Kiss reveal tricks to getting gigs in their early years

Rockers wanted to appear popular right from the start
By Grace Carroll/Gigwise

Kiss have revealed that when they first started they wouldn’t play more than one show every eight weeks because they wanted to make it look like they were more succesful than they actually were.


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Paul Stanley admitted to The Guardian that in their early days, the band wanted to make it look like they were busy so sometimes they would actually turn down offers.

He went on to say: “We had a rule that we wouldn't play more than once every eight or 12 weeks because we wanted people to think we were busy. We were literally sitting in our loft starving and rehearsing.

“And then we would go out and do a show and I would say, ‘It's great to be back’, ‘we've been gone!’ We weren't anywhere. But it was about creating this mythology from the ground up.”

Bandmate Gene Simmons also spoke out about Kiss’s famous make-up, saying that it created a sense of community and belonging amongst the members.

He said: “[The make-up] was warpaint. Make-up does not give it enough respect. We played a place called the Daisy. There couldn't have been more than 50 to 100 people there. When we looked across the stage, we felt as if we belonged together.”

Simmons went on to compare the band’s use of make-up to the Beatles’ similar haircuts, adding: “I remember seeing the Beatles as a kid and thinking there must have been a Beatle mother 'cause they all looked like they were connected.

“There's no question that our outfits and our boot-heels and our make-up was a unique definition of who we were and helped us become who we are.”