way for us to continue. And in a way, I wanted the band to continue. I wasn't ready.

Nobody can tell me when this band is over. Yeah. And, you know, I did do interviews with journalists towards the end of the makeup period where they could be so, they could be such vitriol. You know, somebody has joy in making you squirm. What was the source of the vitriol?

Probably angered how long we had succeeded. So finally, the death knell. So how does it feel to be on the Titanic was like a... Well, you got the last laugh on that one. I was kind of like, I'm a human being. How could you say that? And all I could think was nobody's going to tell me when this ends and watch this. Yeah.

And you have to have a reason to continue. And mine was that nobody gets to tell me when it's over. Yeah, I think it's really interesting because, again, I didn't love that period at the time, and I like it a lot more now. And what I'm impressed by, because I've been around long enough to know that this isn't a simple thing to accomplish, and you could argue I have an accomplishment, is to find a whole new vein of music in an adjacent but different style that does match with the zeitist of the times. It really speaks to your musical ability and your songwriting ability because in many ways you'd stripped off all the accoutrement that you were accused of using.

Yeah. There were certainly some missteps that I listened to now and go, gee, all I can say is that we committed ourselves 100% to everything we did and believed that we were doing the best we could when we did things. and some some of it is is pretty awful. I won't ask. Just, I don't want to talk much about your musical partner because, you know, he says enough on his own. But when he started getting into other things, you know, like I call it like Gene with the ponytail in the movies.

Gene? How would you feel about that? Did you see him as being, like, remember when Keith Richards was very critical of Mick Jagger? Yeah. Like, hey, you're in the Rolling Stone. Like what the hell are you doing? Did you have a similar kind of reaction? Very much.

Very much. I felt betrayed. No secret. I felt that he was leaving me to do the heavy work. But continually continued to get paid. So, you know, trying to have the best of both worlds. go off and do your own thing and have the success in any level that there was success

and the monetary compensation, which I'm not sharing in, but you're abandoning ship and you're still my partner. I see. So, yeah, no, I felt very resentful and hurt. You know, I didn't,

I wouldn't at that time have said I was hurt. I would say I was angry, but I was hurt. You know, Gene's my brother. He's been with me since I was 17. So that was really, that was difficult, really difficult. Yeah. But again, it was, well, screw it. I'm not going to let this band fall apart.

Yeah. You know, if it's my band in that sense, then so be it. You know, if I got to be in the middle in a video, then let's do that. But, yeah, I felt that he was selling the band short. The quality of the writing was not good. Yeah, I thought he wasn't playing fair.

I like that. This is an oversimplification, but that's the world we live in. in my mind there's that moment when you take off the makeup for the last time and I know it like recently you did a commercial you were in the makeup so I'm being somewhat traumatic but there's that moment you play the last show in the makeup that air is over um I guess I'm asking a bit of an existential question like how do you view the character that you played you know I'm not saying something as simple as is it you because obviously it's an extension of you you you wouldn't that played it so well for so long.

But do you see that character with affection? Do you see it with detached? I'm just curious. It's like, here's the best way he said. In later years, Charlie Chaplin spoke very fondly of the Tramp character. He'd done other things and he'd been successful in doing other things. But he came to almost speak about the Tramp character as if it was its own entity. Totally, totally.

I get that. and the Star Child grew with me. The Star Child, you know, on that last night of Madison Square Garden, was not the one who started at Madison Square Garden or in the clubs that we played. And he became who he was as I became who I was. I mean, there's a parallel path. Yeah. But, yeah, I can separate.

the two, that he's very much me, but he's a separate, a separate entity. And it shows in when people would come to the show over the years. They said, you know, I was different. Well, as I progressed or went down this road offstage, I went down another road on stage. Do you have any musical ambitions left? Oh. Past being custodian of this incredible thing that you two have built.

I love Soul Station. I love those people. Somehow we all came together, and it's just a blessing. I have incredible reverence for Philly Soul and for Motown. I grew up with that as much as I grew up with, you know, Led Zeppelin or anything like that. So I love doing that and want to continue doing that.

