Paul Stanley

All Music Guide:

Rooted in the campy theatrics of Alice Cooper and the sleazy hard rock of glam rockers the New York Dolls, Kiss became a favorite of American teenagers in the '70s. Most kids were infatuated with the look of Kiss, not their music. Decked out in outrageously flamboyant costumes and makeup, the band fashioned a captivating stage show featuring dry ice, smoke bombs, elaborate lighting, blood spitting, and fire breathing that captured the imaginations of thousands of kids. But Kiss' music shouldn't be dismissed -- it was a commercially potent mix of anthemic, fist-pounding hard rock driven by sleek hooks and ballads powered by loud guitars, cloying melodies, and sweeping strings. It was a sound that laid the groundwork for both arena rock and the pop-metal that dominated rock in the late '80s. Kiss was the brainchild of Gene Simmons (bass, vocals) and Paul Stanley (rhythm guitar, vocals), former members of the New York-based hard rock band Wicked Lester; the duo brought in drummer Peter Criss through his ad in Rolling Stone and guitarist Ace Frehley responded to an advertisement in The Village Voice. Even at their first Manhattan concert in 1973, the group's approach was quite theatrical; Flipside producer Bill Aucoin offered the band a management deal after the show. Two weeks later, the band was signed to Neil Bogart's fledgling record label, Casablanca. Kiss released their self-titled debut in February of 1974; it peaked at number 87 on the U.S. charts. By April of 1975, the group had released three albums and had toured America constantly, building up a sizable fan base. Culled from those numerous concerts, Alive! (released in the fall of 1975) made the band rock & roll superstars; it climbed into the Top Ten and its accompanying single, "Rock 'N' Roll All Nite," made it to number 12. Their follow-up, Destroyer, was released in March of 1976 and became the group's first platinum album; it also featured their first Top Ten single, Peter Criss' power ballad "Beth." A 1977 Gallup poll named Kiss the most popular band in America. Kiss mania was in full swing and thousands of pieces of merchandise hit the marketplace. The group had two comic books released by Marvel, pinball machines, makeup and masks, board games, and a live-action TV movie, Kiss Meet the Phantom of the Park. The group was never seen in public without wearing their makeup and their popularity was growing by leaps and bounds; the membership of the Kiss Army, the band's fan club, was now in the six figures. Even such enormous popularity had its limits, and the band reached them in 1978, when all four members released solo albums on the same day in October. Simmons' record was the most successful, reaching number 22 on the charts, yet all of them made it into the Top 50. Dynasty, released in 1979, continued their streak of platinum albums, yet it was their last recorded with the original lineup -- Criss left in 1980. Kiss Unmasked, released in the summer of 1980, was recorded with session drummer Anton Fig; Criss' permanent replacement, Eric Carr, joined the band in time for their 1980 world tour. Kiss Unmasked was their first record since Destroyer to fail to go platinum, and 1981's Music from the Elder, their first album recorded with Carr, didn't even go gold -- it couldn't even climb past number 75 on the charts. Ace Frehley left the band after its release; he was replaced by Vinnie Vincent in 1982. Vincent's first album with the group, 1982's Creatures of the Night, fared better than Music from the Elder, yet it couldn't make it past number 45 on the charts. Sensing it was time for a change, Kiss dispensed with their makeup for 1983's Lick It Up. The publicity worked, as the album became their first platinum record in four years. Animalize, released the following year, was just as successful, and the group had recaptured their niche. Vincent left after Animalize and was replaced by Mark St. John; St. John was soon taken ill with Reiter's Syndrome and left the band. Bruce Kulick became Kiss' new lead guitarist in 1984. For the rest of the decade, Kiss turned out a series of best-selling albums, culminating in the early 1990 hit ballad "Forever," which was their biggest single since "Beth." Kiss was scheduled to record a new album with their old producer, Bob Ezrin, in 1990 when Eric Carr became severely ill with cancer; he died in November of 1991 at the age of 41. Kiss replaced him with Eric Singer and recorded Revenge (1992), their first album since 1989; it was a Top Ten hit and went gold. Kiss followed it with the release of Alive III the following year; it performed respectably, but was not up to the standards of their two previous live records. In 1996, the original lineup of Kiss -- featuring Simmons, Stanley, Frehley, and Criss -- reunited to perform an international tour, complete with their notorious makeup and special effects. The tour was one of the most successful of 1996, and in 1998 the reunited group issued Psycho Circus. While the ensuing tour in support of Psycho Circus was a success, sales of Kiss' reunion album weren't as stellar as anticipated. Reminiscent of the band's late-'70s unfocused period, few tracks on Psycho Circus featured all four members playing together (most tracks were supplemented with session musicians), as the band seemed more interested in flooding the marketplace with merchandise yet again instead of making the music their top priority. With rumors running rampant that the Psycho Circus Tour would be their last, the quartet announced in the spring of 2000 that they would be launching a U.S. farewell tour in the summer, which became one of the year's top concert draws. But on the eve of a Japanese and Australian tour in early 2001, Peter Criss suddenly left the band once again, supposedly discontent with his salary. Taking his place was previous Kiss drummer Eric Singer, who in a controversial move among some longtime fans, donned Criss' cat-man makeup (since Simmons and Stanley own both Frehley and Criss' makeup designs, there was no threat of a lawsuit) as the farewell tour continued. With the band scheduled to call it a day supposedly by late 2001, a mammoth career-encompassing box set was set for later in the year, while the summer saw perhaps the most over-the-top piece of Kiss merchandise yet -- the "Kiss Kasket." The group was relatively quiet through the rest of the year, but 2002 started with a bang as Gene Simmons turned in an entertaining and controversial interview on NPR where he criticized the organization and berated host Terry Gross with sexual comments and condescending answers. He was promoting his autobiography at the time, which also caused dissent in the Kiss camp because of the inflammatory remarks made towards Ace Frehley. Frehley was quite angry at the situation, leading to his no-showing of an American Bandstand anniversary show. His place was taken by a wig-wearing Tommy Thayer, but no one was fooled and the band looked especially awful while pretending to play their instruments during the pre-recorded track. The appearance was an embarrassment for the group and for their fans, but Simmons was quick to dismiss the performance as another in a long series of money-oriented decisions. The band kept touring the globe with no new album in stores, but in 2008 they returned to the studio, re-recorded their hits, and released Jigoku-Retsuden aka KISSology or Kiss Klassics. The release was exclusive to Japan until a year later when it became a bonus disc for the band's first studio album in 11 years, Sonic Boom. Produced by Paul Stanley and Greg Collins, the album was exclusively distributed in North America by the Wal-Mart chain of stores.

