During an appearance on the debut episode of the “Stories To Tell With Richard Marx” podcast, KISS guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley spoke about adjusting to his new life after the completion of the band’s “End Of The Road” farewell tour more than a year ago. He said: “There are people who are touring constantly because they’re empty and because they need that audience positive response. Years ago for me, probably decades ago, that may have been the case. At this point, it’s been incredibly gratifying. The last tour was just a chance to really take in how valuable and how much this meant to me. But I couldn’t keep doing it any more than Michael Jordan could.

“I’ve always been more than a musician or performer — I’ve been an athlete — and you realize that you can only do that so long,” he continued. “I’ve been blessed to do it into my 70s, which if you told me that 50 years ago, I’d say you’re out of your mind. So, yeah, I miss it, but I don’t crave it. I think the people who really crave it are the ones who don’t find other means for gratification either from other people or self-gratification, whether it’s, for me, painting or my family or friends.

“I think ultimately, hopefully, I would hope that most people find that in life, at some point, you start to narrow down what’s really important,” Stanley added. “And ultimately, what’s important is family, friends and how you feel about yourself. You face yourself every day when those crowds aren’t there. It doesn’t matter whether there’s 20,000 or 100,000 people, if you don’t like who you see in the mirror, it’s kind of meaningless.

“Dopamine and endorphins, that’s human-produced heroin. And, sure, it’s addicting. I think I’ve just come to some sort of terms with — I don’t wanna say settling, but at least realizing that you can’t do that forever. And I hate to draw the analogy, but people who are in AA or any of those groups, you realize that you need to stop, you need to put that behind you. And then it’s a matter of how you fill your time. I’ve seen people who went from drugs to becoming workout junkies. So you need to find something. And you also need to understand that it’s never going to match the high. It can’t.”

Elaborating on how he has dealt with the fact that he will never be in a touring band again, Stanley said: “To do shows where there’s that kind of love and gratitude from an audience, well, guess what? It’s love and gratitude from me. And that’s that reciprocity takes it to a whole different level. And will anything ever replace that? No. I have the memories of it. And is there a void? Of course. That’s life.

“It’s actually been a year, December 2nd of 2024, since we played the final KISS show. So, I was actually in New York this last year on December 1st and 2nd and passed the Madison Square Garden on both of those nights we had been playing the year before. And, yeah, there’s something almost feeling like a fantasy, like an out-of-body experience. You’re looking at something and it’s hard to relate to that you were there. I look at videos of me on stage a year and a half ago and I go, ‘Wow.’ And I also have to go, ‘That’s not gonna happen again.'”

Regarding when the decision was made for KISS to put an end to its touring career, Paul said: “I remember Gene (Simmons, KISS bassist/vocalist) and I talking about it years ago. You have to remember that COVID and the pandemic put a two-year break. We started the last tour before COVID. And then, all of a sudden, it’s, like, ‘Well, wait a minute. We’re not done. And we’re getting older. So the clock is ticking.’

“We just came to the decision quite naturally that we need to decide when it ends rather than just have it peter out,” Stanley explained. “That wouldn’t be KISS-like, to finish a tour and never go back out. For us, it was a matter of going around the world and sharing that one last night or nights with either the people who’ve known us for decades or new people. And hopefully what we did was left a memory that justified that connection and adulation that people had for us. And also kind of not only validated us to them, but also kind of became — once upon a time there was a band. And that’s what KISS is. Like it or not, KISS is mythical. And that was the idea, was to leave it on a legendary note. But also to intellectually decide something is gonna come to an end and actually deal with that that day was years away because we had a worldwide tour.’

Reflecting on when the conversations first took place about announcing a farewell tour, Paul said: “I think it may well have taken place on the jet. The discussions involved me, Gene and Doc (McGhee), our manager, who’s been with us for decades. It wasn’t fatalistic and it wasn’t in any way depressing. It was just a practicality that we just said, ‘We can’t do this forever. And we can see the end. Now what do we do? We can see that this needs to have a finite time. What do we do between now and then?’ Doc and I have an acronym, which is QTR — Quality Time Remaining. At some point, that’s what it comes down to. You have so much time in life. What do you wanna do with it? Because one thing you do precludes you from doing another. And at some point, the idea of being in hotels, when you’re young and frisky and having a great time, that’s the best time in your life. I remember going home between tours when I was single and much younger, going home was like a bummer. I sat on my sofa waiting for life to start again. I’m on my sofa. Life is out there. That slowly becomes not the case, hopefully.”