PAUL STANLEY On KISS Reunion Regrets: 'Some Nights Were Awful'

Summary

• Paul Stanley says KISS’s original farewell tour was ‘stressful’ and admits some nights were awful.
• Reunion with original members fell apart due to old habits, broken promises, and backstage tension.
• Stanley says the band had to fake being ageless to meet fan expectations—trainers included.

Turns out the face paint couldn’t cover everything.

Back in 2000, KISS slapped the word farewell on a tour, grabbed the original lineup, and hit the road like it was 1977 all over again. The idea? One last blaze of glory. The result? Paul Stanley now calls it “very stressful and disappointing.”

Which, translated from rockstar-to-human, means: it sucked and no one was talking backstage.

Speaking on Billy Corgan’s podcast The Magnificent Others, yes, that Billy Corgan, Stanley didn’t hold much back. He cracked open the vault of regret with the kind of clarity that only comes when the wigs are boxed up and the pyro budget’s been reallocated to retirement planning.

“The music was erratic at best. Some nights [were] awful, there was no sense of camaraderie or joy in what we were doing.”

Yikes. That’s not just a bad night. That’s a man realizing the makeup ran off long before the encore.

“Let’s Just Shoot It”

When your singer starts using Old Yeller metaphors to describe a tour, it’s probably safe to say the vibes weren’t immaculate.

“It really felt like, ‘Let’s put the horse down. Let’s just shoot it.’”

This wasn’t some overblown press-cycle hand-wringing. Stanley wasn’t trying to reframe the past for a Netflix doc.

He sounded like a guy who tried to make peace with his bandmates and ended up trapped in the world’s most dysfunctional nostalgia act.

There’s a kind of tragic comedy in watching a band that built its legacy on being “larger than life” try to pretend everything’s fine while wheezing through Detroit Rock City for the 4000th time.

Turns out the real demons weren’t in the makeup, they were in the dressing room.

The Myth vs. The Mess

Stanley had high hopes when they reunited with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss in the late ‘90s. A little closure, a little dignity. Maybe even a few laughs. But real life doesn’t care about fan fiction.

He describes the reunion as a brief honeymoon followed by a steady slide back into the same old mess: old grudges, broken promises, and tour buses packed with tension.

“You said you wouldn’t do that again. You’re doing it.”

The quote hits harder than any of their ‘80s drum triggers. It’s the sound of a guy watching history repeat itself while trying not to throw a Les Paul into the catering table.

Nostalgia Is a Hell of a Drug

KISS didn’t just go back on tour, oh, no, no ,no… They went back in time. Stanley says they even hired trainers to make sure everyone looked like their 1976 selves, or at least close enough that the fans in the cheap seats wouldn’t notice the crow’s feet.

“Nobody wants to see a fat rock star in tights. It’s not a pretty sight.”

A brutally honest line, and probably the only time you’ll hear a glam rock icon sound like a grumpy gym coach. But it tracks.

When your brand is built on ageless spectacle, aging becomes the enemy. And when the crowd thinks they’re buying a time machine, the band has to hustle to fake the illusion.

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