Paul Stanley...hipper than a hip replacement

[KiwiCoromandel]

Old Kiss frontmen never die - they just get hip replacements...

Paul Stanley isn't sure how much make-up he's gone through over his stellar four-decade career but guesses it would be, well, a fair bit.

"Between make-up and hair spray, I'm sure the hair spray alone is responsible for the hole in the ozone layer,'' confesses the rock demigod. "Between spraying it and holding my breath, it was quite a feat, but you gotta look good that's what it's all about."

Stanley minus make-up, but almost certainly still with hair spray, is touring his album Live to Win, his first solo effort since all Kiss's members released individual self-titled records way back in 1978. Curiously, the fact he's waited until this particular juncture has a lot to do with being a homebody.

"People in the band [Kiss] have always tended to go off and do other projects, and I always felt that somebody had to stay home and mind the store," says the man whose efforts in raising international awareness of spandex, chest hair and platform shoes will probably never be equalled. "But at this point it felt like everything with the band is steady and I owed it to myself to kind of do something totally without any sense of either compromise or concessions for other people."

When Stanley talks about his new album a marked deviation from the glam-oriented approach for which he's usually worshipped it's in the type of vernacular that wouldn't be out of place in a pre-game dressing room pep talk or overpriced self-help seminar.

"The whole idea of 'live to win' means that you take on challenges and you go after your goals without any regard for the people who tell you that you can't or try to stop you," he says. "That way, even if you fail, you win, because if you fail on your own terms, as far as I'm concerned, you're a winner."

If Stanley plans on taking another 29 years to release another solo album, the irrefutable laws of mathematics and quantum physics tell us he'll need to wait until sometime in 2036. It's a stark reality that begs the obvious question: would he consider being cryogenically frozen in a vat of liquid nitrogen and brought back to life in 500 years with the view to continue rocking well into the future?

"Um ... interesting question," he says. "You know, I'm not so sure that we ever really check out of this hotel. Maybe we just come back as a different guest. I don't know. I'm not so sure. Does anyone really want to live forever? I don't."

That's not to say he wouldn't be partial to the odd touch of bionic enhancement, however.

"It's funny, as parts wear out you just replace them," he says. "I tore my rotator cuff. I had that repaired. I've torn both my knees up. I had those repaired. I wore out bone in one of my hips. I had the hip replaced. I love what I'm doing and my body's not going to stop me. I'm for anything that keeps me at the level I'm at."

Body-part replacement issues aside, Stanley says he can't wait to get down under again.

"We've had an amazing time and I didn't want it to end after the United States," he says. "For me, the next place had to be Australia. That is, to me, a second home."

And it seems there's no doubt about what his adoring public can expect.

"It's very clearly me. It's a night of me. It's a night of Kiss songs and my solo songs. It would be silly if I wasn't playing Love Gun, if I wasn't playing Lick It Up, playing classic [Kiss] songs. I wrote them.''

source:AP/owen thompson

image:AP...PAUL STANLEY...hipper than a hip replacement...

[DudeAsInCool]

Here's the man himself:

[bear]

I have every Kiss album up until Revenge, I think. I loved them in school. (Hey, it was 1978, I was 14. Do the math, LOL)

I coverted to cd in 87, and KISS cds weren't high on my priotity list. I didn't listen to them for probably 10 years, from around 87 to 97. Then I started replacing theirs. It was really cool, hearing them after so long away. It's always cool to rediscover old music.