January 8, 2025 • 51 mins
In this first episode of 2025, S.E. sits down with Paul Stanley, The Starchild, of KISS. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and KISS co-founder takes SE back to his early days growing up in the Inwood neighborhood of New York City - the northern tip of Manhattan. "We were pretty singular in terms of being Jews." He shares what it was like navigating childhood with an ear deformity and a dysfunctional family and what it took for him to get the help he needed. He also dives into his musical career, what he really thinks of Gene Simmons, Phantom of the Opera, and what he thinks is the best decade for music.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I certainly found that when you're less judgmental of people,
you make the world a better place, You make yourself
feel better, you see things differently, and I like that.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to off the cup, my personal anti anxiety antidote.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Remember when X was Twitter and it was good.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Remember when you could have interesting and thoughtful conversations with
someone on Twitter. It's such a cessful now, and not
just because Elon Musk has run it to the ground,
but even before he came along, it was getting corrupted
and co opted by bots and trolls and conspiracy theorists
and loans.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I don't even like going on it now, honestly.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
But one of my favorite things about Twitter that I
really really miss is that there used to be a
way to make like unexpected friendships. I quote unquote met
so many cool people just engaging on Twitter. I met
Richard Marx on Twitter. Eventually we met and hung out.
I met a bunch of actors and athletes and authors.
(01:05):
I got to tweet with my namesake S. E. Hinton once,
and I even became really good friends in real life
with people that I first talked to on Twitter.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
One of the more delightful.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
And unexpected interactions I had was with Paul Stanley of
Kiss years ago. I remember getting into a back and
forth with him where we were naming musicals for some reason,
and then one day a signed copy of his book
Faced the Music arrived at my house. He is such
a lovely person. He's so smart and thoughtful and kind
(01:40):
and just down to earth. Paul Stanley, Welcome to Off
the Cup.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I could say all the same about you. You're somebody
who I gravitated towards when Twitter was Twitter, and I
was so happy that I did it.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well, how did we find each other on Twitter? Do
you remember? And do you remember what we were doing
with musicals?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
You know, I think it was something humorous, but I
don't remember.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
We were like spoofing musicals.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yes, yes, we were coming up with satires.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yes, Oh it was so fun.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, I think things like glenng Gary, Glenn Close.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You know, yes, yes, this is exactly what we were doing.
We were renaming musicals for something.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, Nicholas Nickelback, they're coming back to me.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
That's yeah, Well we're going to get into musicals because
you have a great you have a musical story. And
then I remember I did Joe Bonamaso's podcast, and you
had done it too right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yes, he's great.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
And I really liked talking to him, and he and
I talked about you as well. But you know, most
people obviously know you as the star child of Kiss,
and I want to talk about that, but I really
want to talk about out Paul Stanley or Stanley Eisen,
the little boy from Manhattan.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Tell me what was the city like when you were
a kid.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Maybe it was because a lack of the Internet and
a lack of social media, it seemed safer. I do
remember growing up the first six years on two hundred
and eleven Street and Broadway, which is inwood and we
were basically the only Jews on the block. I mean
it was there. There was an enclave of immigrants on
(03:36):
Dykman Street, but where we were, it was we were
pretty much singular in terms of being Jews. And yet
I remember really feeling safe up there. Halloween, I would
go trigger treating in apartment buildings three four blocks away,
go knocking on doors. Now, either we were lucky and
(03:59):
didn't have something horrible happened, or it was just a
different like a different world back then. I lived next
to the school that I went to the public school
and not a happy camper. I wasn't a happy kid.
I was deaf on one side, I had a ear deformity.
(04:21):
And my parents, like many parents, but maybe more so,
we're struggling with their own baggage. You know. I was
just explaining to one of my kids a couple of
days ago, how we're really products of our parents and
what they've been through, and then our choice is either
to replicate it and follow it or you know, set
(04:43):
out on our own.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It's so true.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And I'm in therapy now and learning that, you know,
some of my past trauma was really just handed down,
obviously not intentionally, and that me doing the work now
is in hopes of preventing, you know, handing my trauma
down to my kids. But I want, I want to
get closer to that a little bit, because you write
(05:09):
in you write in the prologue of Face the Music,
which I have right here.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
The most searing early.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Memories I have are of other kids calling me Stanley,
the one eyed monster.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
It was our one eared monster.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Maybe it was often kids I didn't even know, but
they knew me, the kid with a stump for an ear.
When I was out among people, I felt naked. I
was painfully aware of being constantly scrutinized, and when I
came home, my family was too dysfunctional to provide any
kind of support. What what was dysfunctional about your family?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Well, first, you know, I don't want to come across
as a victim. That's the worst thing we can do,
is because when we see ourselves as victims, the only
life that gets compromised is our own right. So once again,
and it's up to us to you know, pick ourselves up,
roll up our sleeves, and get to work and make
(06:06):
our lives what we'd like it to be. It's kind
of like a toothache, you know, if you have decay,
you can either live with it. If you're willing to
put up with a little bit of pain, you can
dig it out and then life is that much better.
To me, that's what therapy is all about. But back
to you know, growing up, and you know, it was
(06:29):
difficult also, like I said, because my parents had their
own issues. My mom one night in Berlin, she's from Berlin,
and one night they got a call that the next
day they were going to be arrested, and they fled
during the night, left everything behind, went to the train
station and went to Amsterdam, and from there they fled
(06:54):
once again. So my mom had a very very life
that was fraught with upheaval and fear, and she took
that with her. I don't think there's anyone who gets
away from that. That's her core, that was her foundation.
My dad had issues to My dad graduated high school
(07:16):
at sixteen and was just a very, very bright and
intuitive person. I remember about sixty years ago, more than sixty,
he came home one day and said, this is the future,
and he had evy on bottles and I looked at
him and went, Dad, nobody's going to pay for water.
(07:37):
So he had one up on me. So my dad
never really attained what he could have. His parents were
seemed really good at keeping guilt on him, and he
didn't go on to college and instead worked to make
money for them. So again, look, we do the best
(07:57):
we can. And I told my dad my dad, thank god,
lived to one hundred and one and we had an
amazing ten last ten years of his life. And I said,
you know, you did the best you could. That's all
we can ever do. Now. If we can walk away
from something and say we honestly did our best. Yeah,
it doesn't mean it's perfect, you know, and then the
(08:19):
rest is up to us.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Right, how did you at such a young age, For
people who don't know, you had something called my croatia,
you were born with hearing in one ear, basically, and
you got bullied a lot by kids.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
You know, I have a kid, I deal with bullying.
How did you? How did you handle it?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
How did you survive bullying at the young age that
you were.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Well, I think the key word you just said was survived.
That's what I think. A lot of people just survive you,
you know, if you don't have people to support you.
And I don't know that support means anything more than
saying I hear you. I think that a lot of
times in life, all we need is we don't need direction,
(09:09):
we don't need advice. We just need to be acknowledged.
And certainly in my family, my parents grew up in
a time where if you don't talk about something that
doesn't exist, well it does exist, you know. So I
had a tough time and again, at some point we
(09:30):
have to decide for ourselves. I was fifteen years old
and I walked into Mount Sinai Hospital and said I
need to see somebody. So that was the beginning of
therapy for me. And I'm such a big believer in
therapy as long as the person who goes in is
(09:51):
ready to work, therapy is only as good as the
therapist and the person's commitment to working.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Totally, I'm just going to go in.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
There talk about your day or your pets or things
like that. Then you're selling yourself short. But if you're
really willing to endure, it becomes exciting.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I describe it the same way. It's exciting because when
you go in ready to work, and maybe that means
confronting the bad things that you don't want to confront.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Maybe it means examining yourself.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Maybe it means saying, you know, I'm going to work
on this thing that you just told me about. It's
exciting to get to the bottom of what is challenging
you or you know. In my case, I deal with
severe anxiety. What is really like paralyzing me? It's exciting
to work on it and get closer and find new
(10:48):
tips and tricks.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I just.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
That's that's how what I tell people too, that it
should feel kind of exhilarating, almost ecstatic. To go in
and realize I don't have to live like this, and
I'm getting help.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I'm shaking my head because even as a team. When
I started therapy, at the end of each session, I
was looking forward to the next week and it was
almost a lifeline. I couldn't afford more than going into
a clinic at that time, but each time I finished,
I was looking forward to progress and also figuring out.
