Paul Stanley plays Kiss Klassics from home during self-quarantine: "It's me and you hanging out"
Watch the Kiss man riff on Makin’ Love, Got to Choose and more
One of the musical bright spots in this time of coronavirus has been seeing legendary artists – Brian May, for one – reach out through the web to communicate, and sometimes even play electric guitar, with fans.
Now we can add to that list Kiss’ Paul Stanley, who recently sat down at his LA home, Les Paul burst in hand, to rip out some vintage Kiss licks for all of us.
“Are we bored? Yeah,” Stanley begins. “But it’s great to be able to spend some time with you.
“This isn’t a performance, it’s not a concert, it’s not a recital. It’s me and you hanging out.”
He continues, “Maybe I’ll play some riffs, some little guitar parts and you can sing if you want. You’re in the band. If you know the parts of the song, sing along. It’s just us.”
Before digging into the music, the Kiss singer and guitarist takes a moment to “remember that there are doctors, hospital workers, sanitation people, police, people in supermarkets, delivery people, all these people are making this possible for us,” he says.
“Some of them are under horrific conditions and really trying to keep their heads above water and in a real dangerous situation. My prayers for all of them and let’s not forget about all those people.”
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With that, Stanley plays pieces of two '70s Kiss Klassics, Makin’ Love and Hotter Than Hell.
Finally, he wraps up with 1974’s Got To Choose, a song that, he explains, “was probably somewhere between the Humble Pie stuff I was hearing and Ninety-Nine and a Half Won’t Do," the latter a Wilson Pickett tune that had been covered by a New York band named Boomerang.
Says Stanley, “These are awesome songs. Now, am I giving myself a pat on the back? Not really. I love these songs like you love these songs. Because luckily for me I’m not only a member of the band, I’m a real fan of the band.”
You can hear him play other awesome Kiss songs, including Love Gun and Every Time I Look At You, above.
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Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.
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