PAUL STANLEY On KISS's Final Tour: 'We Want To Go Around And High-Five Everybody Around The World'

KISS frontman Paul Stanley spoke to the “Rolling Stone Music Now” podcast about the band’s recent announcement that it will embark on its “farewell” tour, dubbed “One Last Kiss: End Of The Road World Tour”, in 2019. Asked if there was an actual discussion where he and Gene Simmons sat down and said, “Listen, it’s time to talk about how to close the book,” Stanley responded: “[It happened] just like that. [Laughs] Just like that. At some point, maybe you want to address the elephant in the room, you know? It only makes sense because of the nature of what we are. We’re not a band of guys in jeans and sneakers, standing on stage, playing. We’re athletes. We’re Superman playing a guitar. So, yeah, at some point you look at each other and go, ‘How long can we do this the way we want to do it, and how long can we do it, and love it?’ If you’re smart, you plan so that you can make the most of something, rather than just kind of say it off into the sunset. I didn’t want that to happen. I don’t want to suddenly, after a tour, go, ‘Let’s call it a day,’ or have a year go by and we go, ‘Nah,’ and another year goes by and we go, ‘Nah.’ No, I’d rather take the victory lap. We beat the odds. We kicked everybody’s ass. We outlived the naysayers. We want to go around and high-five everybody around the world. And that’ll take a while.”

Asked what he would like the last song that he plays on stage with KISS to be, Stanley said: “I’d like it to be really long. I would imagine the last song we’ll play is ‘Rock And Roll All Nite’. That is so anthemic, and it connected to us in that it really became a rallying cry and a battle cry, so I will imagine that will be it, and one minute I’ll be smiling, and the next minute I’ll be crying, and that’s the meaning of bittersweet. It will touch all the emotions and press all the buttons.”

Stanley also talked about his previous claim that KISS can one day carry on without any original members, including him and Simmons. “I can imagine a KISS show, because I think at some point, KISS transcends its members, and already has, so could I see that happening at some point?” he said. “I could, but nothing that I can foresee in the near future. But why deny the world something that’s that awesome?”

Rumors of KISS‘s final run of live shows gained strength several months ago following the news that the band was attempting to trademark the phrase “The End Of The Road.” An application from KISS was filed in February to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which means that the band could use it in connection with “live performances by a musical band.”

Simmons recently told Sweden’s Expressen newspaper that KISS‘s next tour will last three years. Calling it the band’s “most spectacular tour ever,” the bassist/vocalist added that the trek will make stops on “all continents.”