(11:26):
You know, it's like pieces of the puzzle and putting
this puzzle together, and you know, when they talk about it,
it's like the talking cure. It really is kind of
magical in that when you can acknowledge something and also
absorb it on a level that most people don't even understand,
(11:47):
it changes who we are. And so we could talk
all day. My friend used to say, it's the best
conversation in town, and I'm with them.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So it's so true.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
And I just remember the relief I would get when
I first started. I had sort of a nervous breakdown
a few years ago, and I first started therapy.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I had done it as a.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Kid a little bit, but really started in earnest at
like forty two or something, which was way too late
because by then I was like twenty years into an
anxiety disorder that I didn't know about. But the relief
I got from just hearing from someone take the pressure
off yourself a little bit. I mean, these were things
I just needed to hear and no one was telling me.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
So that was like, it was so great.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I want to talk a little bit more about that,
but first I want to know we both studied classical
music as kids.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Were you pushed into that or did you want to
do that?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
I didn't actually study it, but because my parents are
European stock, the arts are the arts are bread, it's milk,
It's part of your foundation. Not in America, unfortunately. But
I grew up in a family where we listened to
(13:01):
classical music all the time. We went to museums. I
went to art museums on weekends, and it wasn't it
wasn't something that was out of the ordinary. It was
just what we did. So I grew up with Broadway
show tunes and opera going to I went to the
(13:22):
original Met and So and heard an amazing version of Tosca.
Grew up listened to Beethoven. My first recollection of music
was the Emperor Concerto, so that's really at my core,
and it's so much a part of who I am.
So whatever my parents did, I always say I am
(13:45):
who I am because of and in spite of my parents.
So they they gave me music, they gave me art,
they opened, you know, pathways for me that in some
ways were life savers.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
You know, I.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Did ballet growing up, and so I was around classical
music all the time, and then I did I did
study it in school, and then after this breakdown, I
found classical music was the only music I could listen to.
Maybe the lyrics of other songs were just too much
for me, they were a little bit overwhelming, or maybe
(14:24):
it was just that it was so familiar, these these songs,
you know, listening to Gershwin and Smetna and Chopin, and
they were just comforting and familiar. And I've fallen back
in love with it now. I listened to Symphony Hall
like all day long. Do you find that music evokes
(14:44):
a feeling of home, comfort, familiarity for you?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I think music is exhilarating. It's life affirming. And I
remember as a child hearing nessun dorma and just tears
in my eyes, not knowing what was being sung, but
(15:10):
the music itself just has a way of pushing in
emotional buttons. The power of music is incredible, I think,
much more so than lyrics because music can be universal,
and I think what people relate to in different countries
(15:30):
when they hear music that's sung in English is not
the lyric, it's the melody against the chords. So that's
really the true power of music. So for me, there's
only two kinds of music, goodn't bad. So you know,
the idea that concerts now, particularly rock concerts, have become
(15:55):
a three course meal of the same course is a shame.
You know. I hate to say. When I was growing up,
but I remember going to concerts where you might have
led Zeppelin with Woody Herman and his orchestra, you might
have you know, you had diversity, so it really was
(16:15):
like a meal. You've got different things, and you also
got exposed to different kinds of music. Whereas now, unfortunately,
I think people say I like this kind of music
or that kind of music, and it's it's unfortunate, it's
it limits people and shuts them off when there's beauty
(16:36):
and all kinds of music. My gosh, you know, you know,
you talk about could Order. You know, you talk about Gershwin,
you talk about mahl or Beethoven, you talk about the Beatles.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Copland, the Beatles. The Beatles are the best. But like, yeah, yeah,
I'm with you. I can be moved by virtually any
genre of music if the song is good and it's
got some minor chords.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, well, minor cords they hit you.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Right here, right there, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Talk about the star Child and how how that became
a literal and figurative mask, an escape from who you were.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I guess what I did was create who I wasn't.
I guess I created who I wanted to be when
I was younger. You know, certainly I found myself thinking,
one of these days, everyone's going to regret not being
my friend. Now backstory, a lot of people weren't my
(17:53):
friends because I made myself unfriendly and somebody who you know,
if you push people, then you can't be you know,
surprised that they leave. So anyway, so I created the
star Child, I guess, and I became a lot of
things that I wasn't and ultimately became those things. Although
(18:18):
I think the good parts of it, and it also
again led me to see that success wasn't the answer.
Success gave me the opportunity to find the answer. But
you know, I created this, this persona that I became,
and and not to get deep again, but.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
No, you can get deep.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
One of the things I found was that even though
I created this this persona that people loved and the
agulation I got, I still felt the same inside. So
that was, you know, a revelation for an epiphany. But
I created something that has led me to where I
(19:05):
am now, which is amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Well, it's so profound the way in the book and
even just now, the way you describe creating this character
to be someone you weren't yet. Did you know you
were doing that at the time or only in looking back?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Only in looking back. I had a lot of a
lot of eye opening experiences when I did Phantom of
the Opera.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Oh good, yeah, I want to talk about that perfect.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah. The first time I saw a Phantom of the
Opera was in London and eighty eight in the West End,
and I had this epiphany.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
So you were a grown up, Yes, I was a
grown up, okay.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And I had this epiphany during one of the scenes.
And it wasn't unlike the same epiphany I had when
I saw the Beatles. And I was a kid, and
I was a kid who couldn't play an instrument and
a kid who had whatever issues. But I saw them
on Ed Sullivan and this crazy voice in me said,
I can do that. Didn't mean I can be the Beatles. Somehow,
(20:08):
it was like I can touch that nerve. Now it
took a long time to figure out how. But backstory,
So when I saw Phantom, I was sitting in the
audience and all of a sudden something happened on stage
and I said, I get it. I can do that.
And I love Broadway and I loved theater. And about
(20:28):
ten years later, my agent's a CAAA, called and said,
do you have any interest in theater? And I said,
well sure, And they said, well you'd have to go
to New York and audition and you know, for help
Princess people on and on, and I said, well, what's
it for and they said Phantom of the Opera and
I said, book the ticket, yeah, And I went to
(20:51):
New York did a full on audition with blocking which means,
for those who don't know, you know, positioning where you
are different points in a scene, and singing and they
said kind of. I don't want to draw the analogy
to American Idol, that's not a good one. But you're
going to Toronto. And Toronto was a fandom had been
(21:15):
running almost ten years and raked in over five hundred
million dollars. It was really an institution there, and I
went up there and became Originally I was going to
be the next to the last phantom before the show closed,
and it was such a success with me that they
(21:38):
bought out the person who was supposed to replace me,
and I became the last phantom. But I didn't realize
at that point the depth of my connection to to
that show or to that character. During one of my
breaks between the matinee and the evening show, I was
(21:58):
reading some male that I got, and one letter was
from a woman who headed an organization called about Face
that dealt with children with facial differences. And she said,
you seem to be bringing something to the role, and
very complimentary and I wrote her back that yes, you
know I have this difference, and not to minimize what
(22:21):
other children deal with, because children deal with things far
more horrific and problematic than I did. But she said,
would you come and speak and now I never spoken
about this, and I never told anybody about this. And
I was always lucky enough in my teen years and
onward to have long hair. Not not by coincidence either.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Right, So she didn't know that you had this, but
she I think what I read was she noticed that
you had a connection to this character that seemed, you know,
interesting to her, and she wanted to know, like, why
why you felt so connected to phantoms?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, she was moved.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I mean, I think which says a lot about your
performance as well as probably what was, you know, a
deep connection to this masked character.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah. And interestingly I wound up speaking to children and
to their parents, and both were really cathartic because in
talking to children, I could say, look, I haven't walked
a mile in your shoes. And some of these children
had much more challenging differences than I did, And I said,
(23:34):
the playing fields not always level, life's not always fair,
but you can make it. You know, it's not easy,
and you know I did it. I think you can,
and it's not an easy road. And I would speak
to parents and say, you know, in a case like that,
(23:54):
there's no tough love. I don't believe there's only love. Yeah,
And when you're you're trying to tell your kid he's
just like everyone else or she's just like everyone else,
they're not. So let's acknowledge that, you know, and start
with that you're not like everyone else. And maybe my
being able to talk about it and also having them
(24:17):
acknowledge that was very, very healing for me. Plus I
began to realize that the character and Phantom, is somebody
with this facial difference on half of his face and
he wants the love of this young woman, and once
(24:37):
he gets it, he doesn't know how to embrace it. Yeah,
And I suddenly went wow, you know, and very interestingly,
I just thought of the analogy and the parallel that
every night and every day that I did Phantom, I
look forward to the next show because I was finding myself,
(25:00):
was delving into, you know, who I was and and
what this was all about. So it was a continuation
of work and it was very free. There were so
many moments where afterwards I realized, and I think I
said in my book, you know, the less secrets you have,
the more free you are. If you can free yourself
(25:22):
of secrets, you're free. And back to therapy, I think
one of the great things about therapy is that it's
like a life school where you realize that some of
your preconceived ideas of other people are not accurate, that
there are a lot of people just like you, and
that what you think other people are like, or what
(25:44):
you want to attain or emulating other people is not
really what's there. So Phantom was a wonderful, wonderful experience,
probably one of the greatest and my life and oh,
I'm sure you know something I certainly don't have time
to do with four kids three three at home.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, but it was.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
It was life changing. That's what life's about, is is
finding moments that you don't expect that are going to
help define who you are.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, if you had time, what's another role you'd like
to play.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
In a musical? Wow, I could see you as a
great javert.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, that would be wonderful. I loved I loved King Arthur.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
And Camelot, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So you know, Camelot had had its flaws, but that
character for me seemed so noble. And the idea of
seeing the woman he loves in love with his best friend, yeah,
that's you know.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
So I got to see, this just came to mind.
