Kiss may be done with touring, but Tommy Thayer isn’t ruling out the possibility of new music.
The band returned to the stage last month to play two shows at a Kiss Kruise event in Las Vegas. The show saw the quartet perform a candle-lit tribute to their late founding lead guitarist, Ace Frehley. Thayer tells MusicRadar the event was a huge success and teases what else the band has up its collective sleeve.
“Fan events like we just did in Vegas are really great to do, and we’ll probably do more,” he says. “We hadn’t played together for almost two years, [but] it’s funny how quickly everything felt like we hadn’t been apart that long.
“There’s a lot in the works for Kiss moving ahead,” he continues. “We’re not touring anymore, of course, but there’s still a ton happening behind the scenes.”
Thayer took over full time for Frehley in 2002 and has played on two albums with the group. He says more new music isn't out of the question.
“I’m honestly not sure yet,” he says. “It really depends on where things go and how everything evolves over the next year or two. But I do feel like we all still have a lot of great ideas and a desire to keep creating and doing all the things we love doing.”
Thayer adds that a hologram version of the band similar to ABBA's hugely successful Voyage shows is on the list of possibilities.
“It’s been interesting doing the avatars so far,” he says. “I haven’t really thought about what it all means in the big picture, but with technology evolving as quickly as it is, there’s no doubt that this is the direction a lot of entertainment is going.”
Thayer started life in Kiss doing menial work for guitarist Paul Stanley and bass guitarist Gene Simmons while working on their book Kisstory.
That led to him getting the lead guitarist gig in the wake of Frehley’s second departure in 2002. (Frehley, for his part, said Thayer “played the right notes, but didn’t have the right swagger.”) He remained a part of the band up to and including their extravagant tour farewell at Madison Square Garden in 2023.
Although Frehley and founding drummer Peter Criss were originally slated to join Simmons and Stanley for that final show, that idea fell apart.
Simmons has since voiced regrets about how Frehley and Criss were treated. He also had to apologize for his comments that the guitarist died due to “bad decisions.”
