With musicians and songwriters making big money selling off their publishing rights and master recordings left and right, it was only a matter of time before the dedicated artists of KISS succumbed to the temptation of selling out.
Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley have signed a deal with Swedish company Pophouse for not only the rights to the KISS catalog but also all of the band’s assorted trademarks, such as its iconic costume and makeup designs. And though the original report doesn’t specify the final sale price, other outlets are reporting it was somewhere north of $300 million.
Pophouse has acquired the rights to other artist catalogs of late, including those of the late electronic music producer Avicii and Cyndi Lauper. But they are best known for their work with ABBA. Pophouse was actually co-founded by ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus. Ulvaeus and Pophouse transformed ABBA into a live avatar stage show called “Voyage” which has reportedly been generating $1 million in ticket sales per week during its recent London run alone.
So, for all future generations of KISS fans, it seems likely that you’ll be able to see holographic KISS stage spectaculars decades after the original band members are dead and gone.
In a statement, Gene Simmons explained how the deal was sealed:
“We went to see the ABBA show, and it blew our socks off. And the technology since then has improved by leaps and bounds. We’ve seen sketches of what it will look like, and we looked like the X-Men.”
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Simmons went on in typically flowery language about what this deal, which goes well beyond the usual publishing catalog sales, means for the future of KISS:
“If you’re a caterpillar who can’t imagine what the future will look like, you think of the cocoon as the end, and it is the end of the caterpillar, but it can’t imagine sprouting wings and evolving into this beautiful creature that flies up to the heavens.”
The Pophouse digital KISS concert is set to be ready sometime in 2027. The real, flesh-and-blood KISS concluded their final world tour in New York late last year.
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