KISS brought an end to their lengthy “End Of The Road” world tour last December at Madison Square Garden, and it also marked the last live dates the band will ever play. In a recent interview with “Rock Of Nations With Dave Kinchen And Shane McEachern,” KISS frontman Paul Stanley was asked about the band’s retirement from the touring stage and how he’s adjusted since.
“I was gonna use the word ‘adjustment,” Stanley said. “There’s no way to give that up and not feel a sense of, if not lost, kind of disoriented. It was time to stop, and intellectually it made sense, but that doesn’t mean that emotionally, it doesn’t play a part in it. So, yeah, being home, as I am right now, is normal. What’s not normal is I’m not going back out.”
He continued: “KISS remains. We’re so involved in what’s going on now and the future and this phenomenal, mind-boggling KISS avatar show. But, yeah, to not be up there — I see video from 10 months ago, 11 months ago, and it almost seems like a lifetime ago, because I’ve kind of come to grips with not doing that again… Star Child is forever — but me up there, that’s done.”
Stanley also talked about the possibility of not performing for an audience ever again and the changes in his singing voice over his long and storied career. “I would be lying to say that I’m the singer I was 20 years ago, 30 years ago,” he said. “50 years ago? Of course not. No prize fighter is the fighter that they were, no basketball player. I think that we’ve all earned the right, and always have the right, to decide what we do and for how long,” he continued. “An audience has a right to stop coming. But the rest is up to the individual.”
“It’s always interesting when I hear someone say, ‘Oh, I wish so-and-so would retire from sports or from entertainment because I wanna remember them the way they were.’ Well, if you wanna do that, stop watching. But to impose that will, it’s ludicrous. I’m good friends with singers who certainly have gone through similar things where you come to grips with what you still are and what you’re not, and then you either find a way to make it work or at some point you say it’s time to let go.”
