Paul Stanley of Kiss’ 20 Best Onstage Quotes
Paul Stanley is many things: Singer-guitarist in Kiss, painter, philanthropist, musical theater adept, author. He’s also, indisputably, one of the all-time masters of rock & roll stage banter. By turns rousing, hilarious and non-sensical (and always entertaining), Stanley knows exactly how to keep the concert energy high even when the band is between songs. In honor of our new cover story (online in full here now!), here are 20 of his most delirious declarations taken from the viral bootleg collection Let Me Get This Off My Chest.
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“You lick me, I lick you”
Image Credit: Michael Putland/Getty Images On Chest, Paul introduces "Lick It Up" with a question: "How many of you girls like to get licked?" The crowd roars. Then, naturally, he asks, "Guys? How many of you guys like to get licked?" The crowd roars again. Thus emboldened, Paul proposes some reciprocal slobbering: "You lick me, I lick you." It's only right now.
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“I. Love. Glögg”
Image Credit: Gregory Shamus/NHLI via Getty Images So audience-specific is Stanley's banter that he even thought to reference a Swedish holiday tipple while performing in Stockholm. Hearing him pronounce the word's umlauted "ö" in his Noo Yawk accent is an auditory delight all its own.
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“There is one city in America that opened up your arms and opened up your legs to us”
Image Credit: Fin Costello/Redferns As an early outpost of the KISS Army and one of the recording spots for the career-making Alive! album, Detroit played an important role in KISStory, and Stanley took a moment to acknowledge the city's, um, embrace of the band.
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“My goodness, people!”
Image Credit: M. Caulfield/WireImage "My goodness" is common Paul Stanley exclamation, often delivered with the nasal outer-borough chutzpah of a Queens bubbeleh.
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“I don’t have anything green on!”
Image Credit: Peter Pakvis/Redferns Another quick-witted riff from the consummate verbal improviser. Here, Paul makes a punning joke on Toad's Place, the name of the Connecticut club at which he was playing.
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“Is this, or is this not, the rock’n’roll capital of Virginia?”
Image Credit: Paul Natkin/WireImage Stanley asked this seemingly rhetorical question to an audience in Richmond, which is either damning with faint praise or a real eff-you to Roanoke.
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“I know this isn’t the dairy state, but you grow ’em big here!”
Image Credit: Chiaki Nozu/WireImage Usually strong on city-specific stage banter, Stanley also occasionally likes to drop in a geographical near-non sequitur, as is the case here, when he tells an audience in San Antonio, Texas, "I know this isn't the dairy state, but you grow 'em big here!" There's good value too in the way he drawls the line with the playful tone sof a drag show MC.
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“We’ve got meters”
Image Credit: Kristian Dowling/Getty Images Paul informs an audience that he's been measuring their volume levels throughout the show. But to what end? Who crunches these numbers? Are there three decades' worth of decibel charts sitting in Paul's garage? One can only hope.
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“It’s getting a little cool out tonight”
Image Credit: Fin Costello/Redferns Paul turns idle small talk about the weather into a segue for "Hotter Than Hell."
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“Rock’n’roll pneumonia!”
Image Credit: Neil Lupin/Redferns More weather-related banter, as Stanley notes that a dip in temperature might lead to "a little rock'n'roll pneumonia," and then the band detonates "Doctor Love."
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“I’m packin’ my pistol”
Image Credit: Fin Costello/Redferns In this pre-"Love Gun" riff, Paul lets loose a volley of double entendres, introducing his "pistol," his "six-shooter of sex," his "uzi of ooze." You know what he's talking about, Pittsburgh!
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“Tony Byrd, in charge of guitars, keyboards and Kool-Aid”
Image Credit: Ian Currie Newspix via Getty Images Tony Byrd is a famous guitar tech, and according to Stanley, also pretty good with Kool-Aid.
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“Here’s one that’s easy to remember”
Image Credit: Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images This was Paul's pointed introduction to a performance of "Shout It Out Loud" — and an unintentional synopsis of the band's entire musical oeuvre and secret to its success.
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“Let’s call that rehearsal!”
Image Credit: Morena Brengola/Getty Images Undaunted by a less-than-perfect performance from an Atlantic City audience during a sing-a-long, Paul graciously granted his fans a second chance. They nailed it.
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“What’s the biggest part of my body?”
Image Credit: Fin Costello/Redferns "It's my heart," he wisecracks. It doesn't get much cornier than that Borscht Belt-style bait-and-switch, but some classic Starchild enthusiasm helps this line get over.
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“This is what is known as the Melbourne Symphony Ensemble under the direction of Mr. David Campbell”
Image Credit: Peter Pakvis/Redferns The best part about this is that it actually happened. The Kiss collaboration with the orchestra resulted in a live album called Kiss Symphony: Alive IV. Truly a contender for the line with the least likely odds of ever being uttered by a member of the band when they got together back in 1973.
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“Here’s a song about alcohol”
Image Credit: Phil Dent/Redferns -
“Doesn’t mean you can’t be the loudest!”
Image Credit: Jim Dyson/Getty Images Paul gives a humbly-sized audience — "the smallest crowd we played for" — a strangely endearing pep talk before launching into "Lick It Up."
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“It will not make the blind man see! It will not make the cripple walk!”
Image Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images Paul Stanley believes rock'n'roll can do a lot of things, but he's also not making any false promises.
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“You can win an election, you can lose an election, it’s up to you”
Image Credit: Tom Hill/WireImage No clue what election in particular Stanley was talking about, but he added, "if we win, we get to rock'n'roll all night and party every day!" Which is platform to believe in.