KISS Legend Exhibits Diverse Artistic Talents

Dave Cohen of Atlanta's INsite magazine recently conducted an interview with KISS guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

INsite: Obviously you followed the musical path that you did with KISS but was there an interest in other art forms at an earlier age?

Stanley: Well, I'd always done different forms of art and I was fairly gifted as others told me and that's why I was admitted to the High School of Music and Art as an art major. I think that, you know, KISS is obviously a product of both and KISS allowed me to have an outlet that incorporated both. I got to design stages, I got to design album covers and also to play music but the two also can live very independently of each other.

INsite: Hypothetical question for you. If you never meet and connect with Gene Simmons, is it conceivable that painting or some other art form would have played a bigger part in your life earlier on?

Stanley: It's a hypothetical question and perhaps one of the reasons I succeeded is because, and I have to preface this and say I don't recommend anybody doing it, I didn't allow myself a fall back plan so my survival was dependant upon my success. I didn't think in terms of the "What if," I only thought of "What had to be." You know, I think when you're motivated by a determination to survive you put a whole lot more in to it and again, that being said, I wouldn't want anybody else to try that because the cost of failure incredibly high.

INsite: What encouraged or prompted to you pick up the brushes and begin painting at this stage of your life?

Stanley: About six or seven years ago I was getting divorced and I really, like many people in that position, had a lot going on and a lot that maybe needed to get released. A friend of mine, my best friend, said that I needed to paint and my having never really applied myself to painting, somehow that connected with me and I went out and bought canvasses and paints and brushes and all kinds of other supplies and just decided to throw caution to the wind. The only thing that I was clear on from the get-go was that I wasn't interested in making a flower pot look like a flower pot. I was more interested in painting a reality that didn't necessarily have to be a literal or visual depiction of something so I wanted to approach it more of a stream of consciousness, where perhaps instead of using words I was using colors and textures to put my emotions, or what was going on inside me, on canvas. It was purely a relief and, I guess, cathartic therapy for me that once other people started seeing clearly connected with them.

INsite: With regards to expressing your emotions as it relates to music and painting, do you find it to be any more of a challenge to do that through painting as opposed to song writing?

Stanley: They're very, very different. The framework and structure that you work in with music is much more restricting because you have a melody and then you need to come up with the music that matches it, and then you need to come up with a lyric that rhymes. It's much more structured. With painting I find that the only limitations are the size of the canvas. It's much more, really about putting my reality on canvas and it's almost for me, a journey where I don't know where I'm going but I always know when I'm there.

INsite: When you're on stage with KISS or one of your solo shows, the adrenaline is flowing and you get that immediate feedback from the audience. It's obviously not the same situation with this art form.

Stanley: It's very different. This is a project that comes out of a very solitary work. You know, it's me alone in a room and, in a sense, when I go into a gallery I'm surrounded by myself. I'm surrounded by pieces of myself. It tremendously satisfying and gratifying to then have other people so turned on by it. No doubt, I've said before, my fame and notoriety certainly gets my foot in the door but it doesn't stop anybody from slamming the door. Nobody is going to spend a lot of hard earned money because they like your song. That's not going to be enough of a reason to buy a piece of art.

INsite: This tour of the Wentworth Galleries follows your recent "Live to Win" solo tour. Is there any synergy of the creative forces within you with your solo CD and your paintings?

Stanley: I think we define ourselves by the challenges we take on and what we do with them. I'm always looking for another way to express myself so whether it's painting or a solo album or doing "Phantom of the Opera" or doing KISS, whatever it is, it's part of my need or desire to do as much as I can. The boundaries and limitations or ideas that people have of who I am are purely their own and I don't live by those. I'm not defined by anybody else's ideas of what I should or shouldn't do.

INsite: KISS played four shows this summer. You're busy with everything you're doing and Gene has been busy with his "Family Jewels" television show and everything else he's involved with. Can you comment on the future plans for the band?

Stanley: I think KISS will continue to the level that people expect, in the sense that when we play, we can give our all. For us or for me to commit to a full tour is a huge commitment because we have a lot to live up to, I have a lot to live up to and the only way I can do that is by feeling confident that I can go out there and give it my all. Going out and doing four shows this summer was basically just to grease the gears and get the motor running. There'll be more shows for sure. KISS is a large part of who I am. It's not all I am but, you know, it definitely is a cornerstone.