Name: Joe Rogan Experience #562 - Paul Stanley
Uploaded: 2014-10-15T22:43:19.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #562 - Paul Stanley' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2014-10-15. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #562 - Paul Stanley' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2014-10-15. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #562 - Paul Stanley

And we're live.
You don't have to wear headphones if you don't want.
You're Paul Stanley.
That's right.
I do what I want.
You can do whatever the fuck you want.
You want to take a shit on the floor over there?
You feel free.
Hey, you know, use your imagination.
If that's what turns you on.
It's not, but I would accept it.
I wouldn't even take photos of it.
I wouldn't even tell anybody.
I'm just putting Joe Rogan Podcast.
You put it out on Twitter?
Yeah.
Okay.
You did it.
Beautiful.
All right, we're live.
Good.
First of all, I just want to say thank you very much for being here.
When I was a little kid, I've been a fan of Kiss since...
I can't remember when I wasn't.
I was a tiny little kid when I first found out about Kiss.
So to have you here in my podcast, I've been to many of your shows,
both pre-when you wore makeup, then when you got off of makeup,
and then when you got back on makeup again.
So I've been through the full spectrum.
Solo, I had the solo albums.
I was there too.
You were there for the whole thing.
I've been through the whole thing.
Every show you were at, I was at too.
That's what I hear.
Yes.
But that is a weird thing, though, that you like, you guys, you broke up, were,
not broke
up, but you got rid of Chris and you got rid of Ace, and then you brought in
new guys,
and now you kind of have guys that play those roles.
Is that how you're doing it now?
I don't know that you could, I mean, that's a tough one to answer.
I think where we went astray is when we started, when we first replaced Peter
and we decided
we needed a new character.
And the problem with that kind of stuff is that it started to become,
interestingly, I
think, disingenuous.
It took on an air of fake in the sense that it became a menagerie.
I mean, we had a fox and an Egyptian warrior.
Next, we would have Turtle Boy and the Frog Man.
So I think once we brought Ace and Peter back for the reunion tour, which I
hoped would go
on forever.
And in other words, I hoped that everybody would get back together.
Everybody would see the error in their ways, and we would move forward and stay
together
forever.
But when that wasn't to be, I thought, you know, we really built these four
images.
And arguably, you can go anywhere in the world and people know who Kiss is,
regardless of
whether they know who those people are.
So to give up that because we found that those guys were no longer either
capable or wanted to
give it a hundred percent, well, who loses out?
The fans.
So no, you know, those images are the images that will continue when I'm not
here either.
Yeah, that's got to be a strange place to be where you and Gene are both these
super
focused, healthy, non-drug using guys.
And then you have these two guys in your band that are integral parts of the
band.
You know, I mean, Beth was a huge hit.
It was, and look, this whole show could turn into denigrating the former
members, but I
don't want to do that.
But honestly, that song was the product of a great producer who had a big hand
in writing
it and a co-writer who Peter used on a lot of things that he supposedly wrote.
Um, but they were integral members of the band and, uh, it's very difficult to,
to move forward
when two of the people are like, at times like flat tires, you're trying to,
you're trying
to move forward.
Um, it becomes more of a problem when their, um, reason, reason for being is to
foil and,
and to, um, throw off track what you're trying to do.
So at some point it really became more about trying to, um, disrupt what we
were trying
to do with no regard to whether or not what they want to do was right or wrong.
They just wanted, let's screw Gene and Paul.
So we'll say no and they'll say yes.
So it really became very, very, very difficult.
So do you think they did that because, I mean, did they have a logical reason?
Was it just because they were self-sabotaging anyway?
I think, I think self-sabotaging comes into it because I think that's been a,
something that's
run through parts of their lives.
But I also think that there was, um, a lot of resentment.
And honestly, you know, you, I don't believe in resenting people for what they
can do that
you can't.
If you're lucky enough to have people around you who can do what you can't,
make them your
best friend.
Yeah.
Learn.
Learn.
And, um, everybody can't be, you know, everybody can't be, uh, the best at what
they do, but
you can benefit from being around those people.
So look, I, I, I never wanted or expected anybody in the band to do necessarily
the same
amount of work that I did, but I expected them to give a hundred percent
everybody's, you
know, I was all for splitting things evenly, uh, in the original lineup of the
band up until,
uh, you know, we, those guys departed the first time, but, um, you have to give
your best.
When you say like, resent, like resent for what you, what they can't do, but
they were great.
I mean, Peter Criss was a fantastic drummer.
Ace Frehley was a great guitarist.
Would, would they resent other than your sobriety or your health?
I think focus and drive and perhaps, yeah, determination and seeing the whole
picture
and, and, um, wanting this to be as good as it could be, as opposed to falling
back on,
all, you know, it's rock and roll.
Well, rock and roll is no excuse for mediocrity and rock and roll is no excuse
for not doing
your job.
You know, if somebody says, oh, my playing is rock and roll.
No, that's just bad, you know, there's bad and then there's rock and roll.
So, um, you know, look, it's a long time ago and it's kind of like talking
about a girlfriend
or a wife you had a long time ago and trying to, to disseminate what went wrong.
And at some point it really doesn't matter.
Yeah.
