{"id":556079,"date":"2026-07-23T18:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/556079\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T18:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:00:11","slug":"they-werent-the-best-band-in-the-world-but-they-were-stars-thats-what-you-look-for-in-bands-boy-i-wish-i-was-a-member-of-that-club-kiss-legen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/556079\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThey weren\u2019t the best band in the world, but they were stars. That\u2019s what you look for in bands. \u2018Boy, I wish I was a member of that club\u2019\u201d: Kiss legends Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons remember the New York City rivals who were doomed to failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThey were so much better live than on record,\u201d Gene Simmons says about the outrageous rock \u2019n\u2019 roll band from New York City who were rivals to Kiss in the early \u201970s.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with Track Star podcast<\/a>, Simmons and his Kiss bandmate Paul Stanley discuss a broad range of music \u2013 from their biggest influences such as The Beatles<\/a>, Slade and The Who<\/a>, to the stars of the New York rock scene from which Kiss emerged.<\/p>\n

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Some of their comments are bluntly dismissive. At one point, Stanley says of The Velvet Underground: \u201cThe music sucked!\u201d<\/p>\n

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But both Stanley and Simmons have kinder words for the New York Dolls.<\/p>\n

The Dolls\u2019 self-titled debut album<\/a> \u2013 produced by Todd Rundgren \u2013 was hugely influential, inspiring generations of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll bands from the Ramones and the Sex Pistols to Guns N\u2019 Roses and Poison.<\/p>\n

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The group\u2019s classic line-up featured singer David Johansen, guitarists Johnny Thunders and Sylvain Sylvain, bassist Arthur Kane and drummer Jerry Nolan.<\/p>\n

Referring to the Dolls\u2019 debut album, Paul Stanley tells Track Star: \u201cI hated the cover, because they looked like housewives on the cover. But live they just exuded this flamboyant glittery rock \u2019n\u2019 roll.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLook, they weren\u2019t the best band in the world, but they really put it across. They were stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would see them [play] in New York. They would show up late. They were never on time. They\u2019d tell jokes on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he says admiringly: \u201cThere was a camaraderie about them and that\u2019s what I think you look for in bands. \u2018Boy, I wish I was a member of that club.\u2019 The Dolls were the club that every other band and everybody in the audience wanted to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Simmons recalls: \u201cWe did some shows together but it didn\u2019t last long. We opened for them. We did about three shows together and that was it. After that, we exploded and the Dolls did not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanley adds: \u201cI remember being at the Crystal Room \u2013 which was at the Hotel Diplomat where everybody did shows off Times Square \u2013 and I ran into Sylv Sylvain. I said to him innocently, but I had ulterior motives, \u2018We should do some shows, we should play together.\u2019 And he said, \u2018You\u2019d kill us!\u2019 So he was pretty sharp.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for why Kiss made it big and the Dolls ended up splitting in 1976 having failed to make a hit record, Stanley suggests: \u201cThe Dolls were very much a New York band and when you went into Ohio or Indiana it was completely lost. We were going for something more universal. It wasn\u2019t designed for a small clique of an area.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He explains: \u201cI think what happened was so much of what these bands were doing had no relevance or connection to middle America. We were Anglophiles. We loved Slade, we loved the Stones, The Who. And I think what we were doing was much more universal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThey were so much better live than on record,\u201d Gene Simmons says about the outrageous rock \u2019n\u2019 roll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-556079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}