KISS's latest item of merchandise is a book about KISS merchandise
From coffins to condoms, lighters to lunch boxes, pinball machines to plectrums and Crocs to comic books, throughout the history of rock music no band has done merchandise quite like KISS.
In fact, the make-up clad rockers have launched more than 5,000 different items of memorabilia since the start of their career 46 years ago and they’ve earned a fortune in the process.
Gene Simmons told the BBC in 2015: "I call selling merchandise 'the KISS business', and every band sells T-shirts, every band sells merchandise. They just don't do as good a job of it as us."
It comes as no surprise then that KISS’s latest foray into the world of merchandising is a book about their own merchandise.
‘KISS: The Hottest Brand In The Land’ is the officially licensed story of the KISS merchandising craze of the late '70s/early '80s.
The book has been created by Nicholas Buckland and features a foreword by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.
The blurb promoting the book reads: “This thick 10x10 inch stylish coffee table book goes deep into the wild and crazy Aucoin-era to give you a big, warm hug of nostalgia. It’s like your personal time machine back to the Seventies!”
The book features the following:
• 390 pages of lush full colour photos - including KISS lunch boxes, clothing, comics, trash cans, belt buckles, tourbooks, mirrors and much, much more.
• Super rare merchandise from deep inside collectors’ vaults all around the world including USA, Australia, Europe, Canada and Japan
• Minutiae from the Aucoin Management/Boutwell Enterprises archival documents. The book opens the vault on the deals, correspondence, and money made between licensees and the band.
The book can be pre-ordered right here in two editions – a standard edition that will set you back $99 (£78) or a deluxe edition costing $149 (£117). The Ultra Deluxe signed edition is already sold out.
KISS’s multi-year swansong End of the Road World Tour comes to the UK in July taking in five headline shows. Tickets are on sale from Planet Rock Tickets now.
See KISS at the following concerts:
JULY 2019
Birmingham Arena- Tue 9th
London The O2 – Thu 11th
Manchester Arena – Fri 12th
Newcastle Metro Radio Arena – Sun 14th
Glasgow The SSE Hydro – Tue 16th