He is the founder of one of the greatest bands in the history of music. He is insanely talented and writes with supreme grace. He is a singer with an amazing vocal range and even a painter. He is the definition of "rock star" in the dictionary !!
(Photo: Fanart.TV)
Here are some facts about "The Starchild" Paul Stanley:
1. He was born in Manhattan, New York on January 20, 1952, as Stanley Bert Eisen.
2. Stanley's two parents are Jews of Polish descent. During World War II, his mother fled from the terror of the Nazis to Amsterdam and from there to the United States.
3. Stanley was born with a birth defect in his right ear, preventing him to hear in his right ear. As a result, it was difficult for him to identify the direction of the sound and to understand speech in situations of large noise. Stanley underwent surgery to repair the defect only when he was 30, about ten years after founding "Kiss."
4. Despite the hearing problem, Stanley grew up listening to classical music with his parents. He especially admired Beethoven. Stanley would later become an opera buff.
5. He was only exposed to rock music at a later stage. He mainly listened to those he watched on television such as: Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and later "The Beatles" "The Rolling Stones", Bob Dylan, and more.
6. He got his first guitar when he was 7. By the time he reached bar mitzvah at age (13), he already got a more professional guitar.
7. Stanley was discovered in his youth as having graphic talent. He loved to paint and his parents enrolled him in the New York "High School of Music & Art", from which he graduated in 1970.
8. Despite his talent as a painter Stanley eventually chose music, forming a local band called "Rainbow" (not that of Ritchie Blackmore). He would write the songs "Firehouse" and "Let Me Know" during his high school years.
9. Later, Stanley will move on to the bands "Uncle Joe" and "Post War Baby Boom", but his first serious band will be "Wicked Lester", where he will also meet his musical partner Gene Simmons.
10. The band recorded an album in 1972, but it eventually did not release (excerpts from it will appear in a box released by "Kiss" in 2001).
11. Simmons and Stanley decided to form a new band and they caught an ad published by drummer Peter Criss on August 31, 1972, in which he stated that he was looking for a band that played original material in a soft and heavy rock style.
12. After Peter Chris joined the band, on December 14, 1972, Stanley published a newspaper ad about a band looking for a guitarist. One of the respondents to the ad was Ace Frehley whose look initially frightened the band, but his playing immediately captivated them.
(Photo: Fanart.TV)
13. The quartet immediately started working on their debut album, when earlier Stanley decided to change his name from Stanley Bert Eisen to Paul Stanley, inspired by two singers he loved: Paul McCartney and Paul Rodgers.
14. Stanley was the one who coined the band name "KISS", while driving around New York with Gene Simmons and Peter Criss. Criss mentioned that he was in a band called "Lips" and Stanley said what if we called ours "KISS"?
15. The quartet's first live show was held on January 30, 1973, at a small festival in Queens, New York. The band appears with makeup, but not the iconic comic book characters we know today.
16. The first appearance with the mythological comic figures was held on March 9, 1973, when Paul Stanley takes on the character of "The Starchild" with a drawing of a star in his right eye.
17. It is interesting to note that in the years 73-74 and for a short time, Stanley changed his character to the "Bandit", with makeup in the style of the "Lone Ranger" masks.
18. In March 1973 the band recorded a demo tape with 5 tracks together with the legendary producer Eddie Kramer. This recording will help them sign their first recording contractת with the "Casablanca Records" label.
19. The debut album bearing the name of the band "Kiss" was released on February 18, 1974, when most of the material was written by Stanley and Simmons back in the time of their previous band "Wicked Lester". Stanley shared the lead vocals with Simmons on most of the album's songs and in addition, played guitar.
20. Stanley has been a part of all 20 studio albums released by "Kiss" since then and is one of the two main songwriters of the band. During the 1980s at a time when the band took off its makeup, Stanley was the leading force behind the band.
21. He noted that he wrote the song "Hard Luck Woman", taken from the album "Rock and Roll Over" released in 1976, for Rod Stewart, however, Kiss it is not clear if the song was offered to Rod and what was his reaction.
22. Stanley's first solo album was released on September 18, 1978, on the same day the other three members of the band released theirs, all under the brand name "KISS".
23. Since then he has released one more solo album called "Live to Win" in 2006. The theme song from it appeared in an episode of "South Park" called "Make Love, Not Warcraft".
24. His first work as a songwriter outside of "KISS", was a song co-written with Desmond Child called "The Fight", which appeared on Desmond and his band's 1979 album.
25. Paul is known as a huge and energetic performer. During the show, he does not skip on various gimmicks, including breaking his guitars. During a tour of the United States and Europe in 1976, Paul smashed no less than 205 guitars.
26. In 2015, Paul formed the 10-member "Paul Stanley's Soul Station". It's a side band playing cover versions of the artists Stanley grew up on. They released their first album "Now and Then" in 2021.
27. Stanley noted that his inspiration for the song "Shandi" from the 1980 album "Unmasked", came after he listened to the cover version of "The Holies" for the song "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" by Bruce Springsteen:
28. In 2006 Stanley was inducted into the Long Island Hall of Fame.
29. In 2008 Paul won the "Classic Rock Awards" Showman of the Year.
30. "Hit Parader" magazine ranked him 18th on the list of the 100 best metal singers of all time.
31. A survey of Gibson.com magazine readers ranked him 13th on the list of top 25 singers.
32. In 2014 he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with "KISS".
33. Stanley was the last person to play the "Phantom" character in the Toronto Phantom Opera production.
34. Paul Stanley is also a painter who earns millions of dollars from the sale of his paintings.
35. For years he received offers from Playgirl magazine to be photographed naked, but he never had the courage.