I could see you in Man of La Mancha as well.
I saw Raul Julia in Man of La Mancha, which
was great, but I could see that's a great that
would be a great role for you too.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Well.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I'm hoping that you get some time because I would
love to see you in all of these musicals in
my fantasy.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yes, me too, you know. Unfortunately, in life, I was
just saying to my daughter yesterday, anything you do takes
you away from something else, so you have to.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Prioritize constant trade off.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, you have to prioritize, Yeah, because time is precious,
and as you get older, you begin to realize more
and more. Yeah, I tend to say, you know, I've
always seen life kind of like a moving sidewalk, and
I used to be at the beginning of the line
and everyone was in front of me. Now I look
(27:46):
behind and everyone's behind me. Yeah, you begin to realize
that that time is fine ight and so precious. I mean,
it's certainly a something that is a cliche, but yeah,
time becomes precious and the idea of being away from
home to do something else, yeah, I'm not sure at
(28:08):
this point. I don't think it benefits me, and I
don't think it benefits my kids.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, was there going to be a kiss musical at
one point?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Oh? There, I'm sure there will be.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Do you think there will be?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, yeah, there's I was going to say, like, it
feels pretty obvious, like you you'd lean into this idea.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Well, there's a film that's very much in the works.
I'll tell you the story of this band and Gene
and I is better than fiction. It really is something
that I can't quite describe. You know. I met Gene
probably about fifty eight years ago. Fifty seven years ago.
(28:49):
Didn't like them and why not? He was full of himself. Gee,
it isn't not a surprise.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
At that point it was pragmatism. I realized that I
was better off with him than without him, because I
wanted to succeed, and to succeed in things you have
to prioritize once again, prioritize him. So I was better
with him than without him. And over the years, I
(29:20):
think again, I learned a lot about myself. I think,
if you and he's been a wonderful brother to me,
and certainly I think it early on we were like
two rocks with a lot of hard edges. But if
you keep hitting rocks together, they get round.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yeah smooth, Yeah, yeah, to get smooth.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And I think sometimes you look at somebody and things
about them annoy you, and really at some point you
have to go, why that's about you, not about them,
so that you know, look, I can turn into Yoda.
But life is full of you know, all kinds of
(30:04):
educational experiences and you know, epiphanies and revelations. And you know,
I came to painting twenty years ago, never thinking I
was going to do that, and yeah, I painted five
days a week. I couldn't imagine not painting. It's cathartic
and something that I didn't I never would have missed
(30:29):
it unless I started it. And once I started it,
you know, well.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
I mean you mentioned Yoda.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
You're so you're so zen and you see you seem
so self aware. But I was reading you wrote about
like your attitude earlier in your career where you were
just really defensive and you kind of had like this
chip on your shoulder and you wrote that your feeling
was hit me once and I'll hit you twice. How
(30:57):
did you get from that this sort of angry man.
Uh to this, this like enlightened, you know, seemingly very
like I said, very zen guy.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
There's a saying is it all too soon? Smart? Too late?
You know, I don't know. I I think basically it
comes down to do you like yourself? At the end
of the day, You've got to look at yourself in
the mirror and do you like who you see? And
(31:32):
there were times I didn't like myself and lashing out
at other people or being you know, hard to be around,
or defensive or all those things. Again, they're they're designed
to reinforce the worst, and if you can let those go,
life gets much better. You know, when you're less judgmental
(31:55):
and I still have opinions about things, and that's those
tend to be based on fact and based on experience
as opposed to just blindly. You know, everybody's entitled to
an opinion. I don't know about that. You know, opinions
have to be backed up. But I certainly found that
when you're less judgmental of people, you make the world
(32:17):
a better place, You make yourself feel better, you see
things differently, and I like that. I like that.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It felt good.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, I mean, you know, you know you're you're on
this this journey, journey, you know, that's the word that
always comes up. But you know, I admire that in you.
What I saw early on that I really thought was
admirable and connected to was you had a stance on
automatic and semi automatic weapons. I remember you saying that
(32:51):
you were you know, NRA and that you you you
had guns and supported that. But now I see that
this is and you went from there, and I was like,
and I went, that's that's commendable. And and just somebody
(33:11):
who can reach a point where they say I was wrong.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Again, I try to tell my kids that being able
to say you're wrong doesn't make you weaker, makes you stronger.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Oh and it's such a relief too, to just be
you know, I don't have to stand my ground constantly.
I can re examine, I can say you're right, there's
a problem here.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
It's a relief. It's a relieving feeling to be able
to do that.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah. So, I you know, I know the kind of
person you are, and that's what I initially connected with.
I just remember seeing you doing a piece and going, wow,
I like this person, you know. Yeah, so, and then
in following you after that, I've seen struggles and things
(34:00):
that you go through, and you know, again, in sharing them,
I think we free ourselves and we also allow other
people to say, hey, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You for sure, for sure, So tell me why or
how you came to the decision I want to take
the makeup off.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I want to take the mask off.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
We initially did it because the band was at a point,
and this was in eighty one eighty two. I think
people had grown tired of the way we looked, and
also we had changed members in the band, and where
once it was organic, we were creating them in nagerie.
I mean, we might as well have had Giraffe Boy
(34:46):
or Turtle Man. You know, it just it just it
lost the essence of what it once was. I said
to Jeane, you know, people are listening with their eyes
because we were doing some good music. And I mean
we've done some music I think is just junk. But
(35:09):
we were trying our best. You know, again, when you're
finished with something, can you say you did your best?
And any times we did our best, and in hindsight,
Boyd said falls short. But when we took off the makeup,
I just thought, we're either going to sink or swim.
You know, either we're good enough to continue or not.
(35:32):
And it took seem a little bit more persuading, but
we took it off, and nobody's going to be able
to compete with those four iconic characters. We couldn't. We swam.
We kept our heads above the water and endured long
enough to go back to it. But we needed to
do that. We needed to step away to be able
(35:54):
to go back to it, you know. So that's really
why we took it off, is when people aren't buying
your albums, it's it's not their fault.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
No, yeah, yeah, you said recently that you haven't wanted
to pick up a guitar for fear that it will
make you miss Kiss in the band. All of that
that really resonates with me. You know, we have different
careers but similar similar in so many ways. And when
(36:27):
what you do is public facing and people have ideas
about where you should be or who you should be
or what you should be doing, it's really hard to
disassociate that from what you want to be doing.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
And you know, people might want to see me in
a certain.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Way, but I might be ready to leave that behind,
or I might be ready, I want to go back
to something that you know, people don't really want me
to go back to either.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
It's really hard navigating that.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
How do you deal mentally with those pangs of wanting
it to be ten or twenty years ago, but also
being like, no, here, I'm here now.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
I've evolved to this place, and this place is great.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
I think in the last year I've come to articulate
it as life's a one way street.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
You know, Yeah, there's no going back, and it.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Gets narrower and again, time is precious. And do I
miss being on stage in front of fifty thousand people
one hundred thousand people? Hell yeah? Does Michael Jordan miss
what he did? Everybody who's attained that kind of success,
Sure you miss it, but there's a difference between missing
(37:38):
and yearning. You know, I miss it, but there's no
going back to it. Practically, I mean, yeah, you know,
you can't physically do as an athlete, and what I've
done was athleticism, whether vocally or physically.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
You're reach a point where you can and that's something
you have to come to grips with And Okay, now
what you know, I'm blessed to have done what I've done,
and it will go forever. We sold Kiss, which is
something that's unheard of, that doesn't even exist in the
(38:18):
lexicon of music. We sold Kiss about five months ago,
and I mean everything, the logo, the makeup, the music,
and there'll be an incredible immersive musical experience that'll debut
in twenty seven that George Lucas is involved in and
(38:43):
those characters will live forever.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
So oh very cool.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
And we're involved, Jane and I are involved in that.