Wikipedia:

Stanley Harvey Eisen (born January 20, 1952), better known by his stage name Paul Stanley, is an American hard rock guitarist, singer, musician, painter and songwriter best known for being the rhythm guitarist and primary lead vocalist of the rock band Kiss. Also known for his wailing vocals and high-energy on-stage antics. He is of Hungarian and Austrian ancestry.

He is the writer or co-writer of many of the band's highest-charting hits. Stanley established the "Starchild" character for his Kiss persona.

Hit Parader ranked him 18th on their list of Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time. Gibson.com Readers Poll also named him 13th on their list of Top 25 Frontmen.

Biography

Kiss

Before Kiss, Paul Stanley was in a local band, Rainbow (not to be confused with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow) and was also a member of Uncle Joe and Post War Baby Boom. Through a mutual friend of Gene Simmons', Stanley joined Simmons' band Wicked Lester in the early 1970s. The band recorded an album in 1972, but as of 2010 it has not been officially released (although songs from the album appeared on Kiss's 2001 box set). Wicked Lester soon fell apart and Stanley and Simmons placed ads for a drummer and a guitarist in various New York papers. This resulted in Peter Criss and Ace Frehley joining the group, and they named themselves Kiss. Kiss released their self-titled debut album in February 1974.

Stanley's persona in Kiss was "The Starchild" utilizing one star over his right eye. For a brief time, Stanley changed his make-up character to "The Bandit", with a "Lone Ranger" style mask design make-up pattern. This make-up design would only be used during a few mid-1973 shows, soon to be replaced by the now famous "The Starchild" make-up design and persona. In his book Sex Money Kiss, Gene Simmons admits that Stanley was the driving force for Kiss during the makeup-free 1980s, while Simmons was feeling lost without his demon makeup and was distanced from the band while attempting to launch a film career.

In 2006, Stanley resumed his association with Washburn Guitars and using the Washburn PS2000. Previously, he has had four signature guitars made by Silvertone, and tweaked the Ibanez Iceman to his specifications, calling it the PS10.

In 2007 (prior to the final show of the Hit 'N Run Tour on July 27), Stanley was hospitalized with tachycardia. In his absence, Kiss performed live as a trio for the first time in decades. Previously, Kiss performed as a trio at Studio 54 in New York City for an international satellite broadcast on January 28, 1982, lip-syncing the song "I" from Music from "The Elder" for the Italian Festival della canzone italiana, also known as the San Remo Festival, when Ace Frehley failed to show for the performance due to what was described at the time as a "mystery illness". The July 27, 2007 concert is the first Kiss concert Stanley has missed during his 34-year tenure with the group.

