Having a famous parent doesn’t always guarantee talent or success. In the case of Evan Stanly, son of Kiss founder Paul Stanley, and his band Amber Wild, the talent is certainly there and no doubt the success will follow. Amber Wild recently released their first singles and opened the final run of the End of the Road tour for Kiss. Evan recently took some time to talk about his new band and his famous dad.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws conversation with Evan Stanley –
On the makeup of the band – We started in January of (2023). So it’s been a pretty quick a quick run. But we got Thomas Lowrey on drums, Marshall Vla on guitar and vocals, and Jake Massanari on bass, and then me on guitar and lead vocals.
On if we will see a full record in 2024 – Definitely get a lot more music coming in 2024. Especially at the top, really through the whole thing, but we got stuff coming out really towards the top of 2024 and consistently onwards. But right now, I think the biggest thing we’re focused on is building that audience and playing live and connecting with as many people as we can to build up the demand for a full length. As much as we’d love to put out a full length this second, especially with the way music is consumed now, I just don’t think it makes sense. I think it’s better to build up, build up the demand and then give it…As much as I would love to do (a full record), and I know all the guys in the band are, we’re all fans of a long form work. There’s nothing better than getting to settle in with a record you love and just listen to cover to cover, but just the way consumers are now, and I’m guilty of it too, unless you’re already invested, I don’t think there are many people who are going to give you 30 or 40 minutes of their time to check something out. So, let’s get people invested 1st and then we’ll give them a record because with how much time and care and energy and love we put into making the stuff we want to make sure that it gets heard and I think the best way to do that is to pace yourself. Slow and steady kind of wins. It’s the boring old saying, but it’s true. If you can just continually feed and continually deliver and show people, we’re going to do it again and again and again, then you get people invested and people really connecting. So I think that’s really what it’s all about. It’s every age, there are different mediums and people connect differently, but at the end of the day, that’s what people want to find in music is connection. That’s what we want to find too. It’s what we love.
On the band’s creative process – It’s really different for everything. It’s super collaborative. There have been a lot of songs that I’ve brought in pretty much either done or pretty close to done. Then there are times I’ll bring in a riff or Marsh brings in a riff or an idea, or Tommy has some lyrics, or we’re just sitting around and we kind of start something, it’s a really a case by case thing. The one consistent thing, the common denominator of everything is at the end of the day, the stuff that really brings the songs to life are each member’s take on what should be played. It’s how we interact with each other. That chemistry I think brings something unique to it, whether I write a song or Marsh brings something in, or we all work on it together. It’s how we all play it and how we play it together is, I think what really makes it us.
On playing a headlining club show verses opening for a bigger band – It’s totally it’s different and it’s not different in the sense that, no matter where we’re playing, we always go out and give our absolute best. That’s what we’re there to do and that’s also what we love doing. We’re there cause we love it. We love playing music and we’re always going to give our absolute best.
It’s definitely a different experience, whether it was at Aftershock or opening for Wolf Mother, opening for Kiss when you get on stage and the vast majority of people there don’t know who you are and probably really don’t care for the most part. It’s like you have to make them care. So you definitely have to figure out ways to give more, but then that makes you go even harder when it’s your show. We had a lot of people, especially in LA, we’re based out of here, but we had never played a headline show. So when we came back from the Kiss tour, we packed out the Echo here on like a Wednesday, which was amazing. It was so cool to see all these people coming out for us and really for us, they spent their money to see us play. That’s a really cool feeling. That makes you go off even more too, though, because you’re like, “Okay. these people, they chose to be here, they chose to set aside their time and their money to come watch you”. You better fucking give them something. But it’s a great, great feeling.
It’s that’s been the one really cool thing is coming off tour. We were obviously in a really unique and incredible position getting to be in front of that many people. There’s nothing that quite feels like that. But then at the same time, we played the Bowery and sold it out and then play the Echo, and it’s like, “Okay, there’s also no feeling like that because there for you”. Those were just as fun. It was an absolute blast. The Echo was supposed to be our last show of the year. But we were like, “Shit, I don’t want to wait a month to play again”. So we’re playing on Tuesday It’s like we couldn’t wait. That it all comes down to that’s what we love doing. So all the shows are different in their own ways but not really you get to play music and you’re trying to connect with people and how you do that on a small stage versus a big one or a crowd that knows you versus don’t. It might be a little different, but it’s really all about connecting with people and sharing what you love.
On having both New York and Los Angeles roots – I grew up in LA, and then I moved to New York as soon as I could. I thought I hated LA., or I did, growing up. I was in New York a few years and then I started coming back here a little bit more and there was much more of a music scene here, and I was like, “Well, maybe I don’t hate this so much”…I think nowadays, and I don’t mean this in a bad way. I don’t think any city has a sound anymore because now everything’s gotten so global. I don’t think cities mean that much. Some have a better scene than others in terms of live, people going out and seeing music. But in terms of a specific sound, I think it’s gotten, it’s gotten so global where there’s a lot of New York in LA, and there’s a lot of LA in New York. You got to know where to look. For us, we just try to do our best to bring all our influences together in a way that makes sense, but is also a little bit different than everyone else.
