Spending five decades on the stage, KISS produced more than hit songs as the band took their stardom to new heights. Embracing the business side of music, KISS turned into a franchise with merchandise ranging from toys to bed sets. Selling over 75 million albums, the band landed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. While ending their time in the spotlight in December 2023 with one last performance in New York City, KISS announced a new digital avatar show would be coming in the future. And according to Paul Stanley, fans are going to love what the band produced.
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Speaking on Billboard’s Behind The Setlist podcast, Stanley discussed working with Pophouse Entertainment to bring digital avatars of KISS to life. Having watched the company work with ABBA, the musician said, “The Pophouse deal is revolutionary, but it’s also really in keeping with the band. The idea of us selling publishing or anything like that was never on our radar. What we wanted to do, if anything, was find some partners who understood the scope and the magnitude of not only the music over the decades, but the characters, the personas that we created…”
[RELATED: Paul Stanley Remembers How His Love for Guitar Started Thanks to Musician Eddie Cochran]
When Will KISS Reveals The New Avatar Concert?
With some claiming the new experience with feature holograms of KISS, Stanley criticized the term given what they are trying to accomplish. “The idea of a hologram, and it’s not a hologram, but that term seems to get thrown around a lot, but the idea of a simulated concert is not what we wanna do. Frankly, I would find that boring. I mean, how long can you go, ‘Gee, that looks just like an amp.’”
Always appearing to be trailblazers when it came to music, Stanley expressed his excitement about ushering in a new era of KISS concerts. “What we’re creating is an immersive experience that KISS fans will love and people who have never been exposed to KISS or might not like certain aspects of the band will have to see. It’s a must-see go-to experience. So it’s beyond anything that anyone else has contemplated. The whole idea, again, of doing a simulated concert is — that’s the dark ages to us.”
Still working on the production, the KISS avatar show hoped to premiere sometime in 2027.
(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)
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