Paul Stanley got a bit wee bit nostalgic this week when he shared a picture of a hand-drawn flyer he made for the 50th anniversary of a Kiss show, before they became one of the biggest rock acts in history.
“KISSTORY – FIFTY YEARS AGO I hand drew the poster on the left for our Aug. 10 show at the Hotel Diplomat,” Stanley wrote on X.
“The one on the right was then done by Ace [Frehley] for a show three weeks later at the Coventry club. Incredibly proud to know the iconic logo I created that day remains unchanged.”
KISSTORY-FIFTY YEARS AGO I hand drew the poster on the left for our August 10th show at the Hotel Diplomat. The one on the right was then done by Ace for a show three weeks later at the Coventry club. Incredibly proud to know the iconic logo I created that day remains unchanged. pic.twitter.com/cJNyj1Vtw6
— Paul Stanley (@PaulStanleyLive) August 10, 2023
All four original members of Kiss — Stanley, Frehley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss — have credited Frehley for the logo’s original sketch and Stanley later finessing it.
Simmons recalled Frehley coming up with the Kiss logo ahead of the band’s debut show at the Coventry, formerly the Popcorn Pub, in 1973.
“We started handing out little leaflets. ‘Come see Kiss on Jan 30,’” Simmons said in Kiss: Behind the Mask.
“We also had this picture of us in which we looked like the Sons of the Dolls. One of Peter’s friends blew it up into a big 5-foot picture. We wanted to put it in the window at Popcorn, but I said to Ace, ‘We can’t do that. Nobody will know what it is. They’ll think it’s a drag show. Put the name of the group on it and make it look fancy.’ And Ace did it, just created our logo.”
In the same book, Frehley said the only difference between his first sketch and the logo as it is today “is that I had a dot on the ‘i’ like a diamond.”
