KISS ROCKER’S NEW LIFE
KISS FRONT MAN Paul Stanley doesn’t regret his bacchanalian days with groupies in the ’70s one bit. “It was an amazing, amazing part of my life and I enjoyed every moment,” he told Confidential. “I savored every moment and I remember most of those moments. Nobody got hurt and everybody was happy. It was interestingly, I have to say, all fairly innocent. What was so great was the lack of possessiveness and that everybody was having a good time.”
Now the Queens-raised rock star (inset), 66, is happily married to second wife Erin Sutton and they are parents to three small children. (Stanley also has an adult son from a previous marriage.) The singer says anyone who gets caught up in a rock style life is “pathetic.”
Stanley — real name Stanley Bert Eisen — is also an accomplished painter who describes his paintings as “celebrations of color, and color is an affirmation of life. I tend to be a very positive and appreciative person of life and everything you can attain with work. I tend to see my paintings as a celebration of that point of view.”
Stanley will be appearing at the Wentworth Gallery in Short Hills, N.J., on Saturday, where his paintings, sculptures and limited edition prints will be on sale.
He has no fears of being mocked for taking up a second career in the arts.
“I’m used to that but I always come out on top, so it doesn’t really matter,” Stanley says. “The ones who laugh and snicker are the ones that failed. There’s no shortage of people around you to tell you what’s impossible, but these are the people that failed themselves.”
And as for his bandmate Gene Simmons, who was banned for life from Fox News last year for allegedly mocking and taunting staff members, Stanley doesn’t want to get involved.
“I tend to leave him to his own devices,” the “Rock and Roll All Nite” singer says dryly. “We’re not tied at the hip and he does what he does and reaps the rewards and suffers the consequences.”
Kiss has been performing for over four decades and Stanley knows it’s not an indefinite gig.
“Nothing can last forever,” he says. “I know that it does have an expiration date.”