Former members of KISS are still welcome to rejoin the band for guest appearances on its 'End of the Road' farewell tour, according to frontman Paul Stanley, but a full-on reunion may not be in the cards.
"Anything is possible," Stanley told Inside with Paulo Baron in a recent interview. "I don't rule anything out. I have to say that we wouldn't be here today if not for our past. If Peter [Criss] and Ace [Frehley] hadn't been there at the beginning, we wouldn't be here today. But I will also say that if Peter and Ace had stayed with the band, we also wouldn't be here today. So you have to put it into some sort of balance and perspective."
Stanley and bassist Gene Simmons expressed an openness to welcome all former Kiss members back to the stage with them when they announced their farewell tour with iHeartRadio back in 2018.
But the pair has repeatedly emphasized that they will not be shaking up the band's official lineup — featuring guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer since 2004 — noting longstanding issues with the other co-founders.
Therein lies the impasse — at least when it comes to Frehley (Criss retired in 2017 and has expressed no interest in resuming his Kiss career).
While Frehley has patched up some of his issues with Simmons and Stanley over the past year and is eager to perform with Kiss again, he has refused to share lead guitar duties with Thayer, who performs in the 'Spaceman' getup Frehley designed for himself in the '70s.
Stanley has acknowledged that he'd like to see the band's career come full circle, but he worries that there might be too many egos involved for a reunion to be any fun.
"If there is a way to include them in celebrating the final tour, yeah, I'm open to it," the Starchild added. "It has to make sense and it has to feel right, because the band has existed far, far, far too long without them to let anybody spoil this or make it less than it should be. If there's no joy in it, I'm not interested."
Kiss is currently slated to resume its 'End of the Road' tour in Australia this fall.
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