Paul Stanley at a glance

Born: Bert Stanley Eisen in Manhattan, N.Y.

Age: 68

Early challenge: Stanley was born without most of his external left ear, due to a congenital deformity called Grade 3 Microtia. In 1982, a surgeon constructed a left ear for him using one of Stanley’s ribs. He is still deaf on his left side.

First record he bought: The Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do Is Dream”

Academia: Attended New York’s High School of Music & Art Early pivotal concerts: The Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Led Zeppelin, Humble Pie Other key influences: Alice Cooper, Slade (the title of Kiss’ 1975 album “Alive!” was inspired by the 1972 Slade live album “Alive!”)

Early bands: Incubus, The Post War Baby Boom and Wicked Lester, which morphed into Kiss in the early 1970s.

Early day job: New York city taxi driver

Kiss persona: Starchild

Did you know? Stanley designed the Kiss logo

First album with Kiss: “Kiss” (1974)

Most recent album with Kiss: “Monster” (2012)

First Top 40 single: Kiss’ 1975 live version of “Rock and Roll All Nite”

Film debut: The 1978 TV movie “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park”

Record sales with Kiss: At least 14 platinum albums (for sales of a million copies each), three of which have gone multiplatinum; 30 gold albums (for sales of 500,000 each)

Kiss products: Literally hundreds, from pinball machines and lunch boxes to condoms and coffins

Famous Kiss fans: Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Matt Cameron and Mike Mccready of Pearl Jam

Solo albums: “Paul Stanley” (1978), “Live to Win” (2006), “One Live Kiss” (2008), “Now and Then” (2021)

Memoir: “Face the Music: A Life Exposed” (2014)

Quote of note: “I consider myself an Anglophile, and the bands I grew up listening to are 99.9 percent British. But that music wouldn’t exist unless they had listened to (Delta blues pioneer) Robert Johnson and Blind Boy Fuller and Little Richard. What I loved about English music is it took the roots of great American music and put it on steroids and dressed it up, and interpreted it in a way that, to me, was very appealing.”