In September 2007, Stanley took part in Rock 'n Roll Fantasy Camp as a guest star for his second time in New York City. In 2009 Paul Stanley recorded 3 voice ads for the charity Kars4Kids. Stanley continues to tour with Kiss; the KISS 2010 The Hottest Show on Earth Tour (a continuation of the Sonic Boom Over Europe Tour which was itself a continuation of the Kiss Alive/35 World Tour) which started March 2010 and ended at Guadalajara, Mexico in October.

Solo career

Stanley has very rarely recorded or performed outside of Kiss. He wrote and recorded material for a solo album in 1987–88, which was shelved in favor of the Kiss compilation, Smashes, Thrashes & Hits. While never officially released, songs such as "Don't Let Go" and "When Two Hearts Collide" have circulated as bootleg recordings. One song from the project, "Time Traveler," was released as part of the Kiss's 2001 box set.

In 1989, he embarked on a brief club tour. His touring band included guitarist Bob Kulick and future Kiss drummer Eric Singer. Also in 1989, Stanley loaned his voice to the title track for the soundtrack of the Wes Craven horror flick "Shocker".

In 2005, a bootleg CD began circulating entitled People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest: The Very Best of Paul Stanley's On Stage Banter. The fan-made disc compiled 70 tracks worth of Stanley's distinctive song introductions and on-stage banter.

Twenty-eight years after releasing his first solo album (as part of the four simultaneously released Kiss solo albums), Stanley released a second album, Live to Win, on October 24, 2006. The title song of his solo album, "Live to Win", appeared on the South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft". In October and November 2006, Stanley embarked on a theater tour in support of Live to Win. His touring band was the house band from the CBS TV show, Rock Star. The band appeared on both seasons of the show – Rock Star: INXS and Rock Star: Supernova. The band was composed of Paul Mirkovich (keyboards), Jim McGorman (guitar), Rafael Moreira (lead guitar), Nate Morton (drums), and Sasha Krivtsov (bass). In April 2007, Stanley extended the tour to include Australia, playing in Coolangatta, Wollongong, Newcastle, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide. Portions of the tour were filmed for a documentary titled Paul Stanley: Live to Dream by the Chicago-based Film Foetus. The band's performance at the House of Blues in Chicago was captured on film and released in 2008 on DVD and digital audio download formats as One Live Kiss.

In 2008, Stanley sang a duet with Sarah Brightman, "I Will Be with You", on her Symphony album.

Other projects

In 1999, Stanley starred in a Toronto production of The Phantom of the Opera, in which he played the role of The Phantom. He appeared in the musical from May 25 to August 1, and again that year from September 30 to October 31, 1999. Stanley made his debut as a painter in 2006, exhibiting and selling original works of art. Stanley collaborated with Boston-based power pop group Click Five on their hit single, "Angel To You (Devil To Me)". In the past, Stanley has been asked to produce albums for Poison but he was never able to commit due to his work on Kiss projects. However, Stanley did in fact produce a debut album for an up and coming band called New England. The first single from that album in 1978 was called "Don't Ever Wanna Lose Ya" and went on to become a Top-40 hit in 1979.

Personal life

Stanley was born in Manhattan, New York and moved to Queens as a teenager. He is Jewish. He attended The High School of Music & Art in New York City and graduated in 1970. Stanley has microtia, a deformity of the pinna (outer ear). He is an ambassador for the charitable organization AboutFace, an organization that provides support and information to individuals with facial differences and has appeared at fundraising events and in videos to raise awareness.

In 2001, Stanley's wife, Dallas native Pamela Bowen, filed for divorce. They have one son, Evan Shane Stanley, born June 6, 1994. On November 19, 2005, Paul Stanley married longtime girlfriend Erin Sutton at The Ritz-Carlton, Huntington in Pasadena, California. They had their first child, Colin Michael Stanley, on September 6, 2006. The couple had their second child, Sarah Brianna, on January 28, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. On August 9, 2011, the couple had their third child, Emily Grace.

Stanley has had two hip replacement surgeries: one after the "Rock the Nation" tour in October 2004, and a second in December 2004 after complications arose from the first surgery. He has announced that he will require a third hip surgery in the future. Stanley regards the degeneration of his left hip as partly the product of thousands of shows performed in Platform Boots since the early 1970s.

In October 2011 Stanley had vocal chords surgery.He said "I hold myself to a higher standard than others do, With that in mind, I wanted to remedy a few minor issues that come with 40 years of preaching rock 'n' roll."

Awards