So yeah, it lives forever.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
But yeah, I can't the star child can right.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
You know, you can fight it, but I'd rather accept it.
You know, if I had the luxury of going on
stage in pseudo street clothes, yeah I could be up
there standing in front of a microphone and doing this forever.
But that's not what kisses. That's not why I created
(39:17):
what we created. So you know, I think that intellectually,
I know why we stopped and that we had to
stop amost Like, sure, it's got all kinds of you know, pangs,
but yeah, that's life.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I want to do a sort of a lightning round
of questions, so we'll start at the top.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
What's the best musical.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Oh my gosh, you know it's tough. I know. Wow. Interestingly,
I kind of phantomed out because I saw it. So
I saw it about seventeen times before I did it,
because I just loved it. Yeah. I saw a revival
before COVID, which unfortunately didn't run after a West Side
(40:25):
Story that was absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
That was a great one. It was just just yeah,
I mean just so good. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah. So I think West Side Story done properly, it's
dated if done as it was right, but it's relevant
and when it's staged properly, it's beautiful. I remember seeing Raw.
I knew Ralph Julia, so I saw him. I saw
him do nine and yeah, I remember that time of
(40:57):
all the British Mega music where they had to have
a stunt. So Miss Saigon had a helicopter come down.
I love Miss I mean that's a really great question.
I don't really hard. Yeah, I don't know what the answer.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
What's your I know, well, I love Bouobil Schomberg, so
I love le Mis, I love Miss Saigon. There was
another one called Martin Gahre that didn't become as popular,
but it was great and it.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Was a they did a movie they.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Did called Summers Be with Richard Here and Jodi Foster.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, that's a great story and actually some great music.
So I really love those three. But I mean, I
love a chorus line is a perfect musical.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
I love like I said, Mani Lamanha is great. I
love Chicago. I mean it's really it's hard. It's hard,
Yeah it is.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
There's so many amazing, amazing musicals, and there's nothing worse
than a bad one.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
I won't name it, but I've only walked out of
one musical, and it's a very popular one.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
But I wasn't alone.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
I was with my mom and she loves musicals too,
and she was like, this is not good, and we
walked out, and yeah, there is nothing worse. I get
a pit in my stomach when I'm watching a bad musical.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, becomes doctor Phil, What were you thinking? So true?
That's like you look at the person next to you
and go, does this stink?
Speaker 3 (42:20):
What are we doing here? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Okay, this is another very controversial question. I've gotten in
trouble on Twitter for it which decade had the best music?
Speaker 1 (42:32):
My gosh, Well, if you ask somebody today they'll tell
you the music today.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
That's well, that's the wrong answer. That is incorrect.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yes, of course it's incorrect. Well, classical music and all
that aside. If we're talking about popular music, Yeah, I
would have to say the sixties.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
You're correct, that is the correct answer. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
What right you win a Chevy Nova? No?
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I agree, And I don't know how you could think
any differently when you had, like the Beatles for the
entire second half of that decade, plus so many others.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
You know, I always say, you know, music is one thing,
but phenomenons impact society, and the Beatles and everything that
they brought with them. The amount of groups that came
out of England is like saying seventy five of the
greatest bands came out of Rhode Island.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
I mean, it's just right.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
It's how did this happen?
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Happen?
Speaker 1 (43:42):
You know? So I used to stay up when the
Beatles first came out. I was I don't know, maybe twelve.
I would stay up sometimes all night with a little
transistor radio, just listening to this music that celebrated youth
and had this quality to it, this vitality. So yeah,
(44:03):
I have to say I saw Hendrix twice. What started
with the Beatles led to a real diversity of music
that could that could have a band like Traffic, a
band like the Moody Blues, Sli in the Family, Stone
Otis Redding, you know it was.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Janis Joplin, I mean Woodstock. It just epitomized the decade totally.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
So yes, we're on.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
The same page. Make a super group guitarist, bassist, lead vocalist,
and drummer, and what would you call it?
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Okay? On guitar you'd have Jimmy Page, okay, because nobody
it's it's Jimmy. On vocals you'd have Robert Plant okay,
On bass you would have John Paul Jones. And on
drums you would have John Bonham and you'd call it
led Zeppelin.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
So good, that's good.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Can I tell you mine?
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yes, I'm a little nervous because this is your this
is your house obviously, but okay, no. So my guitarist
would be Clapton. My bassist would be Phil why not?
But also he would be on lead vocals, okay, because
I just think his his his voice is.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
So good and that double guitar is just so fun.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Maybe Stevie ray Vaughan also on vocals because his voice
is awesome. And then Sheila on drums.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Well, that's well, that is very eclectic for fun.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, and I'd call it the anxiety yours mine, it's
my anxiety.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Would that be fun those four people together?
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (45:46):
If they were all alive.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, some of them are and you wouldn't know it.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Okay. What is your thought on Kiss tribute bands?
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Oh? I hate to say that imitation is the greatest
form of flattery, but I think to have impacted so
many people, I think it's amazing to see all these
Kiss tribute bands. Surprisingly there's no good me in any
of them.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
No, what are they not getting?
Speaker 1 (46:23):
It's mimicry without commitment and conviction. Physicality is one thing,
but why you do something is what makes the difference.
The analogy may not hold up, but anybody can say Shakespeare,
anybody can read a script. But to immerse yourself in it,
(46:45):
I guess the more you can commit yourself to something,
if you're crazy enough to feel that you're like somebody,
then you probably will be like them. So and then
you have people like Garth Brooks and Lenny Kravitz and
Pearl Jam and all these bands who cite us. So
(47:06):
I think the idea of being able to influence people
without having to mimic you is also an incredible, incredible compliment.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Oh it must be wild. Yeah, what's your favorite TV show?
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Ah, that's interesting. That's I don't watch that much TV.
The last show that I watched that was more than
you know, a typical series was The Morning Show, and
I really liked that. I I kind of suffer from
(47:44):
lost fever. I got suckered into watching Lost for.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
All those yeah, and then at the end, I just went.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
That's it. I've been watching it all this time and
they didn't even know. I mean, they clearly wrote wrote
a story and didn't know how they were going to
end it. I'm breaking bad. Was fantastic, But I'm kind
of leery of long term commitments because I think you
(48:15):
stand a chance of having wasted your.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Time, yeah, and then being let down totally.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
You know, Lost was like that was a start to
this day. You know, if I smell that in any
show that I watch, it's.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Off traumatized you.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, it's like I'm not getting suckered into this.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
Again for me once.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Yeah, don't tell me about polar bears in the in
the you know, on the beach, and you know, smoke
monsters and all this stuff, and then at the end
you can't tell me what they were or why.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
They were you know, smell practice. It really is.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, the people on the internet came up with better
explanations than the writers of the show. Yeah, so so yeah,
so much for you know TV. For me, I don't
have the patience. I just don't.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Okay, And this last question is very important to me
because this is part of my culture when is iced
coffee season, as.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
We both hold up our iced coffees. So what's your answer.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
My earliest memories of ice coffee were my mom making
ice coffee. Same and so funny that I woke up
this morning and I was in the kitchen and I
just went, I think I'll have some ice coffee. And yes,
and I mean it's just hysterical there there it is.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Well, Paul Stanley, this was so lovely because you are
so lovely and you are so thoughtful, and I just
want to thank you for sharing all your wisdom and
your stories with me and my audience on off the
cop It was it was really really fun.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Well, you're wonderful and I admire what you what you
do and how you live and how you share with people.
And you know, I've said it before, don't be tough.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
On yourself, you know, I mean that's hard for me.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
You know that's there's enough people who will do that.
You know, give yourself a break, and also know when
you're not being honest. But you know, don't be brutal
with yourself. It's it's it's not good.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
That's really nice advice.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
I will I will remember that Paul Stanley told me
don't be too hard on yourself. Coming up next week,
I talked to talk show Queen Daytime's Funniest host Sherry Shepherd.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
My own family is like, we can't believe that this
is Sherry is a success like this because we thought
she would be the They thought I would be the
one in jail girl, because as I got into my
teenage years, I was hot to trot. Yeah, but I
did not think it would be What did you ask me?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Girl?
Speaker 3 (51:03):
What this means?
Speaker 4 (51:04):
Another minute pause, staying that foggy days.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
What did you ask me?
