Face the Music: A Life Exposed

by Stanley, Paul

  After those gigs, on the heels of the Farewell Tour, I truly bought into the idea that this was the end of the band. It was a shame. Because even though it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, with Eric and Tommy the band was firing on all cylinders. In a lot of ways it was the band I had envisioned when we started the reunion—an idealized version of the band, with the iconic characters and the chops to match.

  Damn.

  I had no idea what I was going to do next. I thought about making music on my own. I thought about doing more theater. Losing KISS was like losing a family member. It had been such a big part of my life. I felt a huge void.

  One afternoon later in 2002 I took my car to the carwash and one of the workers said to me, “Paul, the Farewell Tour was great. When are you doing the thirtieth anniversary tour?”

  What? That would be okay? You mean you still want us?

  The guy at the carwash really opened my eyes. He still loved the band. He wanted to know what was next.

  I’m the one closing the door. I’m the one throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

  But why?

  All of a sudden, I wondered what we were really saying farewell to. Maybe the Farewell Tour was better envisioned as a farewell to those two guys? A farewell to compromising ourselves musically? A farewell to drama?

  The idea of throwing it all away because of a pair of jerks who never valued the band suddenly seemed crazy. We had existed without them before. Now, because those two had come back into the fold, I was going to let them have their way by causing the demise of KISS?

  Why stop now?

  We had built the band back and people had embraced it. Hell, put on a good show and KISS could go on for another two hundred years. And without the weak links, this band could put on a great show.

  I didn’t want to give up something I’d spent thirty years busting my ass for.

  I’m not done.

  Part VI

  Forever

  60.

  How much could we alter the equation in KISS? That was the question the Aerosmith camp raised when the idea of a co-headlining tour was floated. Doc was sure he knew. Gene and I were sure, too.

  Under other circumstances, both Ace and Peter would have been out for the 2003 tour. But for whatever reason, the Aerosmith camp wanted at least three original members involved. By this point, Ace had already made it clear he was done. Which left Peter as the third member. Ugh.

  There were contracts to be signed by Peter, Gene, Tommy, and me. Of course the four of us discussed it, and the members of the band were spelled out. After the Jamaica gig, it was a given that Tommy would wind up in the band. It was a logical progression, so much so that we never even spoke about it. After Jamaica we knew we didn’t need to audition for a new guitar player. Tommy was the answer.

  Tommy had been a great tour manager—not because he was destined to be a great tour manager, but because he gave himself totally to anything he did. And when he officially joined the band as the new lead guitarist, it wasn’t that we took our tour manager and dressed him up in a Spaceman outfit. Tommy wasn’t a doppelganger or a substitute; he was the next step and had proved that he deserved to be in the band and that he enhanced it musically.

  As we started out on our co-headlining tour with Aerosmith, however, I have to say that Tommy and Peter didn’t feel like the secret formula to me. It still felt transitional. It felt like the wound was only partly healed. Certainly we had somebody who wanted to be there, who knew the songs, who could play them consistently night after night. And I didn’t wake up every morning wondering how the day would go and how the show would go. Fifty percent of the uncertainty and chaos had been eliminated.

  Peter, on the other hand, was up to his same old tricks. He had Gigi pouring a little more poison down the well each day; he complained incessantly about being disrespected by hotel staff; he bitched about the smoke from the pyrotechnics. The hotel guidebook was back, too, along with complaints that his room was too dark or it was too far down the hall, the shows were too long, his hands hurt. On and on.

  But the response from audiences was encouraging. There were cheers for Tommy, everybody on their feet, just as it had always been. If it sounded like KISS, looked like KISS, and commanded like KISS, it was KISS.

  Meanwhile, Peter had his attorney trying to negotiate a contract extension during the tour. His demands, as usual, were absurd. I think they figured we would cave because Ace wasn’t around anymore. Who knows what they were thinking? I knew by then that KISS was bigger than any of the individuals. And I do not mean “except me.” I have a high regard for what I do, but I don’t fool myself by thinking I’m the only one who can do it. Strangely, the longer the negotiating went on, the more Peter and his attorney seemed to think they had us over a barrel. We went along with it.

  When the tour was over and Peter’s contract expired, I told him we had decided not to renew his contract.

  “You’re not happy. You say the shows are too long. Your hands hurt. You want to play other kinds of music. We want to continue. I think it’s best for everyone if we just call it quits, Peter. It’s time for us all to move on.”

  I didn’t have much to say beyond that. It wasn’t that we were just going to become a different KISS or a new KISS; we were going to become a better KISS.

  I couldn’t change Peter any more than I could have changed Ace or Bill Aucoin or Donna or Pam. What I could do, however, was stop battling someone whose agenda was resolutely negative, someone who seemed intent on sabotaging everyone and everything around him—and then blaming anyone but himself. Fuck that.

  The idea that we would stop using any of the four iconic images was as ridiculous as the idea that we would stop playing any of the songs. Interestingly, years before, when we decided to try to buy the rights to the Catman and Spaceman images, Peter and Ace dealt their characters away as if they had no value. To them, they were mere bargaining chips. The fact that they so readily relinquished them showed me how little they cared about them. I was glad that those guys couldn’t start turning up at Halloween conventions signing autographs in tattered KISS outfits and makeup. I valued the images and wanted to protect them.

