KISS stopped touring out of “respect” for their fans.
The Crazy Crazy Nights hitmakers called time on their life on the road after their three-year farewell tour came to an end in 2022, and Gene Simmons, 77, has insisted it was important to bow out “gracefully”.
He told NewsNation’s The Hill: “You’ve got to know when to gracefully and proudly step off that stage, because you have to understand that KISS was and continues to be the only band of its type.
“Every show I had to spit fire … fly through the air, keep my tongue out all the time. Wear 70 lbs, as much as that, or as little as 50 to 60 lbs of armour, studs, guitars, and all on seven-inch platformed boots for two hours. It’s exhausting.
“I’m 77 now, and boy, do I look good. But you’ve got to know — you’ve got to respect the fans enough to know when to get off that stage.”
Gene explained one of the driving forces for the band had always been giving fans “bang for the buck” by providing the “bombast” and “spectacle” they felt was missing from a lot of live acts.
He said: “We had a very strange idea. Let’s put together the band we never saw on stage.”
Meanwhile, Gene warned musicians need to start embracing artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Asked if it will help or hurt the music industry, he replied: “It doesn’t matter. The future is here. You’ve got to learn how to use it, otherwise it will use you.”
An avatar-based KISS show is slated to launch in Las Vegas in 2028, and the group previously declared the digital replicas signal the start of a “new era”, with millions of dollars being pumped into the project.
Speaking during a Q+A at the Electric Lady Studios in New York, Gene previously told one fan: “There’s so much being planned, even beyond my comprehension. But they’re spending, oh, about 200 million [dollars] to take it to the next level.”
He said of ABBA’s first-of-its-kind show: “You can’t tell if they’re there, right there, like that.”
In a video posted online after their final concert, Gene explained: “We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamt of before.
“The technology is going to make [rhythm guitarist and co-lead vocalist] Paul [Stanley] jump higher than he’s ever done before … If you think you are going to get rid of us then that’s not going to happen.”