(Credits: Far Out / Michael Sears / Milwaukee Journal / Public Domain)
Sat 27 December 2025 2:00, UK
For all of their controversial approaches to blending pop music with metal and their often brash personal presentation, there’s no denying that, in spite of all of this, Kiss have always been a band made up of people born to entertain.
It may well have been a highly theatrical variant of what we know as rock and roll, complete with high-octane stage antics and extravagant face paints, but Kiss knew how to rock, and they certainly knew how to combine this facet of their identity with hard riffs that somehow exuded a sense of commercial appeal.
The very fact that the band were able to become a chart-topping sensation despite also being categorised as falling under the umbrella of a notoriously anti-mainstream and wilfully inaccessible genre only goes to show that they’d mastered the art of making art that transcended the established cultural boundaries. This is something that very few other acts can claim to have achieved during their careers, and is what sets Kiss apart from many of their contemporaries.
While the band were all vocal fans of music that came from the British invasion era, citing the likes of The Beatles, The Animals and The Kinks as some of their most formative musical listening experiences, there are plenty of other lesser-celebrated artists who they also look up to as shining examples of this same level of stagecraft.
What Paul Stanley could do as a frontman didn’t just spawn from out of nowhere, and he has a personal list of fellow bandleaders who he believes are among the greatest of all time. While they may not necessarily be the sorts of people who one might consider to have had a direct influence on how Stanley presented himself on stage, they’re certainly also masters of engaging with their audience not just through electrifying performances, but also through living and breathing their craft.
Speaking to Classic Rock Magazine in 2023, the ‘Starchild’ revealed that the former Small Faces and Humble Pie lead vocalist Steve Marriott was the figure that he looked up to most as the most important frontman in his life, and that he was constantly astounded by his presence.
“Steve Marriott was absolutely phenomenal,” Stanley told the publication. “He got on stage and preached rock and roll, which was very much the inspiration for what I did.”
While he may not have been the biggest name in his field, his passion was palpable in every single performance, whether on stage or on record, and it’s completely understandable that someone with the same level of bravado as Stanley would be a fan of this approach.
He continued by stating that there were a handful of other artists who came close, but didn’t exude this same preacher-like presence. “In the rock genre, Steve Marriott and Robert Plant were phenomenal singers,” he added, “and in soul music, there was Sam Cooke, David Ruffin and so many others.”
There may not necessarily be many shades of soul in what Stanley does, but there’s certainly that rock and roll attitude that both Marriott and Plant had, and for him to have been able to exhibit that in a way that not only drew in fans from the rock and metal world, but made them highly popular in the mainstream only goes to show that he was picking up on all of the right moves, and applying them in his own unique way.
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