(Credits: Far Out / Apple Music)
Sun 28 September 2025 21:45, UK
Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons met in the New York music scene. Upon hearing Paul Stanley play, Gene Simmons knew that they had to start making music together.
Both of them were playing in different bands at the time. Stanley was working on music with Steve Cornell, meanwhile, Gene Simmons was in a band called Bullfrog Bheer. Stanley was rehearsing with Cornell at his house, which is where he met the man that would become his Kiss counterpart. The moment he and Stanley started playing music together, Simmons knew that the two of them would have a great partnership. However, it took a while for the two of them to agree to work together.
“I thought we should be in a band together,” said Simmons, “But Paul didn’t like me at all.” Stanley confirmed he wasn’t too keen on Simmons at the start. It wasn’t anything personal, he just thought that he might prove a bit too difficult to work with. “I think he thought Lennon, McCartney and Gene were the only songwriters in the world,” he said, “And all of a sudden he had to make room for a fourth.”
The two did start working together eventually, and the two of them went on to have a songwriting partnership which has produced some truly timeless music. A lot of people thought that when Kiss started painting their faces, they did it because they wanted to make themselves easier to sell; however, they said it was because they had more creative freedom within their strict brand. When asked about the paint, Simmons compared their approach to music comparable to the Beatles.
“We also took pride in having the same freedom The Beatles had,” said Simmons, “Their philosophy was, ‘No matter what kind of music we do, it’s still The Beatles’. That’s what was amazing about them… The Beatles were not trapped in that way. They could do music hall, psychedelia – anything – and they did. Yet somehow it always sounded like The Beatles.”
The two of them managed to write plenty of great songs with this newfound freedom that came with facepaint, but there is one that Paul Stanley loved playing the most. ‘C’mon and Love Me’ was born out of necessity, as the band had been told their record Hotter Than Hell had stopped selling. Upon hearing the news, they began working on their next album, Dressed to Kill, right away.
“It was a real interesting concept – especially since we hadn’t written any new songs yet,” recalled Stanley, “So we packed our bags and went home, and every morning Gene and I would write. When Peter [Criss] and Ace would show up, we’d say, ‘Okay, guys, here’s today’s song’. It wasn’t unusual for us to write a song in an hour and a half.”
He continued, “The verses to ‘C’mon and Love Me’ were probably written in half an hour, and yet it’s one of my favourite songs to this day – in fact, we may bring it out on the next tour. It sounds every bit as good today as it did back then.”
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