kiss Details

There is more than one artist with this name:
 
 1) Kiss is an American glam rock/hard rock band formed in New York City in 1973. The group has performed and recorded continuously since their formation. KISS has sold over 100 million albums worldwide and has been awarded 45 gold albums to date, and has certified sales of 19 million records in the United States.
 
 Easily identified by their trademark face paint (registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office) and stage costumes, KISS quickly rose to prominence on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire-breathing, blood spitting, smoking guitars and pyrotechnics.
 
 The original lineup of Gene Simmons (bass and vocals), Paul Stanley (rhythm guitar and vocals), Ace Frehley (lead guitar and vocals) and Peter Criss (drums and vocals) became the most successful and identifiable in the band's history, and released a series of gold and platinum albums throughout the 1970s. Due to substance abuse problems and creative differences, both Criss and Frehley were out of the group by 1982. The band's commercial fortunes had also waned considerably by that point.
 
 Criss and Frehley have since left KISS, and have been replaced by Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer, respectively. The band continues to perform, while Stanley and Simmons have remained the only two constant members.
 
 In 1983, KISS abandoned their makeup and enjoyed a commercial resurgence throughout the mid-to-late 1980s. They began to fall out of favor once again by the early 1990s, however. Buoyed by a wave of KISS nostalgia in the mid-1990s, the band announced a reunion of the original lineup (with makeup) in 1996. The resulting "KISS Alive Worldwide" tour was the top-grossing act of 1996.
 
 Early years and struggles (1972-75)
 
 KISS traces its roots to Wicked Lester, a New York-based rock and roll band led by co-founders Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. Simmons (born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel on August 25, 1949) and Stanley (born Stanley Harvey Eisen in Queens, New York City on January 20, 1952) fired the other members of Wicked Lester in 1972 after Epic Records rejected an album recorded by the group.
 
 In late 1972, Simmons spotted an ad in Rolling Stone placed by Peter Criss, a drummer "willing to do anything." Criss (born Peter Criscuola on December 20, 1945 in Brooklyn, New York City) auditioned for and joined Wicked Lester, now a trio. In January 1973 the group added lead guitarist Paul "Ace" Frehley (born April 27, 1951 in the Bronx, New York City) after being extremely impressed with his audition. That month, the Wicked Lester name was dropped and the band became KISS.
 
 Stanley is credited with coming up with the name and the logo, while Frehley came up with the idea of making the "SS" look like lightning bolts, because he said that it "looked cool." The letters happened to look similar to the insignia of the Nazi SS, or Waffen-SS, a symbol that is now illegal to display in Germany. Therefore, in Germany, all of the band's album covers and merchandise used a modified version of the logo, in which the "SS" looks like a backwards "ZZ."
 
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