KISS’ Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley Reminisce on ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’
KISS may have retired, or so they say, but their music will live on forever. KISS are loud, catchy, unapologetically fun and made for shouting along with thousands of other listeners….
KISS may have retired, or so they say, but their music will live on forever. KISS are loud, catchy, unapologetically fun and made for shouting along with thousands of other listeners. KISS managed to blend glam, metal and good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll into something totally their own. You can't help but feel 10 times cooler when you blast their music.
In a new installment of the Vevo Footnotes series, KISS icons Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley reminisce about the famed music video for the band's classic song "Rock and Roll All Nite."
In the video clip, which is available now on YouTube, Simmons and Stanley talk in-depth about the writing and recording of "Rock and Roll All Nite." They say that it involved the entire band working together to make something special.
'Rock and Roll All Nite' Was a Band Effort
"It was very much a collaborative effort, with Paul writing the chorus and me writing the verses that were pulled from a song I had previously written called 'Drive Me Wild,' which was actually a song about a car," Simmons says in the clip. "We also brought in some of our friends and road crew and other musicians to clap and sing on the record."
"It's kind of a quintessential KISS song in our discography," Stanley adds of the famous song. "This song is such a big piece of our story. And it connects with people on all different levels across generations and generations of fans."
Another section of the video reads, "In response to the question of who had better face paint, Paul and Gene gave the same answer: 'Me!'"
"Rock and Roll All Nite" is a track off KISS' 1975 album, Dressed to Kill. The video coincides with the deluxe 50th anniversary Dressed to Kill reissue, which was released in October.
What really makes KISS awesome is how they built a whole universe around their music. They were marketing geniuses with KISS lunchboxes, comic books and even action figures. They made rock fandom interactive decades before social media even existed. Simply put, KISS proved rock could be theatrical, wild and totally over-the-top. Considering that the band got bad news recently with the passing of guitar icon Ace Frehley, it's nice to see some good KISS news.
