Q&A: Paul Stanley of Kiss on AMC’s ‘4th and Loud’
As AMC gears up for its Aug 12 premiere of docu-series “4th and Loud” about KISS founders Gene Simmons’ and Paul Stanley’s gambit to run an Arena Football League expansion team, we sat down with the one and only Stanley to get his take on KISS’ newest business venture, his hopes for sports fans and why “go big or go home” is the only way KISS rolls.
How do you think the involvement of KISS in an AFL team has affected the league so far?
It’s a Godsend, certainly for the AFL. I think the AFL is so misunderstood and thought of as a bunch of second-string players when in actuality it’s only the upper one percent of players available. There are only so many slots in the NFL, so between that and the idea of arena football, which is a world unto itself, it’s a great way to promote it. I am not a fan of reality television. To me it’s an oxymoron. You either have reality or you have television. The two don’t co-exist. For me, it was going to be cameras in my kitchen, I had no interest in it. But the idea that it shows the progression and evolution of the team and all the personalities… I thought that would play out well on television.
Speaking of reality TV, so much of it today is soft scripted or coached. How challenging is it to keep this show authentic in that environment?
If we’re going to have an episode based on little Johnny dropping a container of ice cream on the floor, I’m out. It’s interesting enough, and there are enough people involved, that it’s not hard to stay true to the actuality of it. And just purely document it. That was really important to me. I’m too busy living real life to simulate real life.
It’s such a big commitment to run an AFL team. You and Gene are plenty successful and don’t really need the aggravation. So why do it, especially when the AFL has had so many problems in the past and just about went out of business once already?
The great thing about it having to restructure [in 2010] is that we didn’t have to be a part that—I don’t want to say “bloodbath”—but certainly it was a learning experience for them. There’s a reason why you have to mortgage your house to go to most sporting events. It’s because players are getting salaries that are so prohibitive and unrealistic that the only way that compensate them is for the people who are in the stands to sell their cars. So to make the AFL truly family friendly and something that you can do without sabotaging your budget was very interesting.
What’s the KISS approach to all of this. How will you be successful where others have struggled?
We have a philosophy and a big way of doing things that has worked for 40 years. And it’s not genre-specific in the sense that it only applies to music. The idea that giving people bang for bank, giving you entertainment, giving you spectacle—that works just as well in sports. And certainly it has been missing… So by adding pyro and great dancers and BMX bike riders and all the extras—it opens people’s eyes to what it is. The fact that rock bands haven’t done anything like this is probably because most rock bands are either going to be in a band or flipping burgers.
What’s the plan to get the AFL more exposure on TV, even beyond this AMC show?
I think people expect a lot from us. It’s a take no prisoners attitude that we have. Sometimes that may have a bit of naiveté to it, but that’s what’s necessary to accomplish what we said we would do. To believe we can do it.
KISS has never made a secret that it approaches everything with a brash attitude.
We back it up, and whether we fall in the process… We ultimately wind up standing tall. We’re certainly under more scrutiny than most teams because of who’s behind the team. We’re being held to a standard that most teams aren’t. But once again, we’ll come out on top, and the fact that we sold 8,000 season tickets made us the envy of every other team in the league. Those people are all going to sign up again, plus more. So mission accomplished.
There’s always talk about bringing an NFL team back to L.A. Does that concern you?
You can only live today. You have no idea what tomorrow will bring. It’s the same thing. Some people save a great bottle of wine for a special occasion. Well, today’s a special occasion because you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. So to worry about whether an NFL team ever comes in—I’m too busy fixated on what the program is right now.
So you think you can compete?
To my thinking, the AFL is the black sheep of football. And the L.A. KISS is the black sheep of the black sheep.
Why do you say that?
Because we certainly were looked upon by the AFL initially with mixed feelings—a certain excitement with us being involved, but also some people had a fear that we would overshadow. But honestly, anything that we do will only bring light to the AFL. So I think what everybody is seeing slowly is that whether it’s through this TV show or through our rather vocal and media-savvy [approach]—it only brings more attention to arena football, which is a really terrific, crazy game. Often times, when you go to a sporting event in a stadium, you might as well be watching it on television. In arena football, you could have somebody land in your lap.
(Michael Grebb is executive editor of CableFAX. You can follow him on Twitter at @michaelgrebb).