It's, it's always hard to deal with people that are in that sort of self sabotaging
mode and
you see it all the time.
And the, one of the things that I always equate to is when you see people
smoking cigarettes
and they throw their cigarette on the ground and don't think anything of it.
And it's, it's a super common thing.
It's very rare that you see people just throw trash on the ground in front of
everybody.
Oh, but people will throw cigarettes on the ground in front of anybody.
And they're not there because they're sabotaging their own body.
They don't mind just throwing stuff on the ground too.
It's sort of the same kind of a mentality.
I think so, you know, and perhaps if it's okay for me to smoke, it's okay for
me to discard
them, you know, my cigarette, you're going to breathe the smoke secondhand.
So here's a, but, you know, so, um, I don't, I really don't know.
I don't know the, the mentality that wants to sabotage what ultimately benefits
you.
Um, look, if you're in a band that's doing great and you're not the primary
songwriter
or the primary singer, well, you should revel in what you have.
Um, you know, the idea of equality, some have to be more equal than others.
You know, um, everybody can be in the car together.
Somebody's got to drive.
We all, we're all going the same direction.
But, um, you know, when, when people reach a point of saying, well, I want an
equal amount
of songs, well, do we leave off Strutter so we can put your song on or do we
leave off
Detroit Rock City?
It doesn't work like that.
Um, there's no, I don't believe that there's any birthright or, or that, that
we should
expect a quota in anything.
We get what we deserve.
And, uh, somebody has to decide that.
So is that the most difficult thing about being in a band is just managing all
the egos
and managing, you know, everybody has their own point of view where they're,
they're not
getting appreciated or looked at with the proper respect and that, that, that's
often the situation
in, in bands.
And thankfully that's not the situation in our band.
Um, Eric's been in and out of the band for 20 years, I think at this point.
And Tommy's been around the band and been in the band.
Um, I think over 10 at this point, the key to a great band or any great
situation is doing
what's best for the situation, not what's best for you.
Um, I don't have to be right.
I just want to see the right thing happen.
So if, if you're more tied up in, in the ego gratification or in the control
factor, I honestly
don't need to, to control anything, but I do have a point of view.
And I guess I've earned my place at, at, at this juncture, but everybody gets a
chance
to, to, you know, stake their views and hopefully they're always with the best
intentions.
And I think that's what the way the band works now, um, we have a drummer who
doesn't like
to take a solo and this, this guy could play a better solo with one hand than
most drummers
could play with every limb of their body.
So everybody really, um, it's all for one and one for all.
Well, you guys were one of the first bands that got really big doing live shows.
Like your live shows were so spectacular that when you put a live album out,
when you put
out Kiss Alive and then Kiss Alive 2, those albums were so big, like, uh, I
mean, and it's
obviously we're dating ourselves here, but just the albums, when you'd open up
Kiss Alive
to that big silver dynamic record, I mean, it was, it was awesome and the
performances were
so intense, you know, it was so much fun to listen to that it really boosted
you guys up.
And when I was a kid, it would really drive me fucking crazy that I didn't hear
your songs
enough on the radio.
And when I did hear one of your songs, I got super excited.
I got pumped.
But it was always like Detroit Rock City or Beth.
It was never like cold gin or one of the more obscure titles, you know, which
cold gin, not
a very obscure song.
But it was, you guys became big, almost in spite of the business.
Yeah.
And I think to this day, we still retain, um, a certain amount of being the
black sheep.
We're still, look, it took 14 years for us to get into the rock and roll hall
of fame.
I'm not saying that, you know, necessarily I lost any sleep over it, but, um,
validation
from critics and people like that has been something that's been, you know, um,
a long time coming.
But it, it's never been an issue because our success was based upon people, you
know, real
fans, the people who buy tickets, buy albums and stand by you.
Um, so, certainly credibility and, and, and the stuff that, um, uh, the media
would like
to, to, um, dictate is nothing that we've ever been a part of.
Didn't bother you at all when you guys weren't, was it something that you came
to get over, but
did it bother you at all that you guys weren't getting the record play that, or
the radio play,
rather, that you should have deserved?
Yeah, I was shocked in the beginning that some of the critics who made us their
darlings
when we were a nobody band in New York City, once we became successful, even in
the earliest days,
we sold out.
Well, what do you mean we sold out?
You know, you think I wanted to just be your band, you know, this one guy with
his typewriter?
So, um, you know, we did this to succeed and, and, um, to, to be slighted for
success.
I, I, I never got it, you know, bands like television or, you know, a lot of
the bands
that came out of New York that went nowhere, went nowhere because they sucked.
You know, the critics may have liked them, but they were, they were irrelevant
today.
And in the scheme of things, even back then they were irrelevant.
It's nice to know that there were hipsters even back then when it came to like
liking things that are obscure.
That's always been, that's a weird draw, isn't it?
Well, you know, it's not unusual in, in certain circles that certain people
want to outdo each other
by knowing something more obscure than the, oh yeah, you like that band?
Well, I know a band that hasn't even sold an album.
You know, I, I know a band that has no strings on their guitars, you know, so
it, it becomes absurd.
It becomes absurd.
Um, we've been doing this 40 years.
We just did 42 shows in America to 600,000 people.
So, um, the public speaks loudly and, and they ultimately, yo