Kiss

Known for their face paint and stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid-1970s with shock rock-style live performances which featured fire-breathing, blood-spitting, smoking guitars, shooting rockets, levitating drum kits, and pyrotechnics.

The band had gone through several lineup changes, with Stanley and Simmons remaining the only consistent members.

The final lineup consisted of them, Tommy Thayer (lead guitar, vocals), and Eric Singer (drums, vocals).

With their makeup and costumes, the band members took on the personas of comic book-style characters: the Starchild (Stanley), the Demon (Simmons), the Spaceman or Space Ace (Frehley), and the Catman (Criss).

Simmons and Stanley, feeling a new musical direction was needed, abandoned Wicked Lester in 1972 and began forming a new group.

After breaking up Wicked Lester late in 1972, Simmons and Stanley came across an ad in the East Coast version of Rolling Stone placed by Peter Criss, a drummer from the New York City scene who had previously played in the bands Lips and Chelsea.

Simmons and Stanley met Criss in a nightclub where he was playing drums.

After hearing Criss sing, they thought Criss should be in the new band they were forming.

Criss then auditioned for, and later joined their new band.

The three focused on a much harder style of rock than that played by Wicked Lester.

In November 1972, the band played a showcase for Epic Records A&R director Don Ellis, in an effort to secure a record deal.

Kiss (often styled as KISS) was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1973 by Paul Stanley (vocals, rhythm guitar), Gene Simmons (vocals, bass guitar), Ace Frehley (lead guitar, vocals), and Peter Criss (drums, vocals).

In early January 1973, the group added lead guitarist Ace Frehley.

Frehley impressed the group with his first audition, and was asked back for a second audition.

A few weeks after Frehley joined, the classic lineup was solidified as the band to be named Kiss.

They also began experimenting with their image, by wearing makeup and various outfits.

Stanley came up with the name while he, Simmons, and Criss were driving around New York City.

Criss mentioned that he had been in a band called Lips, so Stanley said something to the effect of "What about Kiss?"

Frehley created the now-iconic logo, making the "SS" look like lightning bolts, when he went to write the new band name over "Wicked Lester" on a poster outside the club where they were going to play.

(Some of Wicked Lester's artwork included one lightning bolt for the "S" in Lester. ) Later, Stanley designed the logo with a Sharpie and a ruler and accidentally drew the two S's nonparallel because he did it "by eye".

Beginning with their 1975 live album Alive!, Kiss became one of America's most successful rock bands and a pop culture phenomenon during the second half of the 1970s.

Due to creative differences, Criss departed the band in 1980, followed by Frehley in 1982.

They were replaced by Eric Carr (the Fox) and Vinnie Vincent (the Ankh Warrior), respectively.

The band's commercial success declined during the early 1980s before experiencing a resurgence in 1983, when they began performing without makeup and costumes, marking the beginning of the band's "unmasked" era that would last until 1996.

The first album of this era, 1983's platinum-certified Lick It Up, successfully introduced them to a new generation of fans, and its music videos received regular airplay on MTV.

Vincent left the band in 1984, being replaced briefly by Mark St. John before Bruce Kulick joined the band for the next twelve years.

In response to a wave of Kiss nostalgia in the mid-1990s, the original lineup reunited in 1996, which also saw the return of their makeup and stage costumes.

Eric Carr died in 1991 of heart cancer and was replaced by Eric Singer.

The resulting 1996–1997 reunion tour was highly successful, grossing $143.7 million, making it the band's most successful tour.

Criss and Frehley subsequently left the band again following the 2000–2001 tour, which at the time was intended to be Kiss' last.

Criss and Frehley were replaced by Singer and Tommy Thayer (Criss briefly rejoined the band from 2002-2004), respectively.

The band continued with its original stage makeup, with Singer and Thayer using the original Catman and Spaceman makeup respectively.

On April 10, 2014, the four original members of Kiss were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Kiss was ranked by MTV as the ninth "Greatest Metal Band of All Time", and placed tenth on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" list, as well as being ranked as the third "Best Metal and Hard Rock Live Band of All Time" by Loudwire magazine.

Kiss traces its roots to Wicked Lester, a New York City–based rock band led by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.

That band recorded one album, which was shelved by Epic Records, and played a handful of live shows.

After 46 years of recording and performing, Kiss began a four-year-long farewell tour, the End of the Road World Tour, in January 2019 and disbanded after performing their final show in New York City in December 2023.

Kiss is regarded as one of the most influential rock bands of all time, as well as one of the best selling bands of all time, claiming to have sold more than 75 million records worldwide, including 21 million RIAA-certified albums.

Kiss has also earned 30 Gold albums, the most of any band from the United States.

Kiss has 14 Platinum albums, three of which earned multi-Platinum.