  Eric Singer had been phenomenal when he filled in on the Farewell Tour, and again it was a case of not needing to look any further. We had our man for the future.

  It was such a relief.

  Touring was a part of my life that Erin knew nothing about. Back on the road I missed her and wanted her to be with me and experience it firsthand. It seemed strange to see her walk into this until-then-unknown realm of my life. She was a joy. When Erin came to her first KISS show, I remember seeing her in the audience dancing. She wasn’t showing off; she was reflecting the elation I felt onstage.

  During a break from that tour I took Erin to a charity dinner as my guest. When the host of the dinner mentioned me by name, Erin was the first person standing and clapping. I had never experienced anything like that. She was so secure in herself that she could happily give like that without feeling she was compromising who she was.

  The first trip we took together was to Las Vegas. We went to my favorite restaurant at the Bellagio, called Picasso, and I was thrilled that she loved the whole fine dining experience and meeting the executive chef there, Julian Serrano, who had become a friend of mine. As we were lying in bed later that night watching TV, I said I was thirsty. Erin said, “Oh, I’ll get you a drink.”

  I thought it was just an empty gesture and said, “No, don’t be silly.” But she got up and looked for the mini-bar. There wasn’t one.

  “I’ll go down to the lobby and get you something,” she said, pulling on some sweats.

  “You’re going to go down to the lobby and get me a drink?”

  I don’t mean to sound like a kicked dog, but nobody had ever done something like that for me before.

  Erin would never do something that took away her pride, but she wasn’t tangled up in bullshit—being kind and giving wasn’t a negative to her and
didn’t chip away at her sense of self. From time to time we talked about the state of our relationship—where she was, where I was, how my home situation was unfolding. We always remained on the same page.

  A healthy relationship makes you healthier. I guess I realized only in retrospect that a dysfunctional relationship is a pretty good indicator of where you yourself are. Only someone in turmoil stays in a tumultuous relationship. Erin wasn’t like that at all. I had really never met anyone like her.

  For the first year she and I dated, I never took her home when Evan was there. He had gone through a calamitous event in his life, and he needed to know he was safe rather than seeing me bring women around. Evan was in a situation he hadn’t asked for, and the idea of “getting on with my life” without paying attention to his needs seemed transparently self-serving.

  I wanted Evan to know that our home was for the two of us—it was our world. One way I tried to declare this was to have a massive floor-to-ceiling fresco of the two of us put into my bedroom. The house was not a home when Pam and I divorced, so I decided to make this fresco the centerpiece—both as a way to lay claim to the space and to illustrate the world I wanted to create for Evan. It was based on a nineteenth-century oil painting—a hunting party, Greek gods, nude maidens, cherubs, the works. Only I had the artist place me and Evan front and center, wearing togas with laurel wreaths around our heads. In the landscape around us were horses and dogs and dozens of bare-chested nubile maidens.

  An extreme example of poor bachelor-pad taste? No way. No, no, no. For some reason, I thought this massive fresco was absolutely spectacular and something to display with pride. Erin, it would turn out, did not share this opinion.

  After Erin and I had been seeing each other for more than a year, I thought it was time to introduce her to Evan. But again, I didn’t want him to feel threatened. So I decided to have them meet in a neutral location. I told Evan I had a friend who, like him, loved candy. I said we were going to visit a candy store at a shopping center and she was going to meet us there. She came and met Evan, but I never held her hand or kissed her. Only slowly over the course of many months, as Evan learned to get used to her and like her, did we start to reveal our affection a little more. As he became closer to Erin, I allowed him to see me and her becoming closer as well. It was a parallel course—I hoped that in his eyes our relationship was evolving in front of him.

  Pam and I never badmouthed each other to Evan, and for that I’m so grateful to her. Neither of us wanted him to become a pawn in any disputes between us. I see things very simply. If you want to take it to logical extremes, it all boils down to one basic question: do you hate your ex more than you love your child? As long as you love your child more, there’s no basis for bad words or denying access or anything like that. Which also meant Erin never represented a replacement or a threat.

  Further on down the road, Erin, Evan, and I took a trip together. I wanted him to see that Erin slept over sometimes, but again, I wanted it to happen in a neutral setting. We checked into a resort in Santa Barbara, and when we went into the room, Evan asked, “Where’s Erin going to sleep?”

  “With me,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said, without any surprise or discomfort. And we moved on.

  By that time in my life I firmly believed we heal ourselves by helping others. My making Evan the center of things for me benefited everyone. It was such a joy to see a happy child.

  When Erin and I finally moved in together, she told me she wasn’t crazy about the fresco in the bedroom. “We don’t have to lose it,” I said. “I mean, we can add you into it. You can be one of the maidens. You live here now—you can be on there, too.”

  “I hate it,” she finally admitted. “I’ve always hated it.”

