By Luaine Lee
Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley – LA KISS _ Season 1, Episode 1 – Photo Credit: Vivian Zink/AMC
Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, the only constant members of the famous rockers KISS, are now in the sporting business. They are the owners of the arena football team, L.A. KISS, and will star in an AMC reality show called “4th and Loud” about their entrepreneurial efforts.
“Arena football seems to get pegged as second rate or third rate players,” says Stanley. “And the fact is they are the upper 1 % of players available. There are only so many places in the roster of the NFL, and then, you have other great players. So, for us, the AFL really is the black sheep of football, so to speak — misunderstood.”
So why aren’t any of the other original members of the band still associated with KISS? “Any team is only as good as the members on it,” says Simmons. “We started all for one, one for all, four knuckleheads off the streets of New York, who decided to put together a band they saw on stage. And we love and respect those guys for what they did at the outset of the band, and they succumbed to the cliché of clichés, which is drugs and alcohol. Are you kidding me? So if you are going to pass the ball to your teammate and they can’t see where the goal is, they’ve got to leave.”
