Founding Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley mocked his former band's latest endeavor into the metaverse.
On the heels of their "End of the Road" farewell tour, Kiss announced the band would be "immortalized" and continue performances as AI virtual experience avatars.
Frehley, a founding member of Kiss, mocked the launch of the band's entrance into the metaverse in a Tuesday interview with Rock Antenne's Thomas Moser.
"I don't get this avatar thing that they're gonna do," said Frehley, adding he believed the visual appeal of the band's avatars were geared towards children. "It's not rock and roll."
"I get up on stage without backing tracks, plug my guitar into a Marshall, and go. That's it," he continued. "It's always been that way, and it always will be."
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The founding guitarist said he wasn't impressed by the band's venture into the metaverse and wasn't sure how the virtual experience would be presented to fans.
"I wish 'em well with it 'cause I'm gonna get money if they do it," he joked and noted he receives royalties from the band for his iconic Spaceman character design donned by himself and Tommy Thayer, who replaced Frehley after he left the band in 2002.
"They're recording some stuff with dots on their face like in the movie Avatar," he continued. "I think the whole thing is pretty silly. It's definitely not real rock and roll."
Frehley said he was "happy" Kiss had ended because critics would stop comparing him to his former band.
Kiss celebrated their 50th anniversary this year, playing the final show of their “End of the Road” farewell tour at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Dec. 2. After their encore performance, Kiss played a promotional video announcing the band’s future as “immortal” avatars for the NYC crowd.
Kiss shared several videos, along with a 30-minute interview on their website.
According to the venture, Kiss will live on as avatars through artificial generation (AI) created by Industrial Light & Magic and Pophouse, which is financed and produced by Swedish company Pophouse Entertainment. The company employed advanced performance-capture technology to recreate band members’ faces and body to create life-like avatars for future performances.
“KISS could have a concert in three cities in the same night across three different continents. That’s what you could do with this,” said Pophouse Entertainment CEO Per Sundin.
Co-founders Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, both in their 70s, have previously insisted Kiss would continue with new members adopting the band’s iconic characters for future performances.
“We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before,” Gene Simmons said in a press release discussing the band’s future. “The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before.”
“What we’ve accomplished has been amazing, but it’s not enough,” Stanley added. “The band deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are.”
Kiss’ “End of the Road” tour launched in 2019 and was originally scheduled to finish in 2021 but was postponed and extended following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The band originally embarked on their first farewell tour from 2000 to 2001 with original lead guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss. Following the end of their “Farewell Tour,” the band took a brief hiatus before returning to the road with Thayer and Singer.
Frehley is currently promoting his upcoming studio album, 10,000 Volts, scheduled for a February 2024 release.