On if it’s hard always being compared to Kiss – I think the biggest thing is it is a double edged thing. I was really lucky, I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but my dad’s just an awesome dad. He’s always been super present. Both my parents super present, really supportive, really loving. Which is awesome. I think that’s so important. Gives you confidence to do your thing. There are definitely people who are like, “Oh, it doesn’t sound like kiss”. It’s like, “I know it’s cause we’re not Kiss”. I do think a lot of people don’t recognize, they’re like, “Oh, well it’s easy because of your dad”, for sure have a lot of them. But people will answer the phone once, they don’t care who your dad is. At the end of the day, the public decides what endures. Otherwise you have a lot of musical dynasties that I don’t see any. You gotta be really good at what you do. I think people sometimes forget that at the end of the day, no matter how hard an industry might push for someone or how much backing there might be, which granted we don’t have, we’re a completely independent band in every sense. We got an amazing, amazing opportunity with that Kiss tour. That was incredible. But there’s not some crazy machine behind us. We’re still just an indie band. But for all of that, at the end of the day, no matter what the opportunity is or what the exposure is or connections are, the consumers get to decide. If they listen to the stuff, it lasts. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter who your dad is.
I also think the bar is very different. Ever since I was a kid, you’re not going to compare it to the other bands in school. You’re getting compared to Kiss. So it’s like good is shit and great is okay. In a lot of ways, that’s great because it pushes you, it really pushes you to be on your on your game. There, there are a lot of amazing opportunities that come with it. There are things that are on the flip side, it’s kind of like anything. Ganted. I’ve had an amazing life and a great family. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It is what it is, but there’s certainly pros and cons on the music side. But hey, we love what we do and we’re just doing it the best we can. That’s all you can do.
On what it was like as both a young band and a son to open the final Kiss shows – It was incredible to get to share that with my dad. A lot of people forget, it’s Paul Stanley, it’s the Star Child, it’s Kiss to everyone, but that’s just my dad to me. So more than anything to get to share that, which is, it’s a big moment in music history, but it’s a massive moment for my family. It’s a huge shift in, in his life and in all of ours. So to get to share that was really, really cool. It’s something I’ll never forget. It’s an incredible memory on top of that, getting to play the Garden is wild. How do we handle it though? Like everything else, I think the best thing you can do is just give your all to everything and have a blast. No matter where we’re at.
When we were up in Canada, we had a night off one night we played Seattle to, I think it was 18, 000. Then 2 nights after we played Vancouver to probably 50. And then we played Saskatoon, maybe to 12. Then Calgary was maybe 100.Then Montreal was great. That was pretty, pretty full and it was all young. I don’t know how people found out about it, but it was like a bunch of young people and they were really into it. That was a great crowd and super fun. But the point being, no matter where we’re playing, when we played to 12 and I, when I say 12, I mean 12, cause I counted, I counted how many people were there and there were 12, and we played the same. You can’t punish the people that showed up for the people that didn’t. We’re getting to play music live and people came out to see it. If there’s one person there, we’re going to do exactly what we do in front of 20, 000, because that one person set aside their time. Which is very finite and came out and gave that to us. So we owe them something for it. I think that’s where people run into trouble. It’s like, “Oh, I’m bummed. There’s one person”. It’s like, “Great. Let’s get on the floor and play with them. Let’s get them on stage. Let’s have fun”. Like they should leave going, “Oh my God. Why was I the only person there? Oh my. I saw this band with 12 people in the room”. If you put on the right show, they’re going to tell everyone about it. So I think we kind of approach everything at least to the best of our ability, the same way, just go out and do what we do and have as much fun as we possibly can.
The funniest thing, we were, we played Foos in Montreal. Everyone in Montreal talks about Nirvana, because Nirvana played there a month before Nevermind, I think it was a month before Nevermind came out and blew up, and everyone in Montreal was like, “I was at this show”. We were talking to the guy who runs it, he goes, “There were 30 people there, I think it was 32”, But he’s like, “I remember, I was there. We sold 32 tickets”. He’s like, “But Kurt was climbing, literally climbing up the walls and jumping off and they were Nirvana”. Then a month later, Nevermind came out where it grows into this mythical thing, but there were 32 people there. It was crazy. It was super cool and inspiring to hear that. Before we play, like he was telling us that at load in and sound check. I love that, because, no matter how many people come out tonight, we’re going to play the same. That night ended up being a blast. The band Tar Box open for us and they’re sick. They’re really, really cool guys and actually a great band. Then a bunch of people came out, a lot of good looking girls. It’s Montreal. So that was real nice. Everyone was really into it. So like, that was an amazing, amazing night. It wasn’t the size of the KISS crowds, but they got everything we had in us
On the rumors that he would lead Kiss 2.0 – No, it’s the funniest thing. People keep asking that constantly. It’s like, dude, you can look at like a thousand interviews where my dad says it, Gene (Simmons) says it, I say it, Nick (Simmons) says it. It’s like, no. That’s my dad’s thing. I’m busy with my thing. I appreciate it. I’m grateful for it. I love it. I’m a fan of the music. I’m a fan of the show. I’ve gotten to have a really unique and very wonderful life as a direct result of it. Do I want to put the makeup on and be baby Paul? Fuck no, I got my own thing going. That’s not a knock I think there’s someone out there who probably would want to do that and they’ll probably do an amazing job. I’ve not spent my life trying to be that so, no, I got too much other stuff going on.
