As a handful of classic rockers are about to start their final tours, it's perfectly normal that others are thinking about calling time on their careers. While Paul Stanley isn't ready to hang up his rock 'n' roll shoes just yet, he can certainly envision a day when Kiss carry on without him.
"The thought of me not being involved certainly comes to mind," Stanley told Billboard. "I'm not sure about the idea of Kiss coming to an end. We've built something that's so iconic, and I think it transcends any of the members so I can certainly see me not being there, seriously. There was a time where people said it had to be the four of us" -- Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss -- "and those people are already 50 percent wrong. So I'm betting [another absence] could be overcome too."
The reason, he said, is simple. "I don't want to go leave home," he explained. "I have a family and I have children and, honestly, I think my primary responsibility is to be a dad, and I don't want to miss out on that. And certainly, as we got older, we know that life is finite and I pick and choose what I want to do at this point."
Stanley added that he thinks "there's a world tour down the pike," but Kiss are mostly keeping a low profile in 2018. Instead, he's focusing on his artwork, with showings in two galleries in South Florida this weekend. It's an aspect of his hobby that he relishes.
"I enjoy going to the galleries," Stanley said. "I enjoy meeting people. People acquire pieces and we get a chance to talk about those pieces, and I'm interested in their take and what they're getting out of the piece. I'm a big believer that people are intimidated by art and theater because critics have intimidated them. Nobody needs to be told what good art is. Good art is what you like and bad art is what you don't like. I would love to get people to realize they don't have to justify their opinions about anything and just find what makes them happy and embrace it. I hate when people preface what they're going to say with, 'Well, I don't know anything about art.' There's nothing to know. You either like it or you don't. End of story."