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the recent Choice network. I'm Your Hostess Cupp.
Editing and sound designed by Derek Clements. Our executive producers
are Me Si Cup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Aufler. If
you like Off the Cup, please rate and review wherever
you get your podcasts, follow, or subscribe for new episodes
every Wednesday,
I certainly found that when you're less judgmental of people,
you make the world a better place, You make yourself
feel better, you see things differently, and I like that.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to off the cup, my personal anti anxiety antidote.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Remember when X was Twitter and it was good.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Remember when you could have interesting and thoughtful conversations with
someone on Twitter. It's such a cessful now, and not
just because Elon Musk has run it to the ground,
but even before he came along, it was getting corrupted
and co opted by bots and trolls and conspiracy theorists
and loans.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I don't even like going on it now, honestly.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
But one of my favorite things about Twitter that I
really really miss is that there used to be a
way to make like unexpected friendships. I quote unquote met
so many cool people just engaging on Twitter. I met
Richard Marx on Twitter. Eventually we met and hung out.
I met a bunch of actors and athletes and authors.
(01:05):
I got to tweet with my namesake S. E. Hinton once,
and I even became really good friends in real life
with people that I first talked to on Twitter.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
One of the more delightful.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
And unexpected interactions I had was with Paul Stanley of
Kiss years ago. I remember getting into a back and
forth with him where we were naming musicals for some reason,
and then one day a signed copy of his book
Faced the Music arrived at my house. He is such
a lovely person. He's so smart and thoughtful and kind
(01:40):
and just down to earth. Paul Stanley, Welcome to Off
the Cup.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I could say all the same about you. You're somebody
who I gravitated towards when Twitter was Twitter, and I
was so happy that I did it.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well, how did we find each other on Twitter? Do
you remember? And do you remember what we were doing
with musicals?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
You know, I think it was something humorous, but I
don't remember.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
We were like spoofing musicals.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yes, yes, we were coming up with satires.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yes, Oh it was so fun.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, I think things like glenng Gary, Glenn Close.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You know, yes, yes, this is exactly what we were doing.
We were renaming musicals for something.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, Nicholas Nickelback, they're coming back to me.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
That's yeah, Well we're going to get into musicals because
you have a great you have a musical story. And
then I remember I did Joe Bonamaso's podcast, and you
had done it too right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yes, he's great.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
And I really liked talking to him, and he and
I talked about you as well. But you know, most
people obviously know you as the star child of Kiss,
and I want to talk about that, but I really
want to talk about out Paul Stanley or Stanley Eisen,
the little boy from Manhattan.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Tell me what was the city like when you were
a kid.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Maybe it was because a lack of the Internet and
a lack of social media, it seemed safer. I do
remember growing up the first six years on two hundred
and eleven Street and Broadway, which is inwood and we
were basically the only Jews on the block. I mean
it was there. There was an enclave of immigrants on
(03:36):
Dykman Street, but where we were, it was we were
pretty much singular in terms of being Jews. And yet
I remember really feeling safe up there. Halloween, I would
go trigger treating in apartment buildings three four blocks away,
go knocking on doors. Now, either we were lucky and
(03:59):
didn't have something horrible happened, or it was just a
different like a different world back then. I lived next
to the school that I went to the public school
and not a happy camper. I wasn't a happy kid.
I was deaf on one side, I had a ear deformity.
(04:21):
And my parents, like many parents, but maybe more so,
we're struggling with their own baggage. You know. I was
just explaining to one of my kids a couple of
days ago, how we're really products of our parents and
what they've been through, and then our choice is either
to replicate it and follow it or you know, set
(04:43):
out on our own.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It's so true.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And I'm in therapy now and learning that, you know,
some of my past trauma was really just handed down,
obviously not intentionally, and that me doing the work now
is in hopes of preventing, you know, handing my trauma
down to my kids. But I want, I want to
get closer to that a little bit, because you write
(05:09):
in you write in the prologue of Face the Music,
which I have right here.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
The most searing early.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Memories I have are of other kids calling me Stanley,
the one eyed monster.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
It was our one eared monster.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Maybe it was often kids I didn't even know, but
they knew me, the kid with a stump for an ear.
When I was out among people, I felt naked. I
was painfully aware of being constantly scrutinized, and when I
came home, my family was too dysfunctional to provide any
kind of support. What what was dysfunctional about your family?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Well, first, you know, I don't want to come across
as a victim. That's the worst thing we can do,
is because when we see ourselves as victims, the only
life that gets compromised is our own right. So once again,
and it's up to us to you know, pick ourselves up,
roll up our sleeves, and get to work and make
(06:06):
our lives what we'd like it to be. It's kind
of like a toothache, you know, if you have decay,
you can either live with it. If you're willing to
put up with a little bit of pain, you can
dig it out and then life is that much better.
To me, that's what therapy is all about. But back
to you know, growing up, and you know, it was
(06:29):
difficult also, like I said, because my parents had their
own issues. My mom one night in Berlin, she's from Berlin,
and one night they got a call that the next
day they were going to be arrested, and they fled
during the night, left everything behind, went to the train
station and went to Amsterdam, and from there they fled
(06:54):
once again. So my mom had a very very life
that was fraught with upheaval and fear, and she took
that with her. I don't think there's anyone who gets
away from that. That's her core, that was her foundation.
My dad had issues to My dad graduated high school
(07:16):
at sixteen and was just a very, very bright and
intuitive person. I remember about sixty years ago, more than sixty,
he came home one day and said, this is the future,
and he had evy on bottles and I looked at
him and went, Dad, nobody's going to pay for water.
(07:37):
So he had one up on me. So my dad
never really attained what he could have. His parents were
seemed really good at keeping guilt on him, and he
didn't go on to college and instead worked to make
money for them. So again, look, we do the best
(07:57):
we can. And I told my dad my dad, thank god,
lived to one hundred and one and we had an
amazing ten last ten years of his life. And I said,
you know, you did the best you could. That's all
we can ever do. Now. If we can walk away
from something and say we honestly did our best. Yeah,
it doesn't mean it's perfect, you know, and then the
(08:19):
rest is up to us.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Right, how did you at such a young age, For
people who don't know, you had something called my croatia,
you were born with hearing in one ear, basically, and
you got bullied a lot by kids.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
You know, I have a kid, I deal with bullying.
How did you? How did you handle it?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
How did you survive bullying at the young age that
you were.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Well, I think the key word you just said was survived.
That's what I think. A lot of people just survive you,
you know, if you don't have people to support you.
And I don't know that support means anything more than
saying I hear you. I think that a lot of
times in life, all we need is we don't need direction,
(09:09):
we don't need advice. We just need to be acknowledged.
And certainly in my family, my parents grew up in
a time where if you don't talk about something that
doesn't exist, well it does exist, you know. So I
had a tough time and again, at some point we
(09:30):
have to decide for ourselves. I was fifteen years old
and I walked into Mount Sinai Hospital and said I
need to see somebody. So that was the beginning of
therapy for me. And I'm such a big believer in
therapy as long as the person who goes in is
(09:51):
ready to work, therapy is only as good as the
therapist and the person's commitment to working.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Totally, I'm just going to go in.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
There talk about your day or your pets or things
like that. Then you're selling yourself short. But if you're
really willing to endure, it becomes exciting.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I describe it the same way. It's exciting because when
you go in ready to work, and maybe that means
confronting the bad things that you don't want to confront.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Maybe it means examining yourself.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Maybe it means saying, you know, I'm going to work
on this thing that you just told me about. It's
exciting to get to the bottom of what is challenging
you or you know. In my case, I deal with
severe anxiety. What is really like paralyzing me? It's exciting
to work on it and get closer and find new
(10:48):
tips and tricks.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I just.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
That's that's how what I tell people too, that it
should feel kind of exhilarating, almost ecstatic. To go in
and realize I don't have to live like this, and
I'm getting help.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I'm shaking my head because even as a team. When
I started therapy, at the end of each session, I
was looking forward to the next week and it was
almost a lifeline. I couldn't afford more than going into
a clinic at that time, but each time I finished,
I was looking forward to progress and also figuring out.
