PAUL STANLEY Says Former KISS Bandmates 'Were Delusional About Their Songwriting Abilities'

Brian McCollum of Detroit Free Press recently conducted an interview with KISS guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Detroit Free Press: Did you take lessons — good or bad — from "Psycho Circus" in '98?

Stanley: What I learned is you can't make an album without a band. It was a valiant attempt at making an album where people are having lawyers phone in instead of being in the studio. You can't work when people have a distorted sense of their capabilities or ... I guess a view of where they are in the big picture. Or when you have people insisting on quotas about having a certain amount of songs on the album. You can't make an album when people are more concerned with furthering themselves than furthering the band.

Detroit Free Press: Names and details?

Stanley: I think we had people who were delusional about their songwriting abilities and musical abilities. There was an unfortunate carryover of bad habits that people had sworn they would never do again. It's strange when people come back to a band nothing but grateful, with promises they've learned from their mistakes, and as soon as they have money in their pocket, quickly develop amnesia.

Q: Are you still glad you did the reunion?

Stanley: Totally. Totally. It was magical at the beginning. But ultimately, the only magic I wanted was to make certain people disappear. And that was a shame. It had the potential to be much more than just a reunion tour. But it quickly became clear that it couldn't progress. It was an opportunity for people to hone their skills and take the band to another level. But I guess that was left to Tommy [Thayer], Eric [Singer], Gene [Simmons] and me.

I don't want to burst anybody's bubble, but the truth is, it became tough very quickly because people lost sight of the goal. And that's not the spirit the reunion tour started with. The reason we did a farewell tour is because it just wasn't possible to continue. Certainly, it wasn't fun. Nothing's worth doing if it's not fun. What I learned toward the end of the farewell was I didn't want to say farewell to KISS. I wanted to say farewell to some of the members. (Laughs) And luckily, fans overwhelmingly didn't want the band to end.

Read the entire interview from Detroit Free Press.