2 l June
27 - July 3, 2021
Northeast Oregon TV Weekly
A&E’s ‘Biography: KISStory’ looks
back on 50 years of rocking and rolling
all night and partying every day
BY GEORGE DICKIE
Paul Stanley and KISS are the
subjects of “Biography: KISStory,”
premiering Sunday and Monday
on A&E Network.
After more than 50 years of making music, the end
of the road is nigh for heavy metal rock band KISS and
A&E Network is marking the occasion with a two-part
documentary upcoming on “Biography.”
The four-hour installment titled “KISStory,” premier-
ing Sunday and Monday, June 27 and 28, chronicles
the career of the band that sold more than 100 million
records, packed concert venues worldwide for more than
40 years and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame in 2014 through archival footage, home movies
and intimate interviews with founding members Paul
Stanley and Gene Simmons, as well as comments by
musicians Dave Grohl and Tom Morello, manager Doe
McGhee, music producer Bob Ezrin and others. Current
and past band members Tommy Thayer, Eric Singer,
Ace Frehley and Peter Criss also appear.
Of course, chemistry is at the heart of any great en-
terprise and KISS is certainly no exception. Stanley and
Simmons have known each other since the late 1960s
when both were struggling New York City musicians
and Stanley points to one quality they shared that made
their collaboration so successful.
“Pragmatism,” he says. “Gene from the beginning
drove me crazy. That’s my choice. I mean, he drove me
crazy because I chose to stay and I wanted him to be
someone he wasn’t. But to be pragmatic, I certainly un-
derstood that I was far stronger with him than without
him. And if he didn’t know that, I did. You know, I
knew that for my own success and for my own progress,
we should be together. So that was purely a decision
based upon my wanting to succeed and knowing that
Gene would be a major ingredient in that happening.”
And he says, there was a certain friendly competitive-
ness between them.
“We challenged each other creatively,” he says. “If he
wrote a song that I thought was good, I had to write a
song that was that good or better. And yeah, we mirrored
each other in really good ways. You know, all positive.”
As KISS this summer resumes its End of the Road
Tour, signaling their final live shows, this documentary
gave Stanley the chance to look back on the band’s
career. He’s proud of the band’s body of work and he
thinks this film will give fans a different view of KISS.
“I think for people to see us sitting around talking to
each other about our relationship and about the time is
something you don’t see often,” he says. “I do believe that
many times people have seen us together, there’s a certain
shtick to it and there’s a certain quality of entertainment,
whereas this is much more intimate and much more per-
sonal. So to be looking back on the band and our friend-
ship, which goes back now 52 years, that’s pretty heady
stuff. ... It’s everything I hoped it would be at this point.”
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