(11:26):
You know, it's like pieces of the puzzle and putting
this puzzle together, and you know, when they talk about it,
it's like the talking cure. It really is kind of
magical in that when you can acknowledge something and also
absorb it on a level that most people don't even understand,
(11:47):
it changes who we are. And so we could talk
all day. My friend used to say, it's the best
conversation in town, and I'm with them.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So it's so true.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
And I just remember the relief I would get when
I first started. I had sort of a nervous breakdown
a few years ago, and I first started therapy.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I had done it as a.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Kid a little bit, but really started in earnest at
like forty two or something, which was way too late
because by then I was like twenty years into an
anxiety disorder that I didn't know about. But the relief
I got from just hearing from someone take the pressure
off yourself a little bit. I mean, these were things
I just needed to hear and no one was telling me.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
So that was like, it was so great.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I want to talk a little bit more about that,
but first I want to know we both studied classical
music as kids.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Were you pushed into that or did you want to
do that?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
I didn't actually study it, but because my parents are
European stock, the arts are the arts are bread, it's milk,
It's part of your foundation. Not in America, unfortunately. But
I grew up in a family where we listened to
(13:01):
classical music all the time. We went to museums. I
went to art museums on weekends, and it wasn't it
wasn't something that was out of the ordinary. It was
just what we did. So I grew up with Broadway
show tunes and opera going to I went to the
(13:22):
original Met and So and heard an amazing version of Tosca.
Grew up listened to Beethoven. My first recollection of music
was the Emperor Concerto, so that's really at my core,
and it's so much a part of who I am.
So whatever my parents did, I always say I am
(13:45):
who I am because of and in spite of my parents.
So they they gave me music, they gave me art,
they opened, you know, pathways for me that in some
ways were life savers.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
You know, I.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Did ballet growing up, and so I was around classical
music all the time, and then I did I did
study it in school, and then after this breakdown, I
found classical music was the only music I could listen to.
Maybe the lyrics of other songs were just too much
for me, they were a little bit overwhelming, or maybe
(14:24):
it was just that it was so familiar, these these songs,
you know, listening to Gershwin and Smetna and Chopin, and
they were just comforting and familiar. And I've fallen back
in love with it now. I listened to Symphony Hall
like all day long. Do you find that music evokes
(14:44):
a feeling of home, comfort, familiarity for you?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I think music is exhilarating. It's life affirming. And I
remember as a child hearing nessun dorma and just tears
in my eyes, not knowing what was being sung, but
(15:10):
the music itself just has a way of pushing in
emotional buttons. The power of music is incredible, I think,
much more so than lyrics because music can be universal,
and I think what people relate to in different countries
(15:30):
when they hear music that's sung in English is not
the lyric, it's the melody against the chords. So that's
really the true power of music. So for me, there's
only two kinds of music, goodn't bad. So you know,
the idea that concerts now, particularly rock concerts, have become
(15:55):
a three course meal of the same course is a shame.
You know. I hate to say. When I was growing up,
but I remember going to concerts where you might have
led Zeppelin with Woody Herman and his orchestra, you might
have you know, you had diversity, so it really was
(16:15):
like a meal. You've got different things, and you also
got exposed to different kinds of music. Whereas now, unfortunately,
I think people say I like this kind of music
or that kind of music, and it's it's unfortunate, it's
it limits people and shuts them off when there's beauty
(16:36):
and all kinds of music. My gosh, you know, you know,
you talk about could Order. You know, you talk about Gershwin,
you talk about mahl or Beethoven, you talk about the Beatles.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Copland, the Beatles. The Beatles are the best. But like, yeah, yeah,
I'm with you. I can be moved by virtually any
genre of music if the song is good and it's
got some minor chords.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, well, minor cords they hit you.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Right here, right there, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Talk about the star Child and how how that became
a literal and figurative mask, an escape from who you were.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I guess what I did was create who I wasn't.
I guess I created who I wanted to be when
I was younger. You know, certainly I found myself thinking,
one of these days, everyone's going to regret not being
my friend. Now backstory, a lot of people weren't my
(17:53):
friends because I made myself unfriendly and somebody who you know,
if you push people, then you can't be you know,
surprised that they leave. So anyway, so I created the
star Child, I guess, and I became a lot of
things that I wasn't and ultimately became those things. Although
(18:18):
I think the good parts of it, and it also
again led me to see that success wasn't the answer.
Success gave me the opportunity to find the answer. But
you know, I created this, this persona that I became,
and and not to get deep again, but.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
No, you can get deep.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
One of the things I found was that even though
I created this this persona that people loved and the
agulation I got, I still felt the same inside. So
that was, you know, a revelation for an epiphany. But
I created something that has led me to where I
(19:05):
am now, which is amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Well, it's so profound the way in the book and
even just now, the way you describe creating this character
to be someone you weren't yet. Did you know you
were doing that at the time or only in looking back?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Only in looking back. I had a lot of a
lot of eye opening experiences when I did Phantom of
the Opera.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Oh good, yeah, I want to talk about that perfect.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah. The first time I saw a Phantom of the
Opera was in London and eighty eight in the West End,
and I had this epiphany.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
So you were a grown up, Yes, I was a
grown up, okay.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And I had this epiphany during one of the scenes.
And it wasn't unlike the same epiphany I had when
I saw the Beatles. And I was a kid, and
I was a kid who couldn't play an instrument and
a kid who had whatever issues. But I saw them
on Ed Sullivan and this crazy voice in me said,
I can do that. Didn't mean I can be the Beatles. Somehow,
(20:08):
it was like I can touch that nerve. Now it
took a long time to figure out how. But backstory,
So when I saw Phantom, I was sitting in the
audience and all of a sudden something happened on stage
and I said, I get it. I can do that.
And I love Broadway and I loved theater. And about
(20:28):
ten years later, my agent's a CAAA, called and said,
do you have any interest in theater? And I said,
well sure, And they said, well you'd have to go
to New York and audition and you know, for help
Princess people on and on, and I said, well, what's
it for and they said Phantom of the Opera and
I said, book the ticket, yeah, And I went to
(20:51):
New York did a full on audition with blocking which means,
for those who don't know, you know, positioning where you
are different points in a scene, and singing and they
said kind of. I don't want to draw the analogy
to American Idol, that's not a good one. But you're
going to Toronto. And Toronto was a fandom had been
(21:15):
running almost ten years and raked in over five hundred
million dollars. It was really an institution there, and I
went up there and became Originally I was going to
be the next to the last phantom before the show closed,
and it was such a success with me that they
(21:38):
bought out the person who was supposed to replace me,
and I became the last phantom. But I didn't realize
at that point the depth of my connection to to
that show or to that character. During one of my
breaks between the matinee and the evening show, I was
(21:58):
reading some male that I got, and one letter was
from a woman who headed an organization called about Face
that dealt with children with facial differences. And she said,
you seem to be bringing something to the role, and
very complimentary and I wrote her back that yes, you
know I have this difference, and not to minimize what
(22:21):
other children deal with, because children deal with things far
more horrific and problematic than I did. But she said,
would you come and speak and now I never spoken
about this, and I never told anybody about this. And
I was always lucky enough in my teen years and
onward to have long hair. Not not by coincidence either.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Right, So she didn't know that you had this, but
she I think what I read was she noticed that
you had a connection to this character that seemed, you know,
interesting to her, and she wanted to know, like, why
why you felt so connected to phantoms?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, she was moved.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I mean, I think which says a lot about your
performance as well as probably what was, you know, a
deep connection to this masked character.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah. And interestingly I wound up speaking to children and
to their parents, and both were really cathartic because in
talking to children, I could say, look, I haven't walked
a mile in your shoes. And some of these children
had much more challenging differences than I did, And I said,
(23:34):
the playing fields not always level, life's not always fair,
but you can make it. You know, it's not easy,
and you know I did it. I think you can,
and it's not an easy road. And I would speak
to parents and say, you know, in a case like that,
(23:54):
there's no tough love. I don't believe there's only love. Yeah,
And when you're you're trying to tell your kid he's
just like everyone else or she's just like everyone else,
they're not. So let's acknowledge that, you know, and start
with that you're not like everyone else. And maybe my
being able to talk about it and also having them
(24:17):
acknowledge that was very, very healing for me. Plus I
began to realize that the character and Phantom, is somebody
with this facial difference on half of his face and
he wants the love of this young woman, and once
(24:37):
he gets it, he doesn't know how to embrace it. Yeah,
And I suddenly went wow, you know, and very interestingly,
I just thought of the analogy and the parallel that
every night and every day that I did Phantom, I
look forward to the next show because I was finding myself,
(25:00):
was delving into, you know, who I was and and
what this was all about. So it was a continuation
of work and it was very free. There were so
many moments where afterwards I realized, and I think I
said in my book, you know, the less secrets you have,
the more free you are. If you can free yourself
(25:22):
of secrets, you're free. And back to therapy, I think
one of the great things about therapy is that it's
like a life school where you realize that some of
your preconceived ideas of other people are not accurate, that
there are a lot of people just like you, and
that what you think other people are like, or what
(25:44):
you want to attain or emulating other people is not
really what's there. So Phantom was a wonderful, wonderful experience,
probably one of the greatest and my life and oh,
I'm sure you know something I certainly don't have time
to do with four kids three three at home.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, but it was.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
It was life changing. That's what life's about, is is
finding moments that you don't expect that are going to
help define who you are.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, if you had time, what's another role you'd like
to play.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
In a musical? Wow, I could see you as a
great javert.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, that would be wonderful. I loved I loved King Arthur.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
And Camelot, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So you know, Camelot had had its flaws, but that
character for me seemed so noble. And the idea of
seeing the woman he loves in love with his best friend, yeah,
that's you know.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
So I got to see, this just came to mind.