  I was shocked. Then suddenly I found myself chuckling. When I stepped back, it did look like something from This Is Spinal Tap.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I asked.

  Then I went to the storage room and grabbed some paint and a couple of paint rollers and we painted over the thing together.

  61.

  Sometime after Erin moved in, Evan, who was about ten at the time, accidentally locked himself out on the balcony off his bedroom. Erin and I were downstairs and didn’t realize it. At one point I heard a noise but couldn’t place it.

  Wait, was that somebody shouting?

  Suddenly it dawned on me that Evan might be locked out. Erin and I ran upstairs. Evan was beside himself out on the balcony. We opened the door. And he came running in—right past me and into Erin’s arms.

  Some parents might have felt insulted by that, but I thought it was the greatest thing that he felt that way about her. It assured me that their relationship was strong and loving, too.

  While on vacation with Erin in Hawaii in 2003, a gallery owner approached me and asked about doing something for his gallery—something like signed guitars. “I paint,” I told him. He asked to see some of my paintings. After I showed him photos, he wanted to mount a show.

  Me? An art show?

  It sounded odd. Now granted, this wasn’t some swank New York gallery. But still.

  We organized the show and I went back to Hawaii for the opening. We sold $35,000 worth of paintings, which certainly exceeded all my expectations, since I had never expected to sell anything. It was quickly clear to me that if credibility came from being a starving artist, I would have to cross that off my list.

  After that, I had the bug. I wanted to do the same thing on the mainland. Soon enough, I had a deal in place with a chain of galleries around the country. We did a series of shows, and I felt as if I was exposing some people to a potentially enriching aspect of culture—the visual arts—who might not otherwise get exposed to it. The same thing had been true when I did Phantom of the Opera, where I’m sure some KISS fans made their first foray into musical theater. I felt I was breaking down some of the snobbery that I think ultimately does a disservice to the arts. People sometimes would come up to me at a show and tell me, “I don’t know anything about art, but I like this piece.”

  “What do you need to know?” I would say. “Something either moves you or it doesn’t.”

  I found it gratifying when people said a piece made them think of something from their own lives or sparked them to tell me a story about their own families. Seeing people affected by my paintings validated my work in a way I probably never would have experienced otherwise.

  Bill Aucoin came to one of my art shows. He had leveled out, and it was great to see him. Bill was warm and supportive. As the friendship was rekindled and KISS began to tour again—with Eric and Tommy—Bill came to a few concerts as well as more art shows. Over time we did a good deal of talking about the past. He told me how he had seen me as defensive and unhappy in the early days—unfulfilled, guarded. He loved the transformation he saw in me, what he called growth. He loved Erin, and he made a big point of how happy it made him to see that I had evolved to a better place. I was touched.

  Eventually I would take a break from showing my art, even though my sales had by then passed the $2 million mark. I had started painting as a way to let off pressure. It was something I did without a schedule, without anyone asking questions. Painting was a big commitment since I had no training—it took a lot of time and effort and thought. There was no need for me to turn it into a business. I didn’t want it to become a chore, especially as the band began to tour regularly again.

  One day back in L.A., Erin and I were chatting about the state of our relationship. We started talking about her mother, who had spent decades working as an elementary school teacher. “So what does your mom think is going to happen between us?” I asked. “What does she think of this whole thing?”

  “Oh,” Erin said, “my mom thinks either it will move forward at some point or it will fall apart.”

  I love this photo. It says it all to me.

  It hit me at that moment: This isn’t going to fall apart.

  I couldn’t imagine not
being with Erin. I knew then and there that I wanted to be with her forever.

  We’d been together several years at that point. It wasn’t a passing infatuation. Our relationship wasn’t about love at first sight. The depth of my feelings for her grew out of our experiences together. It built over time.

  I called a jeweler in New York City and asked them to send me one of their booklets. A ring jumped out at me immediately. Next, I picked out a stone.

  When the ring was finished, I carried it around waiting for the right moment to ask Erin to marry me. But I couldn’t find that moment.

  We took another trip to Vegas in 2005 and returned to Picasso for a great meal. We both loved the place and were enjoying ourselves and drinking the wine pairings. I got pretty buzzed, in fact. I had figured this would be the place to pop the question, but I wanted to propose to her with a clear head.

  The next day, I kicked myself.

  Fuck, when am I going to do this?

  A friend of mine had lent me his private jet to fly home on—which is something I never imagined I’d say in my life. I thought perhaps that would be the perfect place—the sunlight at forty thousand feet would make the ring really shine. But when we got on the plane, all my neurotic tendencies came into play: Damn it, these windows are polarized, I won’t get a sparkle on the ring.

  We landed back in L.A. and drove home.

  I have to do this!

  We got home. Off our bedroom is a balcony overlooking the pool and guesthouse—more things I never envisioned in my life. It was a beautiful sunny day. “Come on out here,” I called to Erin from the balcony. “We should go for a swim.”

  She walked out onto the balcony. We had literally just walked into the house, but I couldn’t wait any longer. She was leaning over the railing looking down over the pool, and I stood behind her, wrapped my arms around her, and held the ring before her eyes.