Kiss is out on their End Of The Road tour to say farewell to fans before hanging it up. Though as you've seen with many classic rock acts at this point, "farewell" generally doesn't mean farewell. Doubts began to arise when Kiss frontman Gene Simmons said in an interview this past August that he has "no problems with four deserving 20-year-olds sticking the makeup back on and hiding their identity" and that Kiss "will continue in other ways."
Now in a new interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, guitarist Paul Stanley echoed those statements by saying there will always probably be a Kiss "in one form or another." Stanley compares Kiss' lineup to a sports team, in that teams don't hang it up when the MVP hangs it up.
"Kiss is like an army or a sports team," said Stanley. "When the MVP is no longer playing or retired, the team doesn't call it quits. On a battlefield, an army, when they lose soldiers, doesn't wave the white flag. Somebody else picks up the weapon and runs forward. So in one form or another, I believe there will always be a Kiss.
"I didn't invent the wheel. I may have polished it a bit, but what am I, except a combination of all of the people who inspired me? When I added my individuality to it, it became essentially what people know as Paul Stanley. But to believe that I’m the only person who can do that is a bit self-centered and egocentric. Is there somebody else out there who could pick up and wave the flag? Absolutely. I'm not saying there should be a copy of me. I'm not a copy of anybody else. But I'm certainly a combination of many people that inspired me."
Stanley later put it as bluntly as possible when he said "in one form or another, we're never gonna go." So yeah – Kiss ain't ending when the End Of The Road wraps up. Maybe Kiss will end in the iteration we know them as right now, but it certainly doesn't seem like the band is retiring the Kiss brand.
"We're far from done. I'd like to say that this is the end of the road, but they keep paving more road. The only people that seems to bother are the people who hate us. Quite honestly, they've never mattered and they still don't. The people who want to see us are thrilled. The people who wish we'd go away are going to have to wait. And in one form or another, we're never gonna go."