I could see you in Man of La Mancha as well.
I saw Raul Julia in Man of La Mancha, which
was great, but I could see that's a great that
would be a great role for you too.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Well.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I'm hoping that you get some time because I would
love to see you in all of these musicals in
my fantasy.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yes, me too, you know. Unfortunately, in life, I was
just saying to my daughter yesterday, anything you do takes
you away from something else, so you have to.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Prioritize constant trade off.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, you have to prioritize, Yeah, because time is precious,
and as you get older, you begin to realize more
and more. Yeah, I tend to say, you know, I've
always seen life kind of like a moving sidewalk, and
I used to be at the beginning of the line
and everyone was in front of me. Now I look
(27:46):
behind and everyone's behind me. Yeah, you begin to realize
that that time is fine ight and so precious. I mean,
it's certainly a something that is a cliche, but yeah,
time becomes precious and the idea of being away from
home to do something else, yeah, I'm not sure at
(28:08):
this point. I don't think it benefits me, and I
don't think it benefits my kids.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, was there going to be a kiss musical at
one point?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Oh? There, I'm sure there will be.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Do you think there will be?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, yeah, there's I was going to say, like, it
feels pretty obvious, like you you'd lean into this idea.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Well, there's a film that's very much in the works.
I'll tell you the story of this band and Gene
and I is better than fiction. It really is something
that I can't quite describe. You know. I met Gene
probably about fifty eight years ago. Fifty seven years ago.
(28:49):
Didn't like them and why not? He was full of himself. Gee,
it isn't not a surprise.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
At that point it was pragmatism. I realized that I
was better off with him than without him, because I
wanted to succeed, and to succeed in things you have
to prioritize once again, prioritize him. So I was better
with him than without him. And over the years, I
(29:20):
think again, I learned a lot about myself. I think,
if you and he's been a wonderful brother to me,
and certainly I think it early on we were like
two rocks with a lot of hard edges. But if
you keep hitting rocks together, they get round.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yeah smooth, Yeah, yeah, to get smooth.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And I think sometimes you look at somebody and things
about them annoy you, and really at some point you
have to go, why that's about you, not about them,
so that you know, look, I can turn into Yoda.
But life is full of you know, all kinds of
(30:04):
educational experiences and you know, epiphanies and revelations. And you know,
I came to painting twenty years ago, never thinking I
was going to do that, and yeah, I painted five
days a week. I couldn't imagine not painting. It's cathartic
and something that I didn't I never would have missed
(30:29):
it unless I started it. And once I started it,
you know, well.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
I mean you mentioned Yoda.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
You're so you're so zen and you see you seem
so self aware. But I was reading you wrote about
like your attitude earlier in your career where you were
just really defensive and you kind of had like this
chip on your shoulder and you wrote that your feeling
was hit me once and I'll hit you twice. How
(30:57):
did you get from that this sort of angry man.
Uh to this, this like enlightened, you know, seemingly very
like I said, very zen guy.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
There's a saying is it all too soon? Smart? Too late?
You know, I don't know. I I think basically it
comes down to do you like yourself? At the end
of the day, You've got to look at yourself in
the mirror and do you like who you see? And
(31:32):
there were times I didn't like myself and lashing out
at other people or being you know, hard to be around,
or defensive or all those things. Again, they're they're designed
to reinforce the worst, and if you can let those go,
life gets much better. You know, when you're less judgmental
(31:55):
and I still have opinions about things, and that's those
tend to be based on fact and based on experience
as opposed to just blindly. You know, everybody's entitled to
an opinion. I don't know about that. You know, opinions
have to be backed up. But I certainly found that
when you're less judgmental of people, you make the world
(32:17):
a better place, You make yourself feel better, you see
things differently, and I like that. I like that.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It felt good.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, I mean, you know, you know you're you're on
this this journey, journey, you know, that's the word that
always comes up. But you know, I admire that in you.
What I saw early on that I really thought was
admirable and connected to was you had a stance on
automatic and semi automatic weapons. I remember you saying that
(32:51):
you were you know, NRA and that you you you
had guns and supported that. But now I see that
this is and you went from there, and I was like,
and I went, that's that's commendable. And and just somebody
(33:11):
who can reach a point where they say I was wrong.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Again, I try to tell my kids that being able
to say you're wrong doesn't make you weaker, makes you stronger.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Oh and it's such a relief too, to just be
you know, I don't have to stand my ground constantly.
I can re examine, I can say you're right, there's
a problem here.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
It's a relief. It's a relieving feeling to be able
to do that.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah. So, I you know, I know the kind of
person you are, and that's what I initially connected with.
I just remember seeing you doing a piece and going, wow,
I like this person, you know. Yeah, so, and then
in following you after that, I've seen struggles and things
(34:00):
that you go through, and you know, again, in sharing them,
I think we free ourselves and we also allow other
people to say, hey, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You for sure, for sure, So tell me why or
how you came to the decision I want to take
the makeup off.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I want to take the mask off.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
We initially did it because the band was at a point,
and this was in eighty one eighty two. I think
people had grown tired of the way we looked, and
also we had changed members in the band, and where
once it was organic, we were creating them in nagerie.
I mean, we might as well have had Giraffe Boy
(34:46):
or Turtle Man. You know, it just it just it
lost the essence of what it once was. I said
to Jeane, you know, people are listening with their eyes
because we were doing some good music. And I mean
we've done some music I think is just junk. But
(35:09):
we were trying our best. You know, again, when you're
finished with something, can you say you did your best?
And any times we did our best, and in hindsight,
Boyd said falls short. But when we took off the makeup,
I just thought, we're either going to sink or swim.
You know, either we're good enough to continue or not.
(35:32):
And it took seem a little bit more persuading, but
we took it off, and nobody's going to be able
to compete with those four iconic characters. We couldn't. We swam.
We kept our heads above the water and endured long
enough to go back to it. But we needed to
do that. We needed to step away to be able
(35:54):
to go back to it, you know. So that's really
why we took it off, is when people aren't buying
your albums, it's it's not their fault.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
No, yeah, yeah, you said recently that you haven't wanted
to pick up a guitar for fear that it will
make you miss Kiss in the band. All of that
that really resonates with me. You know, we have different
careers but similar similar in so many ways. And when
(36:27):
what you do is public facing and people have ideas
about where you should be or who you should be
or what you should be doing, it's really hard to
disassociate that from what you want to be doing.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
And you know, people might want to see me in
a certain.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Way, but I might be ready to leave that behind,
or I might be ready, I want to go back
to something that you know, people don't really want me
to go back to either.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
It's really hard navigating that.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
How do you deal mentally with those pangs of wanting
it to be ten or twenty years ago, but also
being like, no, here, I'm here now.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
I've evolved to this place, and this place is great.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
I think in the last year I've come to articulate
it as life's a one way street.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
You know, Yeah, there's no going back, and it.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Gets narrower and again, time is precious. And do I
miss being on stage in front of fifty thousand people
one hundred thousand people? Hell yeah? Does Michael Jordan miss
what he did? Everybody who's attained that kind of success,
Sure you miss it, but there's a difference between missing
(37:38):
and yearning. You know, I miss it, but there's no
going back to it. Practically, I mean, yeah, you know,
you can't physically do as an athlete, and what I've
done was athleticism, whether vocally or physically.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
You're reach a point where you can and that's something
you have to come to grips with And Okay, now
what you know, I'm blessed to have done what I've done,
and it will go forever. We sold Kiss, which is
something that's unheard of, that doesn't even exist in the
(38:18):
lexicon of music. We sold Kiss about five months ago,
and I mean everything, the logo, the makeup, the music,
and there'll be an incredible immersive musical experience that'll debut
in twenty seven that George Lucas is involved in and
(38:43):
those characters will live forever.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
So oh very cool.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
And we're involved, Jane and I are involved in that.
