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Classic Rock News And Views
March 13, 2009
KISS Begins Work on New Album
It appears that KISS has decided to go ahead and begin work on a new album. Rumors started to emerge last year that Paul Stanley was entertaining the idea of a new record, but at the time, it appeared that he had not yet convinced the rest of the group to move forward on it.
The new album, now being described by Bassist Gene Simmons as “sort of a classic ’70s rock & roll vibe,” which matches up pretty well to the plan Stanley talked about last year when he referred to the project as “a real ’70s Kiss-style record.”
As reported by Rolling Stone, Simmons says that “There’s nothing to prove to anybody. We’re not interested in musical trends or anything else. We’re too long in the tooth for that," and refers to the content of the new album as a “meat and potatoes thing.”
It’s been about a decade since KISS released their last album which was entitled Psycho Circus. Paul Stanley will produce the new record and appears to have the full support of Simmons, who is quoted as saying that “There’s nobody else I trust more than Paul.”
In addition to the studio work they will be logging for the new album, the group will also continue with their 35th anniversary tour which gets underway in Santiago, Chile on April 3 and will include other South American venues before moving north to Canada.
November 12, 2008
Paul Stanley Hints About Possibility of New KISS Album
Although other members of KISS do not appear to be on board with the notion of creating a new album, Paul Stanley recently said he may produce a new KISS album next year. Referring to it as a “A real ’70s Kiss-style record,” his recent comments appear to be an about-face for the KISS guitarist, considering his comments during a June press conference with regard to the possibility of a new KISS album. “We have no plans to record. The reason we don’t record is because any classic band that hits the road, the last thing you really wanna hear is their new songs,” Stanley said.
I think there may be a few Rush fans that might disagree with that statement. Although fans undoubtedly love to hear the old classics, groups like Rush have proven that they can still write and perform new material that fans want to hear and are willing to go see performed live.
For his part, Gene Simmons, always the consummate business man, seems concerned about the diminished possibility of monetary reward that would result from the making of a new album in the age of digital downloads. “Any band who tries to do new material is trying to climb a slippery mountain. Every day record companies are folding. It’d be nice to have new KISS songs, but what’s the business model? Do you just put songs on the Internet for free? Then what?,” Simmons was quoted as saying.
I did get a chance to see Simmons on the most recent episode of the Fox game show Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?, and I must admit that he did better than I suspected. Not that I believe than man is stupid, but let’s face it, how many of us remember a lot of that stuff we learned in grade school?
Simmons answered most of the questions without help from his youthful classmates, but decided to call it quits when he learned that the final $1 million question would be science-related. That turned out to be the right move since he would have provided the wrong answer to a question regarding what element was represented by the letter “K” on the periodic table.
Simmons reported that he would have guessed Krypton, but the correct answer was Potassium, which Simmons’ wife, who was seated in the front row of the audience, knew the correct answer to when queried by host Jeff Foxworthy.
Even so, Simmons walked away with an impressive $500,000 for his chosen charity, which Foxworthy said was the largest sum ever won by a celebrity contestant.
Admittedly, I would also have botched that last question, since my knowledge of the periodic table is pretty well faded.
For more in the possibility of a new KISS album, see Musicradar.
