KISS Is About to Announce a Massive Three-Year World Tour

Gene Simmons has revealed that KISS is planning a massive three-year world tour to begin in January 2019. 

KISS, which has taken most of 2018 off the road while Simmons embarks on his Vault Experience project, will return in the winter with the "most spectacular tour ever," according to the bassist.

Simmons told Sweden's Expressen newspaper in a new interview that the tour will make stops on "all continents." 

Simmons and frontman Paul Stanley have openly contemplated retirement in recent years, and many wonder if the upcoming three-year trek could be a farewell. Earlier this year KISS applied to trademark the phrase 'The End of the Road'.

Stanley later clarified that the band has filed several trademarks to ensure it can brand its next tour how it wants. 

"It's not the first trademark that's been filed," the singer told reporter Michael Cavancini in a March interview. "I thought it was a terrific name, and I was surprised nobody had used it before. I wanted to make sure that when we used it, and there will be a time that we do, I imagine — I wanted to be sure that we own it and it's ours." 

Even if Stanley and Simmons (KISS's only remaining founding members) do retire circa 2021 at the conclusion of the next tour, Stanley has repeatedly expressed that he would explore continuing KISS beyond his tenure. 

Stanley suggested to Billboard that he could see KISS continuing without any original members. 

"We've built something that's so iconic, and I think it transcends any of the members," he said. "So I can certainly see me not being there, seriously. There was a time where people said it had to be the four of us, and those people are already 50 percent wrong. So I'm betting [another absence] could be overcome, too."

KISS famously embarked on a farewell tour in 2000, but really only wound up taking about a year off. The band hit the road again for a world tour with Aerosmith by 2003. 

Stanley said at the time that the farewell tour was to "put KISS out of its misery." He was referring to years of infighting and lawsuits with which the band was dealing. 

Simmons said the reason KISS never followed through with retirement was because the fans didn't want them to go. 

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