For Paul Stanley and KISS, rock and roll is not over

(lasvegassun.com By John Katsilometes) KISS, indefatigable glam/rock pioneers who spawned a billion Halloween costumes and its own teenage army, returns to Las Vegas on Saturday night for a show at Pearl Theater at the Palms. This fall, the band, powered still by founding members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, released its first studio album in 11 years, “Sonic Boom.”

This week the Las Vegas Sun corralled the 57-year-old KISS vocalist and guitarist as the band prepared for a show in Anaheim, Calif., this week. Following is the conversation as our BlackBerry chimed with Stanley’s eagerly awaited call:

“Hello, this is Paul Stanley.”

“Excellent. Where are you calling from?”

“Anaheim, getting ready for a show here.”

“Anaheim! The home of Disneyland and No Doubt!”

“Right! Gwen (Stefani) has played the Pearl Theater, hasn’t she?”

“She opened the place, yes. Speaking of that, I want to ask about this concert. How are you going to be able to scale down your live show, which is built for arenas and stadiums, for a small theater like the Pearl?”

“We have special shoehorn where we take our size 12 foot and jam it into a size 9 shoe. But rather than go back to a big arena, we wanted to play the Pearl again (KISS performed at the theater in August 2008). Every seat is unobstructed, which you don’t get often, but we’re not going to do the lounge thing. We’re going to test how much volume this place can handle.”

“Palms owner George Maloof likes to bring in bands he’s a fan of. Is that how KISS came to play the Pearl?”

“Yeah, he is a fan. I’ve known George for about 15 years now. It’s funny, I was there when the Pearl Theater was just rebar, talking with him about the day KISS would come to town. We were envisioning it even then.”

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