Gene soon created an on-stage persona which he nicknamed “The Demon” – and took to the stage wearing stylised armour and spiky platform boots, with his face vividly painted like a clown in striking black and white patterns, which have at times been likened to Japanese Kabuki stage make-up.
Determined to capitalise on their newfound success, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley bombarded the leading media and television producers of the day with invitations to their shows, and soon succeeded in persuading top Madison Avenue producer Bill Aucoin to become their manager.
Aucoin landed a deal with the newly created label Casablanca Records soon after signing the band, and their debut album, ‘Kiss’, was released in February 1974. Two further albums followed in rapid succession, and reinforced the band’s success with their growing army of new fans.
As Gene Simmons might put it, “the rest is KISSstory”…. Since that first album was released in 1974, the band have sold over 80 million records, and played over 2,000 shows.
The survival of the band is due in no small part to Simmons’s impressive business acumen, and shrewd sense of trends and timing. The key to the reason why Kiss remained so active throughout the 1980s and ’90s lies simply in their ability to generate renewed public interest and attention whenever their record sales started to fall.