KISS frontman Paul Stanley says he's not sure the band will ever come to an end, including after he's gone.
Stanley told Billboard that KISS might never end. If the band could continue without original guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss,
"We've built something that's so iconic, and I think it transcends any of the members," Stanley said. "So I can certainly see me not being there, seriously. There was a time where people said it had to be the four of us, and those people are already 50 percent wrong. So I'm betting [another absence] could be overcome, too."
If KISS were to continue without Stanley or bassist Gene Simmons, it would be doing so on a precedent set by the latter two. Since the mid-'80s, Stanley and Simmons have required their hired-guns to dress in the same costumes that Frehley and Criss when the band initially donned its comic book-like stage personas.
Simmons said last year that he questioned whether KISS could continue touring into their seventies, like some of the band's contemporaries have.
"We'll do it for a few more years, and then when we think it's time to go, we'll go," Simmons told Glasgow Live. "And we'll do it the right way: with a big party."
That's not quite the franchise model Stanley seems to be suggesting, but it doesn't rule it out either.
KISS' original members are all still around.
Criss retired from performing last summer.
Frehley has returned to good graces with Simmons and Stanley, having collaborated with them numerous times over past few years. The former KISS lead guitarist is holding out hope that he might return to the band he helped make while everyone is still alive, once putting the odds of his return at "50/50."
Frehley also once called the idea that KISS continue without Stanley or Simmons as "ridiculous," and an attempt to "validate the fact that they have two other guys in the band that aren't the original members."
Stanley has been less enthusiastic about the idea, but Simmons said last fall that "for a one-off, anything is possible."
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