The band members’ roles in an act may coincide with the rockers’ personalities. It’s natural for everyone to think of the frontperson as a potential leader since the vocalists are usually extroverts who are way too happy with being under the spotlight or, as Joe Perry had once said, ‘you have to have a personality to front a band.’
However, in some instances, it’s also pretty usual to see another member and the vocalist sharing the duty of fronting their bands, like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. These types of duos might believe that fronting a band is a two-person job and be okay with receiving a mostly equal amount of publicity.
So, as the roles within a band mostly coincide with rockers’ personalities, we might say that most bassists tend to be introverts in the group. However, there are also instances where the theory of ‘bassists being the quiet ones of the band’ proved wrong. Well, at least Gene Simmons proved that a bass player might be regarded as the frontman of a band, but Paul Stanley had his conclusive theory about that.
Gene and Paul co-founded the band, and we all know how the story went as KISS became one of the most commercially successful bands of all time. However, even though the duo founded the band together, one might argue that Simmons’ eccentric attitude on stage, showmanship, and stage persona, ‘The Demon,’ brought a lot of commerciality to the band.
Even though Paul and Gene have been close friends, for the most part, one might also feel that there had been some rivalry occurring between the two. While Simmons mostly credited himself for KISS’ popularity, Paul Stanley had to discuss who was the real frontperson of the band during an interview with Business Jet Traveler.
“A frontman is the person who does the talking,” Stanley said as he continued listing the qualities of a frontperson. “And who gives a group its identity and communicates to the audience. There’s only one person on the stage who does that. If that’s the definition of a frontman, then it’s undisputable [that I’m the frontman]. If you interpret frontman as something else… if it’s being in the media, well, then it’s different.”
So, Stanley put an end to this discussion from his point of view and stated that since he did the talking, gave the band its identity, and communicated with the audience, he was the frontman of the cult band. However, one might still argue that Simmons also fits Stanley’s definition of a frontperson as the bassist has been under the spotlight as much as Paul. So, who knows?