So yeah, it lives forever.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
But yeah, I can't the star child can right.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
You know, you can fight it, but I'd rather accept it.
You know, if I had the luxury of going on
stage in pseudo street clothes, yeah I could be up
there standing in front of a microphone and doing this forever.
But that's not what kisses. That's not why I created
(39:17):
what we created. So you know, I think that intellectually,
I know why we stopped and that we had to
stop amost Like, sure, it's got all kinds of you know, pangs,
but yeah, that's life.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I want to do a sort of a lightning round
of questions, so we'll start at the top.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
What's the best musical.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Oh my gosh, you know it's tough. I know. Wow. Interestingly,
I kind of phantomed out because I saw it. So
I saw it about seventeen times before I did it,
because I just loved it. Yeah. I saw a revival
before COVID, which unfortunately didn't run after a West Side
(40:25):
Story that was absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
That was a great one. It was just just yeah,
I mean just so good. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah. So I think West Side Story done properly, it's
dated if done as it was right, but it's relevant
and when it's staged properly, it's beautiful. I remember seeing Raw.
I knew Ralph Julia, so I saw him. I saw
him do nine and yeah, I remember that time of
(40:57):
all the British Mega music where they had to have
a stunt. So Miss Saigon had a helicopter come down.
I love Miss I mean that's a really great question.
I don't really hard. Yeah, I don't know what the answer.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
What's your I know, well, I love Bouobil Schomberg, so
I love le Mis, I love Miss Saigon. There was
another one called Martin Gahre that didn't become as popular,
but it was great and it.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Was a they did a movie they.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Did called Summers Be with Richard Here and Jodi Foster.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, that's a great story and actually some great music.
So I really love those three. But I mean, I
love a chorus line is a perfect musical.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
I love like I said, Mani Lamanha is great. I
love Chicago. I mean it's really it's hard. It's hard,
Yeah it is.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
There's so many amazing, amazing musicals, and there's nothing worse
than a bad one.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
I won't name it, but I've only walked out of
one musical, and it's a very popular one.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
But I wasn't alone.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
I was with my mom and she loves musicals too,
and she was like, this is not good, and we
walked out, and yeah, there is nothing worse. I get
a pit in my stomach when I'm watching a bad musical.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, becomes doctor Phil, What were you thinking? So true?
That's like you look at the person next to you
and go, does this stink?
Speaker 3 (42:20):
What are we doing here? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Okay, this is another very controversial question. I've gotten in
trouble on Twitter for it which decade had the best music?
Speaker 1 (42:32):
My gosh, Well, if you ask somebody today they'll tell
you the music today.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
That's well, that's the wrong answer. That is incorrect.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yes, of course it's incorrect. Well, classical music and all
that aside. If we're talking about popular music, Yeah, I
would have to say the sixties.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
You're correct, that is the correct answer. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
What right you win a Chevy Nova? No?
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I agree, And I don't know how you could think
any differently when you had, like the Beatles for the
entire second half of that decade, plus so many others.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
You know, I always say, you know, music is one thing,
but phenomenons impact society, and the Beatles and everything that
they brought with them. The amount of groups that came
out of England is like saying seventy five of the
greatest bands came out of Rhode Island.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
I mean, it's just right.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
It's how did this happen?
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Happen?
Speaker 1 (43:42):
You know? So I used to stay up when the
Beatles first came out. I was I don't know, maybe twelve.
I would stay up sometimes all night with a little
transistor radio, just listening to this music that celebrated youth
and had this quality to it, this vitality. So yeah,
(44:03):
I have to say I saw Hendrix twice. What started
with the Beatles led to a real diversity of music
that could that could have a band like Traffic, a
band like the Moody Blues, Sli in the Family, Stone
Otis Redding, you know it was.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Janis Joplin, I mean Woodstock. It just epitomized the decade totally.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
So yes, we're on.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
The same page. Make a super group guitarist, bassist, lead vocalist,
and drummer, and what would you call it?
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Okay? On guitar you'd have Jimmy Page, okay, because nobody
it's it's Jimmy. On vocals you'd have Robert Plant okay,
On bass you would have John Paul Jones. And on
drums you would have John Bonham and you'd call it
led Zeppelin.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
So good, that's good.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Can I tell you mine?
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yes, I'm a little nervous because this is your this
is your house obviously, but okay, no. So my guitarist
would be Clapton. My bassist would be Phil why not?
But also he would be on lead vocals, okay, because
I just think his his his voice is.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
So good and that double guitar is just so fun.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Maybe Stevie ray Vaughan also on vocals because his voice
is awesome. And then Sheila on drums.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Well, that's well, that is very eclectic for fun.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, and I'd call it the anxiety yours mine, it's
my anxiety.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Would that be fun those four people together?
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (45:46):
If they were all alive.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, some of them are and you wouldn't know it.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Okay. What is your thought on Kiss tribute bands?
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Oh? I hate to say that imitation is the greatest
form of flattery, but I think to have impacted so
many people, I think it's amazing to see all these
Kiss tribute bands. Surprisingly there's no good me in any
of them.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
No, what are they not getting?
Speaker 1 (46:23):
It's mimicry without commitment and conviction. Physicality is one thing,
but why you do something is what makes the difference.
The analogy may not hold up, but anybody can say Shakespeare,
anybody can read a script. But to immerse yourself in it,
(46:45):
I guess the more you can commit yourself to something,
if you're crazy enough to feel that you're like somebody,
then you probably will be like them. So and then
you have people like Garth Brooks and Lenny Kravitz and
Pearl Jam and all these bands who cite us. So
(47:06):
I think the idea of being able to influence people
without having to mimic you is also an incredible, incredible compliment.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Oh it must be wild. Yeah, what's your favorite TV show?
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Ah, that's interesting. That's I don't watch that much TV.
The last show that I watched that was more than
you know, a typical series was The Morning Show, and
I really liked that. I I kind of suffer from
(47:44):
lost fever. I got suckered into watching Lost for.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
All those yeah, and then at the end, I just went.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
That's it. I've been watching it all this time and
they didn't even know. I mean, they clearly wrote wrote
a story and didn't know how they were going to
end it. I'm breaking bad. Was fantastic, But I'm kind
of leery of long term commitments because I think you
(48:15):
stand a chance of having wasted your.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Time, yeah, and then being let down totally.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
You know, Lost was like that was a start to
this day. You know, if I smell that in any
show that I watch, it's.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Off traumatized you.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, it's like I'm not getting suckered into this.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
Again for me once.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Yeah, don't tell me about polar bears in the in
the you know, on the beach, and you know, smoke
monsters and all this stuff, and then at the end
you can't tell me what they were or why.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
They were you know, smell practice. It really is.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, the people on the internet came up with better
explanations than the writers of the show. Yeah, so so yeah,
so much for you know TV. For me, I don't
have the patience. I just don't.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Okay, And this last question is very important to me
because this is part of my culture when is iced
coffee season, as.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
We both hold up our iced coffees. So what's your answer.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
My earliest memories of ice coffee were my mom making
ice coffee. Same and so funny that I woke up
this morning and I was in the kitchen and I
just went, I think I'll have some ice coffee. And yes,
and I mean it's just hysterical there there it is.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Well, Paul Stanley, this was so lovely because you are
so lovely and you are so thoughtful, and I just
want to thank you for sharing all your wisdom and
your stories with me and my audience on off the
cop It was it was really really fun.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Well, you're wonderful and I admire what you what you
do and how you live and how you share with people.
And you know, I've said it before, don't be tough.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
On yourself, you know, I mean that's hard for me.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
You know that's there's enough people who will do that.
You know, give yourself a break, and also know when
you're not being honest. But you know, don't be brutal
with yourself. It's it's it's not good.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
That's really nice advice.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
I will I will remember that Paul Stanley told me
don't be too hard on yourself. Coming up next week,
I talked to talk show Queen Daytime's Funniest host Sherry Shepherd.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
My own family is like, we can't believe that this
is Sherry is a success like this because we thought
she would be the They thought I would be the
one in jail girl, because as I got into my
teenage years, I was hot to trot. Yeah, but I
did not think it would be What did you ask me?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Girl?
Speaker 3 (51:03):
What this means?
Speaker 4 (51:04):
Another minute pause, staying that foggy days.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
What did you ask me?
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the recent Choice network. I'm Your Hostess Cupp.
Editing and sound designed by Derek Clements. Our executive producers
are Me Si Cup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Aufler. If
you like Off the Cup, please rate and review wherever
you get your podcasts, follow, or subscribe for new episodes
every Wednesday,
Host
S.E. Cupp
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