I have no, you know, I have no fantasies that anything I ever do is going to come close to what I did or have done. But that's what life is. is about is is is that sometimes we we have to leave things behind and go for would there be this might be my own version of it but is there a is there a desire to make a more personal music does that translate the way I'm asking it because your your your life for 50 years was defined by satisfying the public at such a high level and it does have a cost and I'm not saying it's compromise in the way people would associate compromise but you have

to take into some sort of consideration there's an audience and are they going to listen are they going to like it is there is there is there like you know i'm not saying boston over or something but is there something like a music that you would long to make that really is just for you well i mean that's why i started doing soul station was because i what was this this the first song in that record i can't read that is uh first on that is oh i love could it be i'm falling in love Okay. Spinners. But there's a song that you wrote.

Oh, the next one, I-O-I. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I arranged. That's a cool tune. Yeah, I arranged the horns and the strings. That's got to be fun.

Oh, it's fantastic, you know, it's, uh, so that's something I wanted to do and we'll continue doing. Um, could I put a band together and strap on a guitar and do that? Yeah. All bets are off. You know, I... You have to almost detox from all that adrenaline? I had to.

Honestly, I put the guitar away for a long time. I needed to. I needed. I just needed to take a deep breath and distance myself a little. The one thing I think people don't understand is when you're up in front of a lot of people, that's a lot of energy passing through your being. Yeah.

And you've played for about just as many people as anybody's ever played for in the history of the planet. Yeah. You play in front of 180,000 people. It does something. Doesn't it? I mean, you just feel, you feel this like a locomotive,

or a tornado. The force from the audience is, is it's indescribable it really is it's and well you don't see it but you you feel this incredible

amount of energy that's just people will say to me what's it like playing in front of 80,000 people like it's like right a tidal wave I don't know it's amazing yeah it's nothing you can describe

and any way that you described it would never do it justice yeah it's it the words don't I saw a quote attributed to you, but I have a feeling it's not true. So you tell me if it's accurate. But it was something along the lines of like, all I ever wanted to be was a star. Is that something? I saw somewhere where he said it was came out of breath and I saw nothing that said you never said that.

It's almost like a line played again, Sam. Like something you never said, but it goes with the character. Yeah, I may have said, you know, just like played again, Sam is kind of like a distorted version of what was actually said. all I ever wanted to be, no. It's so... It sounds a bit Betty Davis, doesn't it? Yeah, and it's so mundane and small. That's why I had a feeling he didn't say it,

but I wanted to ask because it seemed to make this point that I was after, but I'll go to it a different way. When did you first become conscious of the concept of celebrity or fame, was it Beatles or, you know, it was like the first time you saw it, okay, there's a star in the heaven and it looks like, like that. I think the way I could relate to it best was probably an Elvis or something like that, where, you know, there's a commotion and girls are swooning and there's chaos to see him doing

those steps he did on stage. So I think Elvis might be the first. What year would that have been for you? it had to be probably 57 or so. You would have been pretty young. Oh, yeah. I loved rock and roll

from the time I was a little kid from Elvis to Eddie Cochran to Leandro's in the hearts to Dion and the Belmonts to Vito and the elegance to the Impalas. You know, it's always been Yeah. You know, it's always been my

salvation, my oxygen. It always gave me comfort. You know, Torandot, listening to Nessumdharma, listening to, you know, listening to music that just fills you up.

Yeah. It, it, it, uh, it inflated me. So I guess the last point I'm after is if you could go back in a time machine would that little kid believe that you became that? It's a strange point to make, but you're in the rare position of you did it. Yes, he could, but he would have no idea of the complexity or the bull.

Yeah, of what it means and what went into it. Me back then could look and go, wow, you really became a star, or you became, you know, whatever you are, but all the nuance of it that makes it what it is would be lost just like trying to tell somebody what it feels like when you feel that energy. Yeah. There are certain things in life that someone will never experience and can't really comprehend. So simple question 101, would you do it all over again? In a heartbeat.

I've beaten my body up something, you know. You had hip replacements? Oh, yeah, rotator. Both my rotator cuffs had to be repaired. I'd pop my bicep tendon. I've had both my knees scoped. I had a hip replacement. I'm sure I'll need another on the other side.

Yeah, you know, everything comes with a price. Is it worth the price? Hell yeah. Thank you. Thank you. This was great. Thank you. Thank you.