Paul Stanley has likened playing live with former Kiss members Peter Criss and Ace Frehley to “spending a night with your ex wife.”
The frontman insists there was no way he was going to perform with the pair at last year’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction.
Stanley tells News.com.au: “I enjoyed the Hall Of Fame in a twisted way. It was a terrific night but there was no way I was going to play with them.
“Frankly, I have too much pride in what I do than to create a moment of nostalgia for someone else. To get on stage with Ace and Peter was an interesting, surreal moment – but nothing I wanted to prolong.
“Someone asked me before the Hall Of Fame, ‘Couldn’t you just play with the original lineup for one night?’ I said, ‘How about spending a night with your ex wife? What’s the point?’”
Stanley, 63, admits he’s had to face the issue of his voice changing over the years, making it more difficult to perform tracks he first sang in the 1970s.
He says: “People don’t realise that singing involves a muscle – your vocal cords. As you age, they stiffen. It takes more air to make them move, so they don’t vibrate the same. Singers wind up singing differently.”
But he adds: “If there’s any consolation, it’s in looking at all my contemporaries and we’re all in the same boat. When we see each other, we invariably all talk about the task of singing things that, decades ago, you understandably never thought you’d still be singing.
“But that’s the reality.”
Kiss headline this year’s Download festival at Donington on June 12-14.
