I’m not sure anyone needed this to ever be a thing, but here we are. Kiss made a huge decision recently in selling their likeness, full music catalog, and brand name to Sweden’s Pophouse Entertainment, the company that created the virtual Abba concert residency called “Abba Voyage.” Makes sense, since Björn Ulvaeus from Abba created it. Using some sort of advanced technology I’ll never attempt to understand, the company will create digital versions of the band members to perform entire sets…digitally.
But apparently it’s not like the hologram shit we’ve seen on stages before. Kiss previewed the endeavor during their last Kiss show in December 2023 to mixed reviews. Understandably, since no one knew what the fuck was going on. Kiss guitarist and vocalist Paul Stanley shared a hell of a lot more about it during his interview with Billboard’s “Behind The Setlist” podcast, pushing how “revolutionary” this collaboration will be, as well as how teaming up with Pophouse will ensure how long-lasting the impact of Kiss as musicians, characters and personas will be because of it. Listen to the full interview here, but here are some snippets, as transcribed by Blabbermouth.net.
“Pophouse understood what we wanted to do and that what we wanna create is something that’s state of the art today. Now, mind you the ABBA show is an older technology because technology moves ahead at an exponential rate. So by the time that show started to be presented, there was new technology. So we’ll be working with ILM [Industrial Light & Magic], with George Lucas’s company, and we’re creating something that’s not a concert. The idea of a hologram, and it’s not a hologram, but that term seems to get thrown around a lot, but the idea of a simulated concert is not what we wanna do. Frankly, I would find that boring. I mean, how long can you go, ‘Gee, that looks just like an amp.’ So what we’re creating is an immersive experience that KISS fans will love and people who have never been exposed to KISS or might not like certain aspects of the band will have to see. It’s a must-see go-to experience. So it’s beyond anything that anyone else has contemplated. The whole idea, again, of doing a simulated concert is — that’s the dark ages to us.
“What I can tell you is that the technology that’s being used, which is a furthering of the technology used on the ABBA show, has to be installed and basically a building has to be built around it. So this isn’t something where you’re in Kansas City today, and tomorrow you fly with your projector to do it. It demands an arena, so to speak that’s really solely used for a show like this. But it’s not something that can play on Wednesdays and Thursdays or Saturdays and Sundays, and then something else is in there during the week.
“Well, really with Pophouse, what we’re doing is focusing on this show. That’s really the main focus. Obviously, be it the music or the personas and all that goes along with KISS that’s been there all along will continue and expand. I think at this point there’s a lot more understanding of the possibilities, and there are people coming to the table, so to speak, who perhaps for a while saw a rock band in make-up, and clearly it’s turning into so much more than that.”
