In an interview with Becko from Triple M’, the co-founder of KISS, Paul Stanley talked about the band’s first Australia tour, Kissteria, and all the other challenges and the moments of pleasure that they had during the tour.
With their makeup and avant-garde stage performances with smoking guitars and fire breathing, KISS started to gain fame in the mid-1970s. By the end of the decade, the band was becoming big worldwide. However, in Australia, there was a KISS hysteria. The band’s first visit to Australia was during the Unmasked Tour in 1980 and the announcement of the tour sent the Australian fans into a ‘hyperdrive.’
It was the band’s first tour to Australia, so it was very special for them. The hardships of the tour and the mental states of the band members were clarified by Paul Stanley. The funniest of all challenges was that Paul was tired of all the parties that he had to complain about is saying, ‘please no party tonight.’
When asked about the first Australian visit, Stanley said:
“One of the interesting things about the first tour which was noted to be Kissteria and it was the front page of all the newspapers. Whatever we did was front-page news, so it was pretty amazing for us. When we left our country, we would go to other places and we would see how massive we were in other countries.
Quite honestly, at that point, we didn’t know much about your country, you know. There were people who thought you had kangaroos hopping down the street. To come there was such a wonderful culture shock.
We were embraced so massively by your audiences and there were so many parties. We couldn’t go anywhere, honestly. There were parties thrown for us every night and it really reached a point where I was like ‘please no parties tonight‘ but there was a party and I went. It was- It has always been magnificent.”
You can watch the interview below.