Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons of KISS, who have been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Thursday, June 11, in New York, discussed their five-decade musical collaboration and the band’s history with Anthony Mason of CBS’s weekday morning TV program CBS Mornings, as per Blabbermouth. Stanley talked about how they wrote “Rock And Roll All Nite,” one of the most well-known rock songs ever recorded and the anthem most strongly associated with KISS.
People didn’t know rock anthems [at the time], and fortuitously the head of the record company said, ‘You need an anthem.’ I said, ‘What does that even mean?’ And he said, ‘You need a song like Sly & The Family Stone ‘Dance To The Music’, [with lyrics like] ‘I wanna take you higher.’ So I went back to the hotel — [Gene and I] both went back — and I sat in my room and I thought, ‘What encapsulates this?’ And I thought, it’s a song of empowerment. I went, ‘I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day.’ I knock on Gene’s door. I go, ‘Gene, I have something. What do you think?’ And Gene goes, ‘I have a song called ‘Drive Me Wild’.’ – Paul Stanley
So we stuck those two [songs] together and presto chango, we’ve been playing that longer than anybody in the studio has been alive. – Gene Simmons
Stanley agreed that Paul and Gene have “both a rivalry and a brotherhood” after Mason mentioned this.
Yeah. But it’s all with a purpose, what we’ve always put priority to was the band, trying to make the best music possible. It’s not about winning; it’s about sticking to your guns when you think it’ll advance the band, so that’s always been the common bond between us. And it’s only been rivalry in the same way that brotherly rivalry sometimes brings things to another level.
When asked why they initially clicked, Gene responded as follows.
Oh, he hated me… We first met at the behest of a guitar player I grew up with and all that stuff. I didn’t know anybody else wrote songs.’ He said, ‘This guy writes songs, too. ‘Oh, really?’ … I had never met anybody else who wrote songs. I thought besides the upper pantheon, that I was the only one. And actually, I said, ‘Play me a song.’
The person who introduced us said, ‘Stan’ — that was my name at the time — ‘he writes songs, too.’ And Gene goes, ‘Oh, yeah? Play me one.’ And I’m thinking, ‘What a jerk.’ … And I picked up a guitar and played a song I wrote that wound up on our first album. And Gene played a song that didn’t. – Paul Stanley
How could they work for so long together?
I think we were much stronger together. And when you’re aspiring to something that goes so against the grain, when everyone around you is becoming attorneys and doctors and things like that and you aspire to something so different, it’s lonely. And it was much better, the two of us. We were much greater as a duo than singular. – Paul Stanley
