KISS frontman Paul Stanley states “it lost its balls” around time of “I Was Made For Loving You”

KISS frontman Paul Stanley states “it lost its balls” around time of “I Was Made For Loving You”

KISS co-founder, singer and rhythm guitarist Paul Stanley was recently interviewed on the September 5th edition of Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones‘ radio show Jonesy’s Jukebox and portions of the interview were transcribed by Blabbermouth.

Stanley was asked about KISS‘ 1979 single “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” which was dismissed by some fans as a sellout. Stanley replied (as transcribed by Blabbermouth):

“It became a double-edged sword, because it became such a massive hit but it was also so contrary and contradictory to what we had done before. But, look, at that point in our history, we had so many problems. When we talk about fame and success, we were immersed in… We were becoming fat, wealthy musicians. We forgot what made us and why we loved what we did. It became sycophantic friends, girlfriends, people hired to open doors for us. It lost its balls — it really did — and ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’ was a part of that. But we were in such a quandary at that point. Peter [Criss, original KISS drummer] wasn’t on that album [‘Dynasty‘], and… I think we began to lose a base of fans. The funniest thing is when we do festivals sometimes in Europe where it’s very much… the bands are quite heavy, well, when we do an encore of ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’, you suddenly have all these people with spikes in their eyeballs or bones through their noses singing along. So it’s a song that seems to transcend everything — although it went through a period, certainly, of a big backlash against it.

But I just remember going to Studio 54 [in New York City], and Studio 54, I think, over time, what it really was has come out. Because I think at some point people thought it was like ‘Saturday Night Fever’ or some kind of disco with people in white suits. But it wasn’t. It was hedonism. There were people all kinds of… whatever your vice was, it was available. But, honestly, I would just go there and people would dance all night. And all the songs were about now, the songs were all about the evening, about tonight. And I thought, ‘Gee, I can write one of those.’ So I set the drum machine to a hundred and twenty-six beats a minute, [starts singing] ‘Tonight, I wanna…’ Because it’s tonight — it’s always about now; we’re not worried about tomorrow. So that’s how that song came about. And although we all looked at each other and said, ‘This is a bit of a stretch,’ we also looked at each other and said, ‘This song is undeniable. It’s a no-brainer.'”

You can read the rest of the transcribed portions of the interview at Blabbermouth.