Paul Stanley isn’t done trashing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just yet. The co-leader of KISS who was just inducted into the Cleveland based institution after a fifteen-year wait, took to Twitter to discuss his issues with the ceremony. In a Tweet to Rolling Stone, Stanley quipped:
“Our treatment at the RRHOF confirmed my worst suspicions. Wenner and the rest are spineless weasels”
He continued with a direct tweet to Jann Wenner, on how he felt like unwanted guests:
“Jann Wenner & his RRHOF made sure to treat us as uninvited guests. No Passes. No schedule and on. We were great and he remains a small man”
Ouch.
These comments are in addition to shots he took at the Hall during his acceptance speech:
“Here we are, basically indicted for the same things that we were kept out for. The people are speaking to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and what they’re saying is that they want more. They don’t want to be spoon fed with a handful of choices. The people buy thickets, the people buy albums, the people who nominate do not. Let’s not forget that these are the people who make it all possible. We just benefit from it. I am here tonight because of the people who inspired me, but I am also here because of the people I inspired. So God bless you all. It’s a wonderful night!”
In reading the above, the first thought is that Paul Stanley still sounds bitter, and perhaps he should have let everything go and humbly accept the induction on behalf of the fans that propelled the critically despised into the Hall. We have written (as have hundreds of other publications and websites) about the verbal war that has gone on between Stanley, Gene Simmons and the Hall itself, though mostly the barbs have been from the band itself.
We were openly critical about Stanley and Simmons’s belief that current bandmates, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer should have been included in the induction. While they are correct about the longer tenure of the two men in question, they had little creative input into the band, and let’s be realistic that the “KISS Army” was for the most happy with the inclusion of the original four, and that this was the quartet they wanted to see perform at the ceremony.
Original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss who were inducted were vocal earlier in the month about wanting to perform and that this would hurt the KISS fans that wanted to see a reunion, albeit for one set.
Now as much as we despised the hardline stance that Gene and Paul took, it was nothing compared to our hatred for the Hall itself for snubbing them for fifteen years out of what was clear hatred for the band itself. Jann Wenner was one of the co-founders of the Hall of Fame, and the Publisher of Rolling Stone has been vocal in the past about his dislike for KISS and other Hard Rock and Metal acts.
Multiple accounts have discussed Wenner’s influence in the voting process and the best example is when Wenner bumped the Dave Clark Five despite securing enough votes from the committee. He supplanted them in favour of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, as Wenner decided that it was more important to induct the first Rap act instead.
With Wenner yielding such power (and having been vocal on many occasions of his dislike of KISS) if you were a member of that band would you harbour any soft spot in your heart for him? How accurate was Paul Stanley’s assertion that they were unwanted guests? Really, how could they not feel like anything but party crashers, when you know that the “host” reluctantly invited them in the first place?
In retrospect, this website came into existence primarily due to the dubious omissions (and inclusions) of which KISS has been one of the most glaring. At this point, we are just happy this chapter is closed, though with this Hall of Fame, there are too many chapters that